June 19 celebrates World Sickle Cell Day. Sickle cell patient Daisha Dillon shares her pregnancy success story and how her UConn Health care teams have been with her every step of the way in her journey to motherhood. “I trust UConn Health with me and also my baby. They take care of me like family."
Daisha Dillon, 31, of Manchester is overjoyed to be six months pregnant and expecting her first baby to be born this September. But soon after her own birth she started her daily battle with sickle cell disease and the countless severe pain episodes that come with the inherited condition causing her red blood cells to be abnormally sickle-shaped. “The pain I experience from sickle cell is shocking and feels like someone is stabbing you, abruptly and repeatedly,” says Dillon. “One of the stigma’s for sickle cell patients like me is I was told my whole life I can’t have kids. It will just be too painful.”
But together UConn Health and Dillon are striking out this misconception.
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