Sometimes I wish I could just turn off the sound of his scream when he is having his crises and the pain he has to go through before he becomes normal again. Yes, that's Deji, my sickle cell friend who has made it to the age of 27 and has been battling a weak immune system this week.
Should I just call it a disease because that is how it feels to me now? Is there no cure for this? Do you know how painful and sad it is to be in a body that doesn't want to do what you want? In a body where you have to live in constant fear of an attack from your own body. You no longer hope for a better future; why, I hear him say, is that?
Image is mine
I just have to live with it, if I can make it to 50, it would be a miracle, but I really wish to live long.
Sometimes I wonder who I should blame for this. The parent? The medical institute? The society who are not ready to help? Who is excellent. Most times I throw my anger at all of them at different times.
The parent— What will stop you from taking a genotype test to know if you're compatible with your parent? Where they so blinded by love, they forgot to do that and then brought a child into this world just to suffer. No matter how much they claim they love that child, I still see this as an everlasting punishment on themselves and the child. Many a time, the couple know this but they go ahead to have a child, knowing the child can't be under their care forever.
Even countries with the most advanced medical care still get patients like this, and there isn't much to be done for them, not to talk of countries that lack these medical facilities to help.
It still surprises me that we still get children with sickle cell even with the way the world is so advanced in medicine and technology; things like this can be avoided.
I don't have much to say in this rant but this is something that hurt me after seeing my friend in pain and many other people too. This is my word to everyone out there: please, you know what to do when you find out you're not compatible with a person in the medical sense. Don't allow love to blind you; let go early and save a child from an unbearable pain. If you say you love your partner so much you end up with them and make a child with sickle cell, no matter how much you love the child, the child might grow up to hate you when they find out their fate choice has been avoided. Please let's do better.
Thanks for reading. My name is Fashtioluwa.
