Having a child with sickle cell disease can prompt many emotions for parents, particularly guilt. In this column, I’ll discuss some of the factors that contribute to this type of guilt and provide guidance on how to cope with it. In my many years of living with sickle…

A few weeks ago, I spent a weekend with new family members, and it was the most action-packed weekend I’ve had in a while. I was exhausted by little people! I helped set up a 3-year-old’s birthday party. I was a pretend patient for the newest toddler doctors and at…

While my son, who has sickle cell disease, has been mostly well, he’s had to go to the emergency room twice since being born. The first was when he was 9 months old, and the second was in March, just before his second birthday. The first incident was insignificant.

Health-related stigma, as I discussed in my last column, is not the only stigma that afflicts those with sickle cell disease. There’s another stigma attached to it, one more localized, that can still have a detrimental effect on the patient. I’ll refer to this as culturally influenced…

In a previous column, I gave a brief overview of my family’s experience with sickle cell disease. Both my parents have the sickle cell trait, and of their four children, I’m the only one with sickle cell disease. One of my siblings has normal blood and two…

In recent columns, I have written about why knowing your genotype is imperative when planning a family, as well as the steps to take to avoid having children with sickle cell disease. But for some, these simply are not options. Particularly for those already married, they may have…

Last week, I was privileged to facilitate a discussion between two mothers who have children with sickle cell disease. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for a parent to see their child in pain from an invisible illness, a source of constant worry. The mothers’ perspectives…

I recently spoke to a mother who gave birth to a child with sickle cell. The diagnosis was not expected at all. The news completely rocked her world. That’s understandable, as sickle cell results in huge lifestyle changes that a parent needs to accommodate. I imagine it is…

My parents knew they were carriers of the sickle cell trait before I was born, so they made an effort to find out if I had the disease during the prenatal stages of my mother’s pregnancy. Once they found out I had it, plans and preparations were made to…