As someone who has lived with sickle cell for the past three decades, she still lives each day in fear not knowing what to expect.
This is the story of Doris Benjamin, the second child of four children who are all sickle cell patients.
Recounting her upbringing on Adom TV’s M’ashyase3, the 30-year-old indicated it was very tough as her mother was barely at home in her quest to cater and single-handedly raise them.
She eventually moved to Nigeria in search of greener pastures and to make ends meet through which she was sending money home to them.
“My dad was also a soldier. He went on a peacekeeping mission one time and never returned home so we believe he died during the war and my younger brother was three months old at the time,” she told Afia Amankwa Tamakloe.
Doris disclosed for a very long time, neither her parents nor siblings knew they had a sickle cell disease though they continuously fell sick.
It was not until her young sister who she identified as Jessica had a crisis during church service after their mum moved them to Nigeria.
“The pastors at the church rushed her to the hospital and upon series of tests, it was revealed she had sickle cell disease. A similar test was run on me and our last born which also came out positive,” she recounted.
Through the benevolence of their pastor and their hard-working mother, they managed to live through life.
“It was very difficult for her because the three of us could all fall sick within a month and she would have no money to cater for us and had to borrow money. She fell sick one day and didn’t make it so she eventually died in 2012,” she said.
Even after her mum’s death, Doris disclosed all attempts by her pastors in Nigeria to get their family to come for the corpse proved futile, hence, the body was kept in the mortuary for more than four months.
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Their nightmare got worse each passing day but through the benevolence of well-meaning individuals they came back to Ghana.
Doris is now an advocate with the International Sickle Cell Centre (ISCC) led by Dr Mary Ansong.
ISCC has been designed to bring together Ghana’s community of medical experts, people living with SCD, relatives, caregivers, policy makers, and advocates to tackle SCD and prevent social stigmatisation through education.
Since ISCC’s inception in March 2021, they have screened about 528 people from over 12 communities for their sickle cell genotype, provided counselling and medical support to several individuals.
Full interview attached above:
