Of all the words used for patients with sickle cell, the one that irritates me the most is Sickler. Grrrr! There is something about that word for me that makes me feel like an anathema, a blight or something out of the ordinary. Why can’t they just say…the patient, or Vixen, or something else. Why […]
I’m sure those of you with medical conditions know this, it’s hard to find a good man while you are grappling with an illness. There aren’t that many guys who are capable of handling a debilitating disease, and even less who are willing to. When I was younger, I read a story of this girl
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Okay, now that you’ve gotten a little background, lets get to the nitty gritty. As you remember, there was this whole stigma in Nigeria having sickle cell, needless to say, there wasn’t any romantics to write home about except for this one stalker boy in freshman year but as I said…not that important. In fact,
Hello darlings, I’m doing great, I’m back to working in the field I love and adore, so my timing is a bit off with blogging right now—less play time=less blog time. Don’t worry, I’m well. And I’ll be back!
For starters at my first job post graduation, I told my boss upfront that I had sickle cell and how often I fell sick. This was news that I told her at the interview before she even thought about hiring. I’ve done this with every other interview ever since. Boss Lady, as I affectionately called
If you are a carrier of the sickle cell trait, it’s good to know this before you start falling in love and making babies. I will stress that it’s essential to know what your partner’s hemoglobin recessive gene is. Say you were like my parents, who are simply blissfully ignorant and in love, with every
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After graduation, I did some college in Nigeria and then a year later my parents decided to ship us all back to the US because they figured I would get better medical treatment for my sickle cell over there than back home. I’ve always wanted to go back to America so I voiced no objections.
Thanks to Diva being at every school I ever attended…I was able to have a relatively stable life in high school. She deflected the drama, created the drama and did whatever it was to take the limelight off me. People barely even noticed those weeks that I was sick—she was Ms. Popularity for a reason.
I say weird because for some wacky reason, it was still a taboo. My parents were afraid to let anyone know that I wasn’t ‘normal’ for fear that when I was of marriageable age, no man would want to marry me. Apparently this has happened regularly to alot of spinsters in my church, so my
When I was four, I was diagnosed with sickle cell anemia. It was in Nigeria, way back in the 80’s, and my mom was told by the doctors that I wouldn’t live past childhood. I’m the firstborn child, long awaited for five years and deeply celebrated by my family for coming into this world. There
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