Behind every child who needs a clotting factor is a caregiver trying to get them to the hospital before a bleeding episode becomes life-changing. [Courtesy]
Mary Chimoli thought the prolonged bleeding she experienced was simply part of being a woman. Then her son was diagnosed with haemophilia. The revelation exposed a family history of unexplained deaths, shattered her marriage and plunged her into a years-long battle to secure treatment for her son.
Chimoli remembers the moment she was told she was a haemophilia carrier. It was not a relief. It was a revelation that seemed to explain everything that had gone wrong in her life, the bleeding that could last 15 days, the shame she experienced as a schoolgirl, the unexplained illness of her mother, the deaths of four siblings and, now, the suffering of her son.
“When my child was diagnosed with haemophilia in 2017, that’s when I was told I was a carrier,” she says.
Facts First
