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<b>News 12 Connecticut</b>'s Gwen Edwards speaks with a middle school teacher who is diagnosed with sickle cell anemia about how she manages the disease.

News 12 Connecticut's Gwen Edwards speaks with a middle school teacher who is diagnosed with sickle cell anemia about how she manages the disease.

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Now with a look at your forecast, Michelle, what can you tell us? Yeah, we're looking at flooding. There's a good chance of even more flash flooding east of 91 for tonight, but we just need to be careful on those roads. It's not nice for travel tonight. The rain picks back up again after about eight or nine o'clock tonight after a little bit of a break. Now, this some wet snow up north, but snow lovers beware this one about amount to very much at all and temperatures will stay above freezing, but this week is going to be colder right now. Feels like spring forties are on the way dry weather throughout the week until next weekend. That's a look at your local forecast.

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Our Lives: Living with and managing sickle cell anemia

RTCTOurLives08272022GEdwards1230pm

Welcome to our lives, I'm Gwen Edward september is sickle cell awareness month and my guest today has been battling sickle cell since she was a small child but she has not let that slow her down. Casey Morris who's been a middle school teacher for years, is now ready to become a student. She plans to attend the graduate arts program at Columbia University Casey, thank you for joining us today, thank you for having me. Gwen, let's talk about sickle cell and your journey with the disease. I was born with sickle cell disease as everyone who has the disease, they may be diagnosed later, but I actually was very privileged and very lucky to have grown up as a young child, not having many issues with my sickle spell. My parents really educated me on how to take care of myself, I stayed hydrated, I stayed arrested, it really wasn't until I was college age and I went off to college. Um and this tends to happen with sickle cell patients where your first time independence, like many young teenagers and once I graduated college and I started some new medications, I uh decided to become part of the G. B. T. Trial for what is now Oxbridge. It has really changed my life, I've become a lot healthier. What are some of the misconceptions people have about sickle cell, I'd say some of the misconceptions that people have about sickle cell are that that you're sick all the time. Um as you can see me now, I am not sick in this current, some of the misconceptions can be that sickle cell patients are exaggerating their pain because you can be totally fine one minute and an episode can come on like that within 10 minutes from now it could be hospitalized and people see that as such a quick transition and there's a lot of misconceptions about sickle cell patients needing more pain meds than they really need. There's also misconception That there are no cure still and that today is not the case. So Casey at the age of 29, why are you taking on this added stress and this new venture? I'm going back for theater production and management and it's nerve wracking of course, going back to being a student and relearning how to handle stress in different ways. making sure again that I'm taking care of myself for me as a patient, my body temperatures are really what triggers some of my episodes, so not going too quickly from hot to cold and vice versa. Casey Morris, thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me and we want to thank you for watching our lives where we bring you information and interviews. You will see nowhere else for our lives. I'm Gwen Edwards

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