“It took a long time for a lot of people to understand what sickle cell was. I had a teacher actually tell the class ‘she got sickle cell.’ I had everybody look at me different, like I was the weirdo. I didn’t want to tell my mother. I just held it inside, but it hurt so bad for her to tell the class that I had sickle cell. Now it was like, ‘oh we don’t want to be by her.’ They didn’t know what sickle cell was at that time. [Now] I tell everyone.
[Sickle cell] affected me because when I was in school, all I wanted to do was dance. I couldn’t because I ached so much. I still just wanted to dance, it didn’t matter. I did my school work. I was a straight A student, but when it come to dancing, being a cheerleader, I wasn’t active as most girls. So now by being a grown woman, I got an opportunity to partner with someone to help me get a dance studio. Now, for the community, we have a dance studio for our community and our neighborhood and this is nice, it’s wonderful.
Some advice I can give is, stress levels. To keep your stress levels down and under control because when you get stressed out, you stress your body and go into crisis.”
-Laterrica, 34 years old, SCD, hemoglobin SS