Bad Side Of 2022 (SCD Advocacy)

“Bad side of 2022”(Sickle Cell Advocacy)SCD

So my 2022 started with exams—300-level first semester exams. It commenced well, but in the middle of it, I fell sick and decided not to start treatment until I finalized the exams. I could have malaria and not show symptoms until I start treatment, so that seemed like the best option for me.

 Exams ended in February, and the illness got worse, but hopefully, I was able to complete the exams without breaking down; I broke down the night of my last exam. I was admitted to my school’s clinic (LCU). Unfortunately, it got so bad that I had to go home. While I was at home, the second-semester 300-level classes had already started, and our major course for that level, "MLS317 (Practicals)" had started as well. This compelled me to resume regardless of how sick I was; my friends know how uncompromising and ignorant I can be when it comes to my health. I attended the MLS317 class, but in the middle of it, I left because the crises was already becoming something else. I returned to the clinic, and once again I was admitted. for a longer period 

While I was there, I missed out on other things. For example, the heaviest and most significant course of the semester.

While in admission, I got to hear that one of my old friends in Lag was circulating all sorts of lies. 

That got me concerned because it wasn't something she would do. 

The Nurses in my school’s clinic are the best, every single one if them, except one but I don't think she works there anymore. 

The last day in February and the first day in March were hell; I had this 21-hour straight unbelievably excruciating pain on the 1st of March, I was alone in the clinic for the first 6-8 hours.

Those of you with relations in ibadan that you can easily visit or that could easily come to you or if you have a place you can call home in ibadan, you should really be thanking God everyday I remember screaming for hours because of such pain, in the clinic, I felt so embarrassed because for starters I couldn't bring myself to stop screaming no matter how much I tried, even tearing the sheets, and literally everyone around in clinic could hear, and I had no where else in ibadan to go.

 This excruciating pain one with SCD has to go through is why I always have a problem with pastors who allow genotypically incompatible couples to marry.

SCD isn't something anyone should joke with, and I'll have enough time to shove it down everyone’s throats next year to never put any child through it.

Imagine you could feel all your blood vessels and every joint in your body. Now imagine thousands of big and small and very sharp needles coursing through your whole body slowly and then with speed, just irregular movement, cutting through your vessels, scattering anything. Imagine one big needle blocking the path for other needles and an external hammer hammering through the whole body. Imagine your heartbeat making the pain worse, shifting your body to make it worse, breathing to make it worse, No matter how much you try to imagine how painful it is, you won't understand 1/10 of it. I have a high pain tolerance of 9/10, yet that day’s pain brought me to my knees.

As I was saying, after the 21 hours of pain, my Mum had to come to LCU, it wasn't ordinary, after the pain i couldn't really move. Later that night, around 1 a.m., my oxygen saturation level dropped to 60%. 

95-100% is the normal level and 90% is what people with sleep apnea or lung diseases usually have. When it's below 80%, it begins to affect brain function. Cyanosis starts at 67%. But yeah, it was 60% for me. I was struggling with oxygen. So still around 1 am, my mom and my friend had to go out to look for blood so I could start transfusion because my PCV was at 17%. Unfortunately, they couldn't get any and had to come back immediately. The doctor in the clinic had tried his best but as at this time there was nothing else to do, I could see the fear in his eyes as he told us we have to transfer to a teaching hospital in a shaky voice. 

To worsen the case, the oxygen in the LCU clinic finished; it wasn't the clinics fault, they had just restocked. the oximeter on my hand which was reading 60% started dropping with speed, till it got to 33%, my lips were very white, I remember my nails looking very gray, at this point I could literally feel the air I was breathing like it was the only thing there was to breathe, it was like I was managing it and if I let go I won't get anything to breathe. 

I was carried to the ambulance because that was where the last one was, and the most logical thing to do was to send me to UCH that night. Remember, all these things happened around 1 a.m - 2 a.m. The ambulance started speeding that night, and then the worst kept happening: the oxygen in the ambulance ran out. When your SpO2 gets to 60%, you’re expected to be unconscious. Mine was at 33%; I wasn’t unconscious, heck I was even praying to be unconscious for a while, maybe I won't feel the pain, instead, I was awake, in pain and also I struggling with the little breath I could hold onto. I felt like if I just stopped trying, that would be the last air I would be breathing. We got to UCH around 2:30 a.m. or so. Some other things happened that I still can't remember; not enough oxygen was getting to my brain, so I didn't catch or I forgot a lot of things. 

As I was saying, when we got to UCH, the doctors on night duty were performing brain surgery. I think the man on my left and the girl on my right had their cases too, so I was given oxygen immediately and ignored until around 4 a.m.By then they were done with the man on my left, and they started attending to me. They started with a blood transfusion—3 bags of "red cells" or "whole blood," I can't remember. But that wasn't everything I needed. 

Later on, around 7 a.m., the girl to my right needed an immediate blood transfusion, but it was against her religion to do that, and her guardian or sister that came with her also rejected it for her. After a few minutes, she wasn't breathing again; there was no pulse, nothing. I think there was no AED (automated external defibrillator), so they had to perform CPR, and these doctors (student doctors) had fun while doing it, more like they were using a dying or dead patient to learn something. Well, she died. And then they all came to my bed. I know I shouldn't use something like that to judge them, but I was so uninterested in responding to the student doctors, and I was also still very weak and in pain; I had already lost my voice from screaming.

I responded to the actual doctor when he came to meet me. Instead of this man looking for my veins to draw blood from, he decided to do a femoral tap

 

My mom saw this and was pissed asf. She signed DAMA (discharge against medical advice) that day, and till now I can say that was the best decision we made that day. 

So we had to leave their oxygen with them, and we took Uber straight from UCH Ibadan to FMC Lagos. Their A&E unit is still the best, as usual. FMC is my home hospital, and I know most of the workers there. 

I did all the possible tests I could do, I got better towards the end of March, and I was diagnosed with something that gave me sleepless nights even after I was discharged and when I resumed. 

Meanwhile, classes were going on; "MLS317" was the course I was most concerned about because it was the heaviest and most important for medical laboratory science students, as I've said, and we had this class every day of the week. 

When I resumed, I had already missed six weeks of classes, missed tests, missed practicals, missed assignments, and missed presentations. My friends just thought I didn't have their time; most of my friends had no idea what was going on with me, and even the ones that did still felt the same; I keep things to myself a lot.

Student week started a week after I resumed, my friend in lag was still spreading falsehoods I can't state here, and some of my very close friends made that April hell for me. During that student week, I'm sure it was obvious that I wasn't in the mood for anything. My faculty was meant to hold a quiz competition during student week, and I was meant to be one of the hosts. I had to cancel, and even the awards I received that week didn't make me feel any better, tbh. I did the scan twice, and the stupid diagnosis I had was still the same: exams were meant to start in less than 4 weeks, I had only May to cover the whole semester, and even that May had its stress; you know how we usually have tests and assignments a few weeks before an exam? With all these, I wasn't sure how I would do that semester.

Meanwhile, I had this long-lasting pain that didn't just go away since UCH; I felt it around my femoral region, the place I had that femoral tap in UCH. By then, I was already limping a bit.

Exams started, and during the exams, we received the results of the exams we wrote in January. It only motivated me a bit for the exams I was currently having.

The 6 weeks I missed affected my preparation for the exams in June. I remember how unprepared I felt. After the exams, we went home for only a week because clinical posting would start after that week. We had one month to spend in each hospital we worked in. 

By the end of my first posting in Yemetu, I was beginning to fall sick, and usually, when I'm about to have a major breakdown, my body tells me a few days before that, so this time around I ran home, and the next day I broke down and had this very severe pain that reminded me a lot of March (after that March, I usually do have pains, but they're nothing severe, I could hide it like nothing was happening, I have great pain tolerance), and this pain in August was similar to the one in March. My mom was on night duty, so it was just me, my dad, my brother, and my sisters. And just like March, I took a lot of painkillers... 

Usually, painkillers are not administered without caution. You can take pentazocine by 9 a.m., but you won't be allowed to take pentazocine or any class of painkiller like pentazocine until 1 p.m. (4-hour gap). For Diclofenac, it has a 6-hour gap before repetition. The same with IM, not the tablet. The oral administration of PCM doesn't work for me. And you can take pentazocine and diclofenac at the same time, but that also has its side effects.

So if you're in pain and you take Penta and Diclofenac and let's say the level of the pain is extreme and it doesn't work, you will have to persevere for 6 hours before you can take any other one.

Morphine could be administered too, but that doesn't mean it would bring any relief. co-codamol as well (codeine + paracetamol).DF118, Ibruprofen... Let's just skip all these.

If all this fails, you'd have to manage until you can take them again.

So none of the painkillers I took were working at all, and I took all of what I mentioned there in March. I tried my best not to scream that night, but I didn't even realize when I had already been screaming for 2 hours, so my Dad and brother took me to one clinic around the estate by 3 am, because it wasn't coming to an end. It got better, though; the pains stopped except for my leg.

PS My leg has been paining me since the UCH femoral tap. (google femoral triangle and open images, that's where blood is drawn during a femoral tap)

I resumed clinical posting and was posted to UCH next (I didn't want to go there initially because of my previous experience there in March ). Regardless, I still completed my posting there; my legs were still giving me a tough time, and it was getting worse, and my posting partners all noticed. After the posting ended, I was asked to do an MRI scan. The results came in, and I had to start using crutches immediately. 

That already was ruining my year until our results came in—the results of the semester I missed six weeks and had a lot to think about, and I was expecting to have a B or my first C, but fortunately, I had all As in that result, it is the same with a few other of my results, but to me, it was my best result tbh, so throughout September and a bit of October I was on crutches, and I also had to resume with it (that's why I drive in school). 

November was when everything started feeling better, that's going to be in another write up “Good side of 2022” 

I'll post all of it on 30th Dec