WHEN LOVE MEETS GENOTYPE

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Love is a beautiful thing, love is sweet, but at times it hurts when something happens to one partner, especially if it is someone you are ready to spend your lifetime with. Lovers finding out that they are both sickle cell carriers a day to their wedding is something heartbreaking and frustrating. Before we continue, what is sickle cell?

Sickle cell disease is the name for a group of inherited health conditions that affect the red blood cells. The most serious type is called sickle cell anaemia. It is particularly common among people with African or Caribbean family backgrounds.

People with sickle cell disease produce unusually shaped red blood cells that can cause problems because they do not live as long as healthy ones and can block blood vessels. Sickle cell disease is a serious and lifelong health condition, although treatment can help manage many of the symptoms.

I remember a day when one of my family members was sick, so I took him to the clinic to run some medical tests before treatment. After the test, we were asked to return later in the evening for the result, and later that evening I had to go there alone. When I arrived at the clinic, the test result was not ready, so I decided to exercise a little patience and wait. While sitting down, a young handsome man came in to also collect his test result, and he was told to wait.

It was a cold evening, and the air conditioner was on, yet I noticed that he was sweating even in the cold room. I later got to know that he was waiting for his genotype result. The nurse asked him why he was sweating and advised him to calm down. He then opened up and said the result was very important because people were waiting for it. When the nurse asked who was waiting, he replied that it was his family and his wife-to-be’s family. He explained that his fiancée was SS, and he was praying that he would not be anything close to AS because, if so, the marriage would not be allowed to hold. At that point, we all understood why he was sweating in an air-conditioned room.

A few minutes later, his result was ready, and unfortunately, he was AS. When he received the result, we could see the frustration and sadness on his face. Right there, I knew without being told that one relationship had just ended. The nurses had to sit him down and counsel him.

No one prays for something sad, but when it happens, we must find a way around it and try to manage the situation. If such a thing happens to me, I believe the best thing to do is to call off the marriage, and people should understand. It is better to end it than to get married and bring forth children who will suffer throughout their lives.

However, if the bond between the two lovers is too strong to be broken, then they should agree not to have biological children but to adopt instead. In all, I believe that before getting too emotionally attached or bonded, we should always find out our genotype to avoid a story that touches the heart.

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