SAN ANTONIO – Lyric Lampkin, 9, seems like any energetic fourth grader with dreams of being a YouTube star and fashion model. But she also faces struggles from living with sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder.
Lyric’s struggles include blood transfusions and even having to spend 14 days hospitalized, including four to five days in the ICU.
“It was scary for me and my mom,” said Lyric.
Her mother, Shanice Bishop, describes sickle cell as a disease where the red blood cells turn into a C-shape instead of a disc-shape.
“They can cause complications of the body in the organs. So, which, you know, affects her life,” Bishop explained.
This can cause crises and complications throughout the body, affecting every aspect of Lyric’s life.
A necessary treatment is blood transfusions.
“The ultimate treatment I have seen is for her to receive that blood, and it changes the game. It definitely makes a big impact,” said Bishop.
Lyric has already undergone five blood transfusions in her young life.
Transfusions help replace sickled cells with healthy red blood cells full of oxygen. This means Lyric and hundreds of other local patients rely on a steady supply of blood donations.
“I didn’t know how important it was until I was personally impacted — you know, my child. And it just makes a difference,” Bishop said.
Roger Ruiz with the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center stresses the need for a diverse donor pool to find the closest matches for sickle cell patients based on ethnicity. He said hundreds in the area need regular transfusions.
“With sickle cell patients, it’s usually matched with somebody from their same ethnicity... It has antibodies, just like all of us. But we got to match those as much as we can,” Ruiz said.
As for Lyric, she is thankful to those whose donations have helped her and countless others.
“To the person who donated the blood to me, I want to say thank you, a blessing from the bottom of my heart,” said Lyric.
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