ANonymous-M
Age: 19

Hey I’m a 19 year old guy who lives in Ireland with the sickle cell disease I got it from my parents who had the trait. My sickle journey started when I was 2 years old. I had a cold so my mom took me to a doctor. He tested my blood and found out that I had sickle disease. From then it wasn’t as bad, small pain here and there but it didn’t become serious until I was 6 or 7, and I would have really bad stomach pain frequently. My doctor recommended a drug usually used for chemo patients to help but it didn’t work well for me. I had a bad crisis on the drug when I was 9 which kept me hospitalised for a month. My doctor decided that maybe it was time for something new, so they recommended that I get a blood transfusion. The transfusions worked really well and for a long time I was well but when I was 16 the doctor had told me my sickle rate has increased, which would mean that my pain would start to return more frequently. They said they had a solution called Exchange, which is taking blood from the body and replacing it at the same time thus the name. For this procedure, the cannula needle is much bigger so it hurt my arms way more than usual and scarred my veins internally. Because of this, I wasn’t able to continue with the exchange because my veins simply were too damaged. They suggested I should get a port, even though I didn’t want to get the port. Ultimately I had no choice, and since then I’ve been getting the exchanges with my port and I’ve been healthy!