Writing by Kayla Collins

It’s sort of a funny thing. Pain. Everyone feels it differently, and everyone perceives it differently. Tolerance is different for everyone. I’d like to think mine is pretty high. Having dealt with a horrible disease since one month old that inflicts sudden and debilitating pain, I’d say my pain tolerance is pretty high. Growing up with pain and calling the hospital my second home means I’m no stranger to the pain scale and definitely no stranger to the number 10. So yea, I’d say I can handle a substantial amount of pain. Yet, that night I felt so weak. I felt like my disease won. I felt as if I had no strength to pick myself up. I could hardly lift my finger to press my call bell to ask for my break through dose. I was defeated. Sickle cell won. Sickle cell disease took over and broke down every bit of strength I’d built the past 17 years. That single clot of sticky sickle cells in that tiny blood vessel in my back won. It broke me. It made me feel some of the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. That night I was defeated. Or so I thought. But was I really defeated? No. I still had the strength to lift that finger. I had the strength to take those deep breaths and focus on my breathing, the strength to reach out to someone to help distract me, the strength to adjust my bed to find a comfortable position. And the strength to close my eyes and remind myself that a new day is soon approaching and another day to keep fighting and get back up. So I’d say, I’m 10x stronger than any crisis ever tried to be.

Kayla Collins, 18