Lewis, how does sickle cell affect you?

Sickle cell... uh has been a completely different experience for me um and it is you know a spectrum of severity and i would say like the main way that it's affected my life is the pain crisis episodes um so this is something that i've kind of experienced every now and again um It was probably when I was a teenager and sort of growing up and getting used to managing the triggers for the pain crisis that was the most difficult period where I would, you know, generally be quite well for the majority of the time and have relatively normal lifestyle, not really have to think about sickle cell that much.

But then whenever I overexerted myself or got dehydrated, that would trigger a sickle cell pain crisis for me.

And because I was always very sporty, you know, play sports and, you know, sort of socialize with friends in that way, it was always this kind of... um like constant sort of thing hanging over me this threat of um triggering a sickle cell crisis ending up in hospital you know having to think about how to explain that to to people um where i've just been completely normal um you know the the previous day or whatever um so that that's how it's kind of like affected my life um and it all it's almost been like um I think the most difficult part of it is that just when I get back into sort of normal routine, normal sort of, you know, a good schedule, it can crop up and...

I feel like I've constantly had to sort of like fight against that to recover from crisis time and time again.

And that was my sort of life growing up until I was around 20, 25 or so.

Um, cause obviously there's a lot of peer pressure associated with, um, like when I was at university and just, just growing up and, and, and, and doing things that, um, everyone wants to do and have fun and those can trigger, um, sickle cell crisis.

Lewis, did you have anything you wanted to add?