TWO YEARS AGO, 23-year-old Renaldo Scott was living an active, vibrant and full life. He was working as a nursing assistant at the Psychiatric Hospital and hanging out and liming with friends on weekends.
Fast forward to the present day. Renaldo is now confined to a wheelchair, after being hospitalized for eight months in 2011, and is in dire need of total hip replacement and knee surgery because of the inability to bend or move his knee. All of Renaldo’s health problems are the result of full-blown sickle-cell anaemia, a disease he acquired from both parents who had the sickle-cell trait.
What exactly is sickle-cell anaemia. It is when the red blood cells are shaped like a crescent. Normal red blood cells are disc-shaped and look like doughnuts without holes in the centre. They move easily through your blood vessels and carry iron-rich protein called haemoglobin, which carries oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body.
In Renaldo’s case, because his red blood cells are sickle-shaped, they contain abnormal haemoglobin and are stiff and sticky. They block blood flow in the blood vessels of the limbs and organs and this causes pain and organ damage.
“I stopped working in June 2011 because my hip was so bad I had to be hospitalized for eight months,” Renaldo said. “Because of the sickle-cell, I developed vascular sclerosis in my hip or dying of the bone due to bad blood flow caused by the sickle-cell. They operated on it but it didn’t help. I now have to get total hip replacement. I thought hip replacements were only for old people, but after I did research I realized that any person at any age can get them.”
But if the problems with his hip weren’t bad enough they are now compounded by difficulties with his knee.
“When I was working at the Psychiatric Hospital, chicken pox was stirring and I caught it and developed an abscess in my knee,” he said. “They operated on it and drained the knee so that the inflammation could come out because it was swollen big. But my knee was never really the same after that. It was bending forward or back. Things got really bad though after my hip.”
For someone like Renaldo, who despite his bouts of illness was able to play hockey throughout school and maintain an active lifestyle, being confined to a wheelchair can be difficult to take at times.
“I don’t walk at all now,” he said. “It’s hard to cope with at times because my mum and family have to do lots of things that I would normally do. It’s been two years since I last walked, so I’ve gotten a bit more accustomed to it but it’s not easy. I can’t let it get me down.”
What helps to keep Renaldo’s spirits up is the support that he gets from his family. He said: “My uncle has always been there to help me with anything that I really need. I still try to reach out to my friends, and I love technology, so I’m always on the computer. I just try to pass the time until I can do better.”
In order for Renaldo to do better, he must have total hip replacement surgery. His family has found a doctor here who can do it, but the cost of the procedure is $48 000.
“After the doctor examined me he said the sooner I got it done the better, because waiting will only make it worse,” Renaldo said. “After the surgery I will be able to walk. It’s going to be two operations, one on my knee to get it straightened and moving again and the hip replacement. So my family is trying to raise funds for the surgery. After that I’ll have to get lots of physical therapy as well.”
While Renaldo has had to undergo a major change in his life, so too has his mother Charmaine Scott, who has watched her son go from leading a vibrant life to being confined in a wheelchair.
“It has been very difficult to see that your son was walking all the time to where he is right now,” she said. “You have to do almost everything for him, so it’s been hard.”
But Renaldo is thankful that he hasn’t had any flare-ups from the sickle-cell recently. He is on a regimen of muscle relaxers to help him sleep at night, and morphine and codine for the pain.
“I’ve tried to manage my health pretty well,” Renaldo said. “The doctor said I’m pretty much in good health . . . . I would just tell anyone with the disease not to give up. I know it’s hard not to be able to do things like everyone else, but it is life and you have to deal with the hand that you are dealt.”
