The story of how my parents learned that their new daughter would have a blood disease from inheriting traits they "didn't" have.
“What do you mean she has Sickle Cell Disease?! You must be mistaken because my husband and I got tested and he did not have a trait!”
These were the words spewed from my mother's mouth after she was notified by the hospital 2 weeks after I was born that I had Sickle Cell Disease. While both she and my dad knew of the disease, they did not know crucial things like how it could be inherited, and this led to the disaster of denial at first. Ultimately after days of denial and tears, I was recommended to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, a blessing that would benefit them through today.
Turns out, back in college my mother got tested and learned that she had the Sickle Cell Trait (S), while my dad was tested and carried a recessive (c) trait but was not told by anyone. As you can imagine, was it not for that lack of information about my father's trait, my birth wouldn't have been such a rude awakening.
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