Our Story Pt.II
Could this child be our cure?! If I’m honest, that was the first thing that ran through my head when I found out that we were pregnant again. I even began to feel like I got pregnant so soon because God didn’t want Tyson to ever experience the hardships of Sickle Cell. So now he’d be able to have the bone marrow transplant and live a regular life. We believed it so much that we even decided to bank our daughters cord blood. So when we got the call about a week after Jordyn was born that she too had Sickle Cell Disease SS my heart broke.
We decided to put Jordyn on the same regime as Tyson. And at her three month check up she was doing good. Her hemoglobin was a 9.5 which scared me a little because Tyson’s had never gone below a 10.5. The doctors assured me that even though Jordyn’s was a little low, 9.5 was still really good. They did warn me that her hemoglobin would surely drop and never increase.
A few months later almost two weeks after Tyson’s 2nd birthday he had his first pain crisis. I was so confused! At his appointment his hemoglobin was an 11.4 and this entire time I was under the impression that if his hemoglobin was high then we wouldn’t have to deal with pain crises. After speaking to his doctors we were informed that, pain crises can happen at any time even if the hemoglobin is high. I felt helpless. They didn’t seem to have any answers. They gave us medication to help with the pain. However the only option they offered that would “help” was Hydroxyurea also known as “chemo” and that was NOT an option for us.
So I began to do more and more research and I found out that a lack of oxygen in the blood vessels can cause blockage in turn causing a pain crisis. That’s when I decided to give Tyson chlorophyll. Liquid chlorophyll to be exact. It helps to replenish the amount of red blood cells in the body and it improves oxygen circulation in the blood. Almost everyday Tyson started getting liquid chlorophyll, and because I was breastfeeding Jordyn I started taking it so she could receive the benefits of it as well. And at her last doctors appointment her hemoglobin went up to a 9.8!
Tyson’s pain crises were less frequent but he was still having them. They were always in his arms and almost always started in the middle of the night. That’s when my husband brought to my attention that Tyson would often sleep on his arms and that can cause low blood circulation for anyone. But because of Tyson’s condition he couldn’t just shake his arms if they had “fallen asleep” and be back to normal. So we put a pillow in his bed for him to sleep on and saw a drastic decrease in his pain crises.
Today Tyson and Jordyn both take a multi vitamin with essential minerals, vitamin C, vitamin D and I have just started giving them beet root powder, in addition to the liquid chlorophyll and the folic acid daily. I still give them the penicillin prescribed by the doctors, but I don’t give it to them everyday. Antibiotics can kill your body’s good bacteria and if taken over a long period of time can permanently wipe them out. Which will affect the body’s ability to build up immunity.
As of today, Tyson has not had a pain crises in almost 4 months and Jordyn has never had one.