When you’re in sickle cell crisis it takes the life out of you literally as the days turn to weeks and the weeks turn to months it’s soul destroying. Being in that amount of pain on a consistent basis for weeks/ months at a time I can’t even begin to describe it, I can’t find the words, there are no words.

So imagine you have a huge house and there are loads of rooms with a light bulb in each. So the house represents you and those light bulbs represent your happiness, your laughter, your strength, your enjoyment, your determination, your drive, your hope and your spirit etc. As each day goes on those lightbulbs begin to flicker and start to dim until they completely shut off and now you’re in complete darkness.

You’re frustrated, angry and hopeless. This is probably one of the only ways I can create an image of what sickle cell does but not only sickle cell, a crisis. Sickle cell continuously takes from you and every time you go into crisis this is what happens and you almost have to rebuild and adjust and regain everything that crisis took from you and for some this is on a consistent basis it’s not like you get 1 or 2 crises a year for most of us it can be 7,8,9.

Trying to put the effects of sickle cell into words can be very hard but I have to find them. I have to write them, I must create awareness in anyway I can, because it’s always so quiet when sickle cell is uproarious!

Our voices need to be heard!

Aliya

(Find more from Aliya on Instagram: @stylemealiya)