About Living With Sickle Cell
Living With Sickle Cell is an organization designed to provide awareness and support for Sickle Cell Disease. It offers services to Sickle Cell patients and at-risk families through programs, education and support resources.
This organization was developed in August 2005. It all began on a plane ride from Washington, D.C. to Flint, MI when Lorne Rolston (co-founder) became frustrated with his constant battle with Sickle Cell Disease. For years, Lorne has had to surrender to the horrific ordeal of dealing with the disease. From monthly hospital admittance, sleepless nights due to painful priapisms and taking opiates to manage his pain and work a full eight hour day, Lorne thought that he had exhausted all hopes to living a normal life. In an effort to find a way cope with his disease, he traveled from Flint, MI to Baltimore, MD to meet with many specialists at the John Hopkins Hospital for answers. The outcome did lift his spirits and he felt like there was light at the end of the tunnel. However, like most patients, the frustrations of dealing with day-to-day struggles of the disease weighed heavily on his mind and his heart.
On his return back to Flint, like most passengers, Lorne struck a conversation with a fellow passenger as they waited to board the flight. When the typical question, "What brings you to D.C.?" was asked, Lorne went to discuss that the reason for his visit was to receive treatment for sickle cell. Then, like most people, the passenger asked, "What is Sickle Cell?" Lorne went into detail explaining the illness and he and the passenger said their goodbyes and boarded the flight. For the next few hours Lorne got to thinking about the passenger's question and it began to bother him. "You never hear people ask what's cancer or what's AIDS," he thought. Then it dawned on him, "I should make a change. For years I've heard people tell me to use what God gave me and convert it to something positive. I never understood what people meant, but now I do!"
Moving forward, Lorne made it his goal to promote the disease to his full potential; thus, Living With Sickle Cell was formed. His vision, along with the vision of co-founder Brandi Maxwell, is to provide an organization for the sole purpose of sickle cell awareness through programs, forums, scholarship opportunities and fundraising for sickle cell research.