personal essay

One of the things that all people have in common is that we have blood flowing through our veins. And like most parts of the human anatomy, there are various blood disorders and mutations. One of these mutations is sickle cell anemia. Sickle cell anemia is a genetic disorder where red blood cells in the body are misshapen. Because of their shape, they cause blockages in veins and arteries the blockages in these blood vessels cause severe pain throughout the body. I was born with sickle cell and throughout my life, it has put things in perspective for me while also acting as a deterrent for different activities and experiences. In short, sickle cell sorta sucks, and since infancy, I had been used to spending periods of time in the hospital.

                Truthfully I am lucky to go to a hospital like CHOP (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia). When I was younger I used to love going to the hospital and didn’t want to leave. The hospital building is very large, comprising of multiple units focusing on various ologies. But as a kid, it seems more like toy shop than any other hospital I have seen. In every room, there were (and still are) TVs with cable, PlayStation 2’s, speedy Wi-Fi, playrooms filled with board games and toys, and a marble machine in the hospital’s lobby. It was probably one of the best places to be while in pain, but it is still a hospital. Some things will always be the way they are, water will always be wet and hospitals will always be depressing. The hospital became less and less appealing as I grew up. I started to tolerate the painkillers they gave me, so I would be in pain while high. I would have to catch up on schoolwork after leaving the hospital and miss out on different experiences and opportunities. But the hospital had given me the chance to create new experiences.

Last summer I had been given the chance to go to the hole in the wall gang camp for the first time. A camp founded by Paul Newman. The camp is in the middle of the woods in northeast Connecticut near Massachusetts. It is a place is for kids with various diseases and illnesses. Some kids are survivors of life-threatening illnesses and some are their siblings. I’d heard stories about the camp from kids I knew from the hospital so I was excited to go, but I was still a little nervous. The bus to get to camp left around 6am and was a 6-hour ride. Once we reached the campsite we saw our counselors outside our cabins singing and dancing.

The bus had emptied by cabin and my cabin was the second to last to empty out the bus. We’d entered the cabin and unpacked and greeted each other. Outside people were throwing frisbees, running around and blasting music out on speakers. During the day, all of the counselors did their best to make us feel welcome and comfortable, but I still felt a little stifled.The camp is technology free, and at home, I had always been listening to music 24/7. I literally fell asleep with earbuds, so not being able to listen my to music was the one thing that bothered me. The next day, our cabin had gone to the camp’s boathouse that overlooked a huge lake. Our counselors ask if we had wanted to fish or boat. A kid named Luis and I both wanted to paddleboat, so our counselor Kerwin took us along with his speaker. I remember asking “Do we have to listen to censored music?” he simply replied “Nah, I don’t care. As long as you don’t tell anybody.” me and Luis were both ecstatic. We spent our time on the paddle boat sharing music talking and talking about living with sickle cell (which we all had).I still keep in touch with Luis And Kerwin's probably the reason I'd like to be a counselor. Being on that boat had made me feel more comfortable and had given me two people to talk to who could relate to my problems.