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The Sickle Cell Disease

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Sickle Cell The ¨Sickle cell disease affects approximately one hundred thousand Americans and about one out of thirteen black or African American babies are born with sickle cell disease¨ (“Sickle Cell Disease SCD”). Sickle cell disease affects many people all around the world. This disease is hereditary and it is not contagious like a cold. If there is a chance an individual carries the sickle cell trait or the disease, that individual should definitely get tested. Sickle cell disease is a random illness that affects a person 's blood system and currently is incurable; however, it can be diagnosed and treated and scientists are hopeful that one day they will find a cure. Furthermore, sickle cell has a long history as a disease that …show more content…

Along with establishing whether or not a person has the disease, there are a few treatment plans. Options for a treatment plan include a bone marrow transplant, vaccinations, and blood transfusions. Fortunately, the treatments today help out with making this disease less painful, but there are still struggles that are faced. The bone marrow transplant treatment is the only hope for a cure today, and to find a donor is nearly impossible. Unfortunately, the donor has to be a perfect match, and this procedure works best at age 16 or below. In “Sickle Cell Anemia” it is stated that, “It is usually reserved for people younger than age 16 because the risks increase for people older than 16”. Luckily blood transfusions are another option that help increase red blood cells, but it unfortunately comes with side effects as well including iron buildup and infections that are even more dangerous for the sickle cell patient. Furthermore, it is critical that sickle cell patients receive vaccinations in order to prevent the danger of infection. “Childhood vaccinations are important for preventing disease in all children. They 're even more important for children with sickle cell anemia because their infections can be severe” (Sickle Cell …show more content…

In “I Have Sickle Cell Disease, but Sickle Cell Doesn’t Have Me” Tiffany McCoy is alive “...thanks to advances in treatment”. When she was born her family believed she was not going to be around for long, but thankfully she is still around today. She is alive today because of medical advancements and she has taken medication for this disease all her life. Not only did she have to take a lot of medication, she also went to the hospital more than any average person

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Sasha Amos 07/27/2017 Rebecca Skloot tells a story on Loretta Pleasant also known as Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who had cervical cancer. Without her consent, her doctors took her cells and used them to create HeLa. The Lacks family had no knowledge of what Henrietta’s cells had done.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks overviews the story of a young black woman who dies a painful death duo to an aggressive invasive type of cervical cancer, something doctors were currently studying and developing way to combat it. Rebecca Skloot, the author, takes us to journey to see through the eyes of the Lacks family. Many would call what was done to them unfair, but as Skloot lets us know, this was common practice (and still is in many cases) during that time. The important thing was that the ignorance of who was responsible for the cells that we call “immortal,” the cells that have given us a “Rosetta stone” for medical research, is now diminish, this was especially important to the Lacks. The book focuses mainly on the story of Henrietta’s

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Douglas Mawson, Henrietta Lacks, and Phineas Gage: what do all of these people have in common? They have all suffered from adversity throughout their life, but unlike us these three had to face the adversity of excruciating pain and even death. In the article “Into the Unknown” Douglas Mawson had to travel across the arctic wasteland known as antarctica, but Mawson did not know it would be this difficult. Then In the article “Immortal cells, Enduring issues” Henrietta Lacks got sick and eventually died, but not before doctors found out Lacks 's immortal cells would help scientists make cures for many forms of diseases. Finally in the video “The Man with the Hole in His Brain” Phineas Gage had a iron rod blasted through his head and survived.

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Have you ever heard of Henrietta Lacks, Phineas Gage, or Douglas Mawson? All of these people underwent major struggles for the sake of science, but one stands out more than the rest. Henrietta Lacks was a woman who died at age 31 due to cervical cancer; her cells helped form a multi-million dollar industry (“Immortal Cells, Enduring Issues”). Phineas Gage was a railroad worker who had once shoved a iron rod into a blasting hole, which caused the rod to shoot into his skull. Gage faced side effects from this that led scientists to uncover details on the frontal lobe of the brain, and brain disorders (“The Man with the Hole in his Brain”).

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When the patient is sent home, the goal is to prevent readmission to the hospital due to complications of SCD. Sammy’s poor decisions leading up to this ER admission and past medical history should be discussed in detail with the patient. The nurse should also address possible triggers of a sickle cell crisis with the patient. (Reddin et al., 2011). In Sammy’s case, discarding lunches and drinks at school significantly contributed to being dehydrated making this one of his triggers.

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In nature, success is measured by fitness-- or the ability to pass on one’s genes to the next generation. Passing on genes to the next generation ensures a type of immortality; humans do not live forever, therefore, their genes continue on for centuries through their lineage. Henrietta Lacks, however, was the first person to become immortal outside of reproduction-- through cells. As discussed in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Henrietta was an African-American woman whose cancerous cells were extracted to create the first immortal cell line, more commonly referred to as HeLa cells. HeLa cells would become an asset in medicine and continue to exist in labs all around the world, long after Henrietta’s death (Skloot, 2010).

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For nineteen years I have been living with a constant struggle that seems to have no end. As a child, living through Sickle Cell Anemia took away the life a normal child would have. I was not able to play outside for long periods of time due to the fact that my body was not able to keep up with physical activity. Since I was about five years old, I had a near impossible

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For 40 years, many African Americans in Alabama that were infected with syphilis were left untreated as part of an experiment to determine how “different” syphilis affected blacks. This was an orchestrated even by the United States Public Health Service, and other organizations; whose job is to protect the public. Syphilis is a highly contagious infection spread by sexual contact. If untreated, it can cause bone and dental deformations, deafness, blindness, heart disease and deterioration of the central nervous system. The participants, mostly made of poor, uneducated black men, were lured into the program with false pretenses, not advising of the infections they carried (Heller).

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His last child tested positive for the Sickle Cell Trait. The doctor was shocked because sickle cell is consider a minority disease and is often overlooked. The doctor tested him three times because he was caught up in the stereotype of the disease. This is a big issue because people are creating a problem that can be prevented by been educated about the risk factors. It starts with doing more research figuring out the cause and effect of the disease.

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Sickle cell disease prevents one of the body 's most fundamental re-sources, the blood, from adequately transporting oxygen to the tissue, which can result in organ damage and many other related complications. A sickle cell related "crisis" can be extremely painful for patients, and deadly in some cases. Both quality of life and life expectancy are reduced for sickle cell patients, even when the disease is optimally managed with existing therapies, blood transfusions, vitamin regimens and a host of other precautions. "

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A few months after the diagnosis, the disease was manageable and I was able to live my riveting 14-year-old life. Two years later, I had relapsed for the fourth time and stuck in a brightly-colored hospital room once again. The three weeks I spent there proved to be even more difficult than the initial struggle. Through my anxiety-ridden thoughts and the never-ending tubes and needles, I felt powerless and was unable to imagine myself seamlessly entering my junior year of high school.

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One of the many benefits of vaccinating children is it saves them from life-threatening diseases. The many diseases which children are immunized from include, Measles, Mumps, Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis (whooping cough), Polio, Hepatitis A and B and much more. Long before the time of vaccines, there was a shocking rate of deaths that occurred worldwide.

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More and more people have cancer these days. It is almost like the plague that no one wants to talk about, and it keeps getting worse. • In the early 1900s, one in 20 developed cancer. •

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Required Immunity Mandatory vaccinations for children in public schools have been the center of much debate since laws were first developed to regulate immunization. Fears from parents about side effects and adverse reactions have steered many away from wanting to vaccinate their children despite the numerous infectious diseases they prevent. These debates have gotten in the way of progression in schools for preventing the spread of disease. To me, the risks of not vaccinating children are far greater than the risks of adverse reactions.

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Vaccinations When it comes to vaccinations, there are many different opinions on immunizing a child, especially when that child’s parent has a strong like or dislike towards vaccinating. Immunizations have existed for at least a thousand years and as technology advances more, there are new vaccines being designed to help protect our children from contracting contagious and sometimes deadly diseases, such as Bordetella pertussis, polio, and even influenza. For decades, all 50 states have required that parents vaccinate their children against various diseases, including polio and measles, as a prerequisite to enrolling them in public schools (Ciolli, 2008). Enrollment in public school requires up to date vaccinations in order to protect the children and even the adults from contracting and spreading a disease, possibly causing an epidemic.

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