In My Pain

Why is it that once I (and so many others with Sickle Cell Anemia) transition from our youth/pediatric unit to the adult unit doctors begin to approach our treatment with doubt, questions, and hesitation? When I was younger, when I told my doctor my pain was increasing and therefore needed my pain medication increased the physician would agree with me and therefore increase my pain treatment. However, as an adult when I ask for more pain medication the doctor hesitates and or ignores my plea. The main reason as to why doctors have a mistrust of Sickle Cell Anemia Patients is because they think we are 1) Drug-Abusers, 2)Faking.

It hurts me to think that the same people that are put in place to help me are the first ones to doubt me. When this happens it is so difficult to get pain relief because the doctor is not willing to work with you. The best doctors I've had were the ones that made me their priority and relieving my pain their goal. It was a relationship in which trust was placed in each other. The doctor trusted that I was in pain and needed treatment and I trusted the doctor would do everything in his power to get me to a state that I felt comfortable.

To make it crystal clear how all of this really affects us as Sickle Cell Anemia Sufferers: you take away the strength of medication needed to curtail our pain crises you take away our power to be free. I say free because taking away our pain frees us from such intense and severe pain so to take that away from us leaves us in a virtual Hell. Would you take or limit pain medication/kemo from a cancer patient? Would one ever question their pain? So why question and doubt ours? What must we do to be treated with respect and hospitality. A hospital is meant to be hospitable but where do that hospitality go when Sickle Cell Anemia Sufferers enter the room? Why when we must fight our disease do we have to fight doctors and nurses? I'll ask again--WHY? Do you not know our pain? Do you not know our suffering? Do you not see our face and our bodies as we convulse in pain? What shall we do? Where shall we go? Must we die off one by one to get the eye of people to finally notice the lack of care we get? Do we deserve the blood-induced Hell? Is that why we're left alone so often to fend for ourselves? What must I do? Shall I scream louder?!? Where to go? What more to do? I do not know. I do not know. I'm left in my pain and agony to suffer--why because a majority of African-Americans are the ones affected by this disease? Did I choose my color? Did I choose my blood to morph into a thorn that stabs into my inner being? No. All I have chosen is Life. I've chosen to live despite this thing that takes my life in so many ways. No We Push past the stereotypes, or prejudices to fight for better treatment and better Respect.


Share