Diagnosed with Sickle-cell disease at three months, Baby Larissa has lived her life mostly in ambulances and hospital beds

Baby Larissa was diagnosed with sickle-cell disease (SCD) when she was three months old.

Now four, Baby Larissa Atieno has spent a good part of her life in ambulances and on hospital beds as she is constantly under attacks of pain- called sickle-cell crisis.

To be able to lead a normal life, she needs to go to India for a Sh 5 million bone marrow transplant operation. The costly procedure, the only treatment to SCD, is her only hope of ever getting to live a normal life like kids her age.

Having lost her son to the same disease in 2013, Larissa’s mum Stella Wabuke says she lives in distress that she might also loss her daughter Larissa the same way she lost her son.

Speaking from the hospital when she took Baby Larissa for checkup because her fever was not coming down, Stella says that her life has not been the same. After losing the first born in her marriage, she recollects that her husband has turned against her and blames her for the sickness of their children.

“He is here but he does not do much per se. He will pass by and see us here in hospital but he does not give me the emotional support I need. To him, this disease (SCD) is a terminal disease,” emotional Stella while speaking to EveWoman.

SCD is a condition where the patient has abnormal hemoglobin S or sickle cell hemoglobin in their red blood cells. The disease is brought about when the baby inherits two abnormal hemoglobin genes, one from each parent.

SCD is not contagious and a person cannot contract it from someone else.

To be able to offset the huge medical bill, Larissa’s parents had to come up with a medical appeal to seek donations from well-wishers as they try to raise Sh 5 million for Baby Larissa’s operation in India: