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Briana Pringle is currently enrolled at UAMS, where she is finishing a degree in radiology with a specialty in MRI. She wants to help patients in hospitals, much like she has been helped as a sickle cell patient.
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Sickle Cell Patient Offers Message of Hope: ‘Don’t Let the Sickness Stop You’
| Briana Pringle, 22, of Little Rock, is pretty busy these days, and that’s a good thing. The Helena-West Helena native studies at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) during the week and works on weekends. She barely has time to visit her family back home.
Sickle cell disease is an unwelcome part of Pringle’s life, and pain crises have a tendency to interrupt her schedule without warning. Every time, she picks herself back up and keeps going.
“You get used to it; it’s in your routine,” she said. “I have to take seven pills every day. I make sure I have ibuprofen with me in case I start hurting out of nowhere. It’s normal for me. I’ve been doing it my whole life so it’s like, I know how to deal with it so I adjust more to it.”
Pringle has sickle cell anemia, sometimes called SS sickle cell because of the two “S” sickle cell genes inherited from each parent. It is the most severe form of the disease. Diagnosed at a young age, she said it was more of a problem back then as opposed to now.
“I wasn’t always in the hospital like other patients are, but when I was, it was a rough time,” Pringle said. “Just going through the struggles, like weather changes — realizing I’m going to have to go through a crisis and be in the hospital for some time. I was out of school [at one time] about a week, max. I’d be in there for days, especially if I had to have a blood transfusion, or just the pain wouldn’t go away. The last time I was in a hospital that long was probably middle school.”
Growing up, Pringle said her mother was her primary support when she had a crisis.
“She was a single parent, so she had to leave work and take care of me,” Pringle said. “Every time I was in the hospital or had a doctor’s appointment, it was her. My mom was always the one in my corner. She was dealing with it for so long, so she knew everything.”
Around 10th or 11th grade, Pringle said she started taking hydroxyurea, and her condition improved. Hydroxyurea was the first medication approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to treat sickle cell disease and is still used as a first-line treatment, according to the National Institutes of Health. It has been shown to lower pain crises and improve anemia and the need for transfusions. Pringle said it kept her eyes from looking yellow and jaundiced.
“I don’t have as many crises now,” she said. “I still have my pain, here and there, but I can manage it way more than I could at first.”
About a year ago, Pringle transitioned from the Arkansas Children’s pediatric sickle cell program to the UAMS Adult Sickle Cell Program. She has follow-ups every three months.
“I like it,” Pringle said of the UAMS program. “I really like Ms. Stella [Bowers]; she makes me feel like I’m at home. She is great.”
Pringle is currently enrolled at UAMS, where she is finishing a degree in radiology with a specialty in MRI. After spending so much time in hospitals throughout her life, she developed a desire to go into health care. At first, she wanted to be a nurse.
“I wanted to work in pediatrics and hematology because of sickle cell,” Pringle said. “I realized I didn’t want to do nursing, but I still wanted to be in the medical field to help someone out. Radiology, I feel like that’s where my heart is. Even though I’m not right there with the patient all the time, I’m still helping out in patient care. It’s something I can do to give back. I know how it feels to be in the hospital. Sometimes, even just talking to a hospital worker helps out.”
Although she said she hasn’t experienced the discrimination that some sickle cell patients do because they need pain medication to manage a crisis, Pringle did have one frustrating experience that sticks out. After going to the emergency room with a high fever, the doctor there “didn’t know anything” about sickle cell and asked Pringle how he should treat her.
“I didn’t even want to be at the hospital, because he didn’t even know what to do,” Pringle said. “I was like, I shouldn’t be telling you how to care for me. I have come across that before; doctors not knowing. So after that, if something goes wrong, it needs to be UAMS. I know they know more about me than anywhere else.”
Between working as a phlebotomist at CHI St. Vincent and her radiology studies at UAMS, Pringle keeps pretty busy. She visits her family in Helena-West Helena when she has time. Meanwhile, she continues to be an advocate for herself and other sickle cell patients.
Pringle said she wishes that sickle cell disease was as well-known among the public as cancer or diabetes.
“Don’t let us be singled out. Don’t forget about us,” she said. “I feel like a lot of people don’t know about sickle cell, but when they learn about it, they’re okay. I just think it should be out there more for the public to know and understand, in case they come across a sickle cell patient.”
As for other sickle cell patients like her, Pringle has a message of hope.
“You can do this,” she said. “You can go out and be the biggest star. You can do anything. I felt like at first that I couldn’t do anything, because I felt my pain was going to stop me. But I feel like, if you put your mind to it, you can do it. Don’t let the sickness stop you.”