FIGHTING THE STIGMA OF SICKLE CELL

By FeBi

"They think they know me, they don't know me at all. Come to think of it, they don't know my name. They call me 'omo elegbo' but that is not my name. My name is Jewel"

Jewel is a sickle cell warrior fighting not only the invisible fights but the visible ones too.

We know that the hallmark of sickle cell disease is pain but the average human does not know the pain these Warriors go through; we just have relatable analogies.

Therefore, not everyone understands the psychological fights and the socioeconomic fights that Warriors fight.

People go on to stigmatize others by labelling, stereotyping and even worse discriminating. Haba!

The words associated with stigma carry negativity, unfairness, a mark of disgrace. As defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, stigma is a set of negative and unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something.

It is funny how stigma sticks, hence the name, right?

Sadly, this sticking goes on to affect mental health negatively.

People can be stigmatized for a number of things but our focus is the stigmatization faced by sickle cell warriors.

We just read about Jewel. How can one with such a beautiful name be stuck with a label like omo elegbo?. How? Society saw that the injury in her leg was not getting healed so her name was forgotten and she was given a different name. Pause, did I say given? More like labelled.

Forgetting that it was leg ulcer, not caused by her and can be treated when given adequate attention.

Perhaps, she couldn't get treatment for one reason or another. Why, then, does the injury have to become her identity?

"I am tired of fighting!"

"What is the use of living?!"

"I don't contribute to society?!"

"I am draining my family's finance and we never had a deep one"

These are little of the quiet but loud fights going on in their heads. The words, roaming in their minds, at the base of their throats waiting for an outlet. What if you could be that one person who renders an encouraging, empathetic, or sympathetic word?.

Meet Kunle, a student and a warrior. He was going through a crisis and was so embarrassed to go to the school clinic. He went anyway only to meet a long queue. He was tired and in pain, but guess what, the nurse made it worse by pointing at him saying, “You again? Na there you go stay tire”.

Warriors have heard nurses say, “why are these ones’ parent wasting their money?”,

People have asked invasive questions, “why are your eyes yellow and your tummy so big?” Even though they know and if you do not know, ask the questions very politely.

There are a lot of factors that can contribute in easing the burden on a sickle cell warrior, and while not everybody would be able to provide this help,the least we could do is to be loving, be supportive. Fight the thoughts that could silently make you want to label, stereotype or discriminate a warrior and one by one we are making the world a better place.

Going through a crisis can be a lot, but coming out of a crisis into a non-supportive society can be worse.

“Hands wash each other”- African proverb.

Editor's note: The characters names have been changed for the purpose of anonymity.