
Source: NPR
In her San Francisco home, NeDina Brocks-Capla has made a shrine filled with memories of son Kareem Jones, who died of sickle cell disease in 2013. Jenny Gold/KHN
For more than a year, NeDina Brocks-Capla avoided one room in her large, brightly colored San Francisco house — the bathroom on the second floor.
“It was really hard to bathe in here, and I found myself not wanting to touch the walls,” she explains. The bathroom is where Brocks-Capla’s son Kareem Jones died in 2013 at age 36 from sickle cell disease.
It’s not just the loss of her son that upsets Brocks-Capla. She believes that if Jones had gotten the proper medical care, he might still be alive today.
Sickle cell disease is an inherited disorder that causes some