I was not aware of the fact that 1 in 36,000 Hispanics were at risk for SCD. Also, I was intrigued by the fact that PCN prophylaxis was part of the protocol so I did some research. I realize that it is to prevent pneumonia or sepsis because the babies are more at risk. I like how you added the transitioning to teen years. As a parent of a teen with a chronic disease, I found that age very difficult myself. Kids do not want to be different.
Also for the emotional part, I had a patient who was 37 and in a SCC, he was in excruciating pain and the doctor was questioning his motives and not medicating him enough. For one thing, either you are or you are not in a crisis, the shape of your blood cells can tell that, for another thing I thought that pain is whatever the patient says it is? Anyway, I was in the poor man’s room for over an hour explaining that the doctor did not represent how the rest of the staff felt. He was a 37-year-old African American man who was transferred from an inner city hospital while he was asleep without his permission to a little neighborhood hospital in the middle of the Polish south side of Milwaukee. He felt very out of place. That doctor was the first experience he had so when I went in there you can imagine how I was welcomed. But the other thing I wanted to say was that he was suffering but did not want him mom to know because she feels extreme guilt for his SCD. So, he never complains or tells her when he is hospitalized to protect her. This