Shalawn James smiles alongside her son, Jerrick Griffin.
In his 20 years of battling sickle cell disease, Jerrick Griffin has suffered multiple strokes (his first was at age 2), a brain bleed and blindness. He has received more than 200 blood transfusions to manage his disease, thanks to generous blood donors.
“Doctors say, without chronic blood transfusions, he will have another stroke,” Shalawn James, Griffin’s mom, said.
“When I get my transfusions, I’m a new person,” Griffin said. “I love it when I get my transfusions. It’s like a refresh to my whole body.”
Sickle cell disease is the most common genetic blood disorder in the U.S. It distorts soft and round red blood cells and turns them hard and crescent shaped. As a result, blood has difficulty flowing smoothly and carrying oxygen to the rest of the body, which may lead to severe pain, tissue and organ damage, anemia and strokes. Transfusions provide healthy blood cells, unblocking blood vessels and delivering oxygen, minimizing crises patients with sickle cell may face.
Griffin told his mom, there is not a day that his body does not hurt, but he has learned to deal with the pain.
“Blood donation, for us, is lifesaving,” James said. “He literally would not be alive today if it weren’t for blood transfusions. He can’t survive without them.”
Griffin, who is from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was diagnosed with sickle cell disease at birth and receives blood transfusions once a month to manage his illness. Between transfusions, Griffin experiences pain in his joints, back and chest.
"Right before my transfusions, I literally do not go anywhere. I stay in the house because my body is so tired,” Griffin said. “But once I get a transfusion, I feel normal again. It makes me feel like my body is on the same level as everybody else’s.”
Unfortunately, sickle cell patients may develop an immune response against blood from donors that is not closely matched to their own. However, because most individuals who are Black have unique structures on their red blood cells that are not often found in other donor populations, 1 in 3 African American blood donors is a match for people with sickle cell disease.
Each time Griffin gets a blood transfusion, he goes to the hospital a day or two before the procedure so doctors can make sure the blood will be a match. If not, he could have a reaction to the transfusion.
“The one time he had a bad reaction to his transfusion, he was in the hospital for a week,” James said.
“I know a lot of people are afraid of needles, but those few seconds of the needle going in and out of your arm could help people like me for months. You could help us for a long time,” Griffin said.
There is no widely used cure for sickle cell disease. However, the Red Cross supports one of the most critical sickle cell treatments of all – blood transfusions. For many patients, a close blood type match is essential and is found in donors of the same race or similar ethnicity.