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Twins fighting prejudice about their blood disease | |||||||||||||
The mother who felt forced to leave her home country of Nigeria because her twins have sickle cell anaemia has talked to Outlook. Stella Ochi told Outlook’s Fred Dove that in Nigeria she’d had to put Jacqueline and Jennifer, both 9, in a private education because “in the public school they were treated like outcasts – no one wanted anything to do with them. There was a stigma.” The girls began to show symptoms at the age of 2 when they had swollen hands and feet. No one knew what was wrong with them but as Stella knew she had the sickle cell gene she asked for the girls to be tested.
Sadly their father left them the week they were diagnosed, not realising that both he and Stella had to be carrying the defective gene for the girls to have inherited sickle cell. They have not seen him since. Because they were identical twins they would have symptoms at the same time, Stella says: “the same spots, the same symptoms, the same area. I always had two people in crisis in my hands, alone.” Having sickle cell means Jacqueline and Jennifer can be in a lot of pain. Their red blood cells can change from their usual round shape to a sickle shape and they don’t flow so easily through their blood vessels. When the girls were first diagnosed with sickle cell in Nigeria, Stella was told that they would not be able to lead a normal life. “I was told that because they have this disease that they wouldn’t live long, and they would have to be on continuous medication without which they might die… I went from hospital to hospital asking questions, some doctors didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.” Keen to have the best environment in which to bring up her girls Stella brought the girls to England where she found it much easier for them to be open about their disease - and now they are like ambassadors for sickle cell. She is now hoping that they all will be able to stay in the UK permanently. “I have sent our passports to the home office… I don’t want to be here illegally, I want to be here as legal person because of the children, for their future, they want to be able to go to school, do a lot of things.” | ||||||||||||||
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Listen to Stella on Outlook 
Stella says: “the same spots, the same symptoms, the same area. I always had two people in crisis in my hands, alone.”
Contact Jeans for Genes