CREDIT/MUSC Health Pee Dee Division Myra Carraway, 34, of Kingstree, has known from a very early age that she has sickle cell disease. Carraway said she is very happy that the MUSC Health Rena N. Grant Sickle Cell Center is now open in Kingstree, so she won’t have to go to Charleston, or Florence, for her medical appointments.
“They are the ones who are always sickly. They have chronic pain. There is sometimes a high risk for stroke or organ damage. If they’re in chronic pain, they don’t want to go anywhere.”
That’s why her clinic, at the intersection of Nelson Boulevard and Thurgood Marshall Highway, looks at the bigger picture for patients. “What’s not always talked about is the overall need. Not just labs, not just X-rays, but their whole aspect to see what we could do to help them get on a positive note. Sickle cell can cause anxiety and depression, and they may not have been able to get what they need.”
Scott also works to get patients who qualify into MUSC Health’s clinical trials for people with sickle cell disease at a time of transformative and even curative treatment possibilities. They’re based at the MUSC Health Rena N. Grant Sickle Cell Center in Charleston.
And Scott is pulling off some transformations of her own in Kingstree. Carraway is one of them. “The first day I saw her, she was not feeling well at all,” Scott said. “She was already suffering from acute chest syndrome and wearing nasal cannulas,” devices that helped Carraway breathe.
Scott took time to talk through some changes that might help ease the young woman’s symptoms. “I was able to give her a lot of hope. She saw her brother go through the same thing she’s going through. And she saw her brother pass away. We did some education and helped her understand comfort measures she can do. Psychologically and socially. And she took that to heart.”
At Carraway’s next appointment, “She was a new woman,” Scott said. “I walked in the room and looked at her. Then I walked back out of the room, came back, and she started laughing. And I said, ‘Oh my God, you look outstanding.’ She wasn't even wearing a nasal cannula.”
Carraway still keeps her cannula close at hand. But she feels much better than before. Her mother, Henrietta Green, is happy to see the changes – including a new focus on drinking water rather than sweeter alternatives. “I don't think Myra has had any soda since – May?” she said.
“Now she'll do whatever they tell her to do. Thank God she found one she can relate to, you know.”
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CREDIT/MUSC Health Pee Dee Division Myra Carraway, 34, of Kingstree, has known from a very early age that she has sickle cell disease. Carraway said she is very happy that the MUSC Health Rena N. Grant Sickle Cell Center is now open in Kingstree, so she won’t have to go to Charleston, or Florence, for her medical appointments.
