Sickle Cell Anemia

For those of you that don't know, Sickle Cell Anemia is a disease that effects the blood cell in the body, as you know normal blood cells are shaped like doughnuts, well blood cells of people with sickle cell anemia are shaped like sickles or half moons, picture a doughnut with a side punched in. Now when you have blood cell that are sickle shape you have a problem, because those oddly-shaped cells tend to get clogged in the blood vessels stopping the blood from reaching the the area that being clogged cause excruciating pain. From this brief explanation I know it's hard to really understand how badly one suffers from this disease, but when you live with someone who has this disease you know all too well. My dad and 4 of his sisters suffer from this disease and it effects their everyday lives, especially when they were younger, when they were kids, they were in and out of the hospital like it was their second home. I can't go into much more detail that at because it's a little too personal.
However, being around this, I've seen enough to know that my dad and his sisters have it good compared to some people, most of them kids. There are some kids today as young as 7 that spend more time in the hospital then at school or even home, some kids have to keep oxygen tanks by their bed just in case. What kind of life is that for a kid to live? the worst part is that not many people know about the disease and until recently not many doctors knew how to treat it.
My Dad and one of my Aunts are now a part of this charity called Camp Jamoke which helps send kids with sickle cell to camp where they can do everything other kids can do and not worry about sickle cell attacks because there are people with the knowledge and things needed to assist them should an attack happen.
I think its a good cause, but i wish there was more that could be done to bring awareness to this disease.
Which got me thinking about how little awareness advertisement and thing happens happening to improve the awareness of this disease and how this would be a great topic to look into for my thesis.