I am learning to live to the fullest, again

I am 20, but my life—the one I truly consider life—began just four years ago, after I completed a year of recovery from my bone marrow transplant.

I was born as a fragile child, often catching coughs and colds and developing pneumonia or jaundice. At 5, my general physician advised my parents to test me for sickle cell anaemia, and it was confirmed. Sickle cell anaemia is a genetic disease that can happen to a child if both parents are carriers of the sickle cell trait. Interestingly, though the trait protects us from deadly malaria, a disease that spreads through mosquito bites, which is rampant in the area where we live, sickle cell disease is chronic, painful, and complicated.

Throughout these years, I struggled with school and studies, friends and play, and family and fun. My haemoglobin levels would drop to 3 or 4, leaving me breathless and at risk of stroke, and I would need to be rushed to the hospital for a blood transfusion. However, even that wouldn’t provide much relief. In fact, once the blood transfusion caused a strong reaction in my body. I don’t remember exactly what happened that day, but I do know that my parents were terrified of taking me for the next transfusion. In my teens, even the slightest exhaustion, or weather changes would result in severe pain.