Many people with sickle cell disease suffer all sorts of complications. After the spleen, bones are the second most affected organs that are affected. The major problem is the degeneration of the bones in one’s body. The most common manifestations has to do with issues with the bone.
After graduating from university with my first degree, I thought my life would be great. At that time in my life, I started showing signs of avascular necrosis; my joints became painful from when I was 18 years old, but I thought it was due to the osteomyelitis surgery I had as a teenager. I started to wear more easy fitting clothing because I struggled to bend my knees. I was so uncomfortable that I even struggled to wear jeans. In the early stages of AVN I didn’t feel much pain. As my condition progressed, I had joint pains that forced me to consider more operations. I had to take time out from my studies to undergo another surgery.
By this stage, my father wanted me to register for a master’s programme but I couldn’t sit on a chair for a long time. The pain in my right hip was so bad that I had to hold walls to sit on a toilet seat to urinate. My doctor had put me on Doxyfene. This is an anti-inflammatory drug and was also part of my treatment. I started getting dependent on opioid. I dreaded night time unless I took Doxyfene to help me sleep.