Living with Sickle Cell Disease teaches you many things. It teaches patience when your body refuses to cooperate. It teaches resilience when pain arrives uninvited. It teaches humility when you realise that some days, simply getting out of bed is an achievement.
But perhaps one of the most important lessons chronic illnesses teach is that life is often lived in small steps rather than giant leaps.
For many people, health is measured by major events: a successful operation, a new treatment, or a hospital discharge. For those living with SCD, however, health is also built quietly through everyday decisions. One of those decisions is what we choose to eat.
I have come to realise that living with SCD is often about living one meal at a time.
One of the challenges of SCD is that the body is constantly working behind the scenes, even when we are not in the hospital, not in crisis, or appear well to others.
