From 30,000 Feet
July/August 2007
Visiting Kenya
Dallas to Charlotte/West Palm Beach
Friday, August 3 , 2007
My soul's eyes have yet to dry since I saw Kenya for the first time.
It had been more than two years since I last had taken a break from work, and I was really starting to show the strain. I planned a two-week vacation, fishing and diving and doing my best not to answer the telephone.
A week before I was to leave for vacation a meeting was scheduled at work that would required me to cancel my first week of vacation and stay in the office for five extra days. I understood the importance of the meeting, and I knew that it was my job. But I wasn’t happy about it. By the end of the vacation week-become-workweek I was angry. I wanted to be gone.
The work week ended; Friday morning found me waiting to catch a flight to West Palm, via Charlotte. Standing in front me in the boarding line were two women with two young children. They all wore the same white T-shirts and from their bubbling, excited conversation I learned that it was the first time that one of the two women had flown. She had "First Time Jitters."
My phone rang with a call from work. I returned quickly to my stew. I was sick and tired of dealing with my job, my co-workers, my obligations, and my life. Everything in my life was pulling on me, snapping at me; I couldn't get to the roses for all the thorns. I was consumed with myself.
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The only thing I knew about Sickle Cell Anemia when I got on the plane was that it was a genetic disease and that Caucasians didn’t get it. By the time I arrived in Charlotte, I knew much more than I had ever thought I might learn.
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Sickle Cell Anemia is a genetic disease of the blood that is primarily found in people of African descent, although it appears to a lesser degree in people of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern descent. In order for a child to be born with SCA, both parents must have Sickle Cell Genetic Trait.
The disease causes some of the red blood cells of the sufferer’s body to take on the shape of a sickle, as opposed to the normal round-donut shape of a healthy red blood cell. These sickle cells cause clotting in the body because of their odd shape. The affected blood cells die in ten to twenty days instead of the normal three to four months that healthy red blood cells live. This shortened life of the affected cells causes anemia in the victims, which in turn causes them to have trouble fighting infections leading to many problems including frequent pneumonia. A condition called Sickle Cell Pain Crisis results in severe pain in the arms, legs, joints, bones, and in the chest. There are more problems, and they are all bad.
Approximately 1 in 12 people of African descent have sickle cell trait. At this time there are about 70,000 people living in the United States with this painful disease. It is a lifelong condition that requires advanced medical care, and in the most severe cases it is fatal. There is no cure.
Kenya Jackson is one of those cases.
Kenya Jackson and her mother Tamara
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Kenya's mother, Tamara Jackson sat in seat 5C; I in 5B on the flight to Charlotte. Her best friend and her two daughters sat across the aisle. As I took my seat I read the front of the four matching T-shirts and saw that they all said, “Make a Wish” and bore the logo of the Make A Wish Foundation. I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Two little girls and two women all sitting in a row, wearing T-Shirst that say "Make A Wish" spelled ... I didn't know what it spelled, but I was certain that it wasn't pleasant.
As we began to taxi I said “My name’s Leif, what do you do?” She replied, “Oh, I am an IV technician at a hospital in Arlington.” She went on to explain that she was also a full time nursing student and a single parent to her two little girls. We visited for a while about her work and going to school and then I finally worked up the courage to ask where she was going, sidling up to the big question of why they were all wearing Make A Wish T-Shirts. She explained everything for me.
“Well Kenya has been fighting her illness for a long time, and she has been in the hospital so much that her doctor asked me if we had ever contacted Make a Wish? He wrote them a letter and the next thing I knew there were two people from Make a Wish at my apartment and they asked Kenya what she would want if she could have anything she wanted. She wanted to go to Disney World, and now we are on our way” she said.
I asked “What is her illness, if you don’t mind me asking?” Tamara then explained to me that Kenya has Sickle Cell Anemia, and she went on to explain how it affects her. Kenya has one of the more severe cases where her healthy red blood cell count doesn't’t rise very high. She has had pneumonia more than a dozen times. She has had fourteen blood transfusions. She has been hospitalized more than fifty times in her six year life.
I asked Tamara “Is it because of your daughter that you are in nursing school?” She explained that it was and that she wanted to be a nurse in a unit that works with children with blood disorders like Sickle Cell Anemia, Leukemia, etc.
“What is your work day like?” I asked. She said that she worked 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM four days each week. And on the days that she went to school, she went from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM. “But those nurses at my work are on my back to finish, to study, and to not give up.” She said.
“Wait a minute!” I said “You mean that you have three days a week when you essentially stay up 36 hours straight? She said that was the case. Suddenly my complaints about giving up a week of my vacation seemed pathetic.
She went on “Her doctor says that she has a year left. But only God really knows. I just don’t think anything but good things and we do our best.” Then she paused and looked at me and said “When we were at the airport Kenya asked me if God lived in the clouds would she see him on this flight?” She knows about her disease and she knows that she won’t live long. She doesn't want to be buried in the ground. She says “Momma, I don’t want to go in the ground when I die. I want to be up in the wall.” She was hoping that she might see God on the flight so she could talk to him about the things that she was enduring.
My older two sons worry about looking cool in front of their friends and think about girls. My youngest son worries about where he will play for the day and he tries to keep up with his older brothers.
Kenya Jackson worries about going back to the hospital and thinks about whether she wants to be buried in the ground or in a mausoleum vault.
I was only a few hundred miles away from my job, but in visiting Kenya I had been moved so much farther than I had expected.
Things often look different from 30,000 feet.
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According to Michael R. DeBaun, MD, MPH the most important thing that anyone can do to help a victim of Sickle Cell Anemia is to donate blood. Her daughter’s life has been saved 14 times by anonymous, heroic blood donors. You can learn more about Sickle Cell Anemia and what you can do to help by visiting THIS SITE.
Since 1980 the Make A Wish Foundation has been working to grant the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. As of the month of August they have succeeding in accomplishing this task 152,385 times. That means that every 41 minutes for twenty seven years a child's life that had been impacted by life-threatening illness has been enriched. Often times those lives are enriched beyond measure. Twenty five thousand volunteers across the nation support the work of the Make A Wish Foundation. If you are interested in learning about, or supporting the efforts of The Make A Wish Foundation you can visit their web site at www.wish.org.
Speaking to a group in Orlando, FL