Michelle
Age: 24

I was diagnosed with sickle cell anaemia when I was 1. As a child I don’t remember being in pain a lot except a few occasions when I was really cold. To combat that I would just lay in bed with the heater blasting, wrap up warm, take paracetamol and I’d be fine. It affected things like P.E. in school and not being able to run around as freely as my friends when we were hanging out but I didn’t see that as a big deal since I didn’t like running much anyway lol. As I grew older the crises slowly became more frequent and more painful. The defining moment was when I went to uni. I remember having a crisis the very first DAY I moved into my accommodation! The crises knocked me out for 3 days and my family couldn’t even stay with me because there was no space. I felt so annoyed and alone because it wasn’t a very good first impression for my housemates and I had no one to really take care of me. Little did I know that was just the beginning. Uni consisted of frequent hospital admissions and being given morphine and cocodamol for the first time in my life. This was really strange to me and my family seeing as if never been admitted to hospital for a crisis prior to entering uni. I remember one occasion where I had to leave my desk during work and tell my manager quietly that I needed to go to the hospital. I was in so much pain but didn’t want to seem unprofessional. He looked so confused because I seemed fine but I was about to collapse. Your girl had to book an Uber and get out of there 🙃 My final year was the most tremulous though as I called the ambulance at least twice every week and started having blood transfusions.

I thank God for my amazing friends who took care of me, stayed with me at the hospital, visited me, all sorts because it can be a really lonely disease. A lot of times people, (even family!) get desensitised or inconvenienced by your pain and that’s the LAST thing you want to do to anybody. The doctors would continuously ask me if I was stressed and I would always say no because I didn’t think I was 🤷🏾‍♀️ I was a normal level of stressed like every other uni student. However maybe I was and didn’t realise it because it honestly felt like my body was going into meltdown. After uni I came home and my mum was relieved because she said she could finally look after me as I was never this sick under her care. I had a few really bad crises after I moved home but sure enough, almost 2 years later my crisis has reduced dramatically and I feel a lot healthier. I don’t know if something was in the air at my university 🤔 but I thank God for my health now because I haven’t had a crisis in months!