Hi, my name is Sickle. I’m a red blood cell in my host’s, Amanda’s, body. I cause, or rather, we all cause sickle cell anemia, or hemoglobin S, in Amanda’s body. I say “we” because there is way more of me than the other blood cells, hence our namesake. But let’s talk about me specifically, because I was the first one. We’re all the same anyways. I’m named after sickle, the farm tool, because unlike normal round blood cells, I’m curved into a semi-circle, just like a sickle.
In “normal” (bleugh, I hate that word, it’s so discriminatory) blood cells there’s a protein called Hemoglobin A (HbA for short,) which gives them their soft circle shape and their flexibility. It also helps carry oxygen around Amanda’s body while we circulate. We Sickles have a different protein in our bodies called Hemoglobin S (HbS for short,) If I’m honest, it’s really the only thing about us that make us special, but oh man is it a big difference. It’s my good friend HbA that makes me stiffer and gives me my crescent moon shape. Flexibility is boring, anyways.
Just like Amanda, I’ve been here since birth. Both of Amanda’s parents had me, so when Amanda was born I decided to join the party. If only one of her parents had me then I would still be here with Amanda but I wouldn’t be here in such large quantities, I would be called a trait instead of a disease. There’s a chance that Amanda wouldn’t even know I was here; could you imagine? When Amanda was a baby I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be Sickle, or if I just wanted to be a blood cell so I played around with both for a bit, trying out each, but as Amanda grew older I decided I definitely wanted to be Sickle, and never went back to that boring cell.
We Sickles die a lot faster than the rest of the cells, while they have a long life of four months, we have a slightly shorter life of ten to twenty days, this is where the anemia comes in, it’s when there’s less blood cells in Amanda’s body then there should be. This causes Amanda to be a lot more tired all the time, have a fast pulse, and look pale.
When Amanda grew up into teenage hood she hit puberty a bit later than everyone else she knew, which made her hate me and love me at the same time. It’s a thing that can happen to some people that have me, but coming late to puberty doesn’t happen to all of them.
Us Sickles are a lot more fragile than the other cells so we like to stick together and move around it groups, it’s safer you know. The other blood cells tend to avoid us while they circulate and move along by their own but I just think their loners and don’t want to ask for company… Although I kind of have to admit that staying in groups so much sometimes makes it a bit difficult to navigate through Amanda’s body, sometimes we even get stuck in tubes and clump. That is very bad for Amanda, because it blocks her blood stream and gives her very higher chances of getting infections, strokes, acute chest syndrome, and can make it hard for her to breath when we’re not circulating properly. She always feels weak or in pain because of me. I’m pretty sure she’s not very fond of me but I think she’s just having troubles looking at all the positive sides! She’s special! Not normal and boing like all the rest of the normal celled people.
I don’t stop Amanda from doing really important things, I mean, she loved me when I was her free “get-out-of-gym” card. She can still function perfectly well and can do everyday stuff, but every once in a while she just needs a few more breaks than everyone else. Right now Amanda is 26 years old, just figuring out her way in life and what she wants to be, but with me, any active job is immediately ruled out, I hope she becomes a teacher, those are always fun, and it’s a safe job for Amanda because there is minimum exercise and she can sit at a desk. Just as long as she doesn’t become a gym teacher! A desk job would also be okay for Amanda, maybe a secretary. Really, anything job is okay for Amanda as long as she watches herself and she doesn’t have a heavy weight.
They don’t know how to get rid of me yet, which is a good thing because I want to stick around! They have found ways to help Amanda which I am grateful for because I want Amanda to love me as much as I love her. They can make us regenerate faster than natural, make us less stiff and be able to circulate through the tubes more easily, which helps Amanda with the pain, and they can give Amanda special drugs to make her pain go away. The only way they know to get rid of me completely right now is to have a Stem Cell Transplant, but that’s really dangerous and risky that they barely every do it and would only ever do it in emergencies, so it looks like, to Amanda’s dismay and my delight, I’m going to be around for a long time to come.
The making of my Mutation Story:
1: I needed to find out what exactly Sickle Cell anemia was, how did it get there? Is it a negative, positive, or neutral mutation? Are there disabilities? Is it curable? What do the doctors know about the disease?
2: I used the databases linked from the school library, I knew of them and have used them before but I don’t use them regularly. I now see that I should because they are really easy to find information with. I also watched Youtube videos, something that I don’t normally do because I just couldn’t bother but I didn’t mind watching them on this subject because I actually found them really interesting.
3: I first found out what the disease did to the host, how the mutations generated, side effects of the disease, disabilities that come with the disease, and last but not least I found out about the doctor’s treatment of the disease.
4: I used the databases, and the databases only link trustworthy and helpful cites. For the cites that I didn’t use the databases for I only used if there weren’t mass amounts of advertisements
5: When I first heard about this project I was annoyed and thought it would be an obnoxious project to research and complete, but as I started writing it I started to really like it and I had a lot of fun writing it. For me it felt like more of a writing assignment then a study assignment, which I loved because I love writing. I was worried that I would have trouble figuring out stuff to write but when I started it just started to flow. While I was writing this cute story from the perspective of a cell I was also learning all about this mutation disease that I didn’t know existed before. Now, I could confidently tell you all about the Sickle Cell Anemia/disease. I don’t think I really could have done anything better, because if I reflect back on my work I am quite proud of everything I wrote. I am really glad I chose Sickle Cell Disease because I thought it was really interesting.
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