Aishah Akorede opened up about why didn’t speak publicly about sickle cell diagnosis before.
The model, who was crowned Miss Universe Ireland in 2023, explained that there were two important reasons behind her decision to keep her journey with the condition private until now.
However, she has already seen the impact her health journey has had on people after recently visiting her secondary school.
Aishah admitted that it wasn’t easy to speak about her sickle cell disease diagnosis., which refers to a group of inherited health conditions that affect the red blood cells, the most serious type being sickle cell anaemia.
She told RSVP Live: “It’s the most terrifying thing ever. I don’t tell people what my illness is. There are a few reasons why.
“Number one is that I don’t want people to look at me as my illness. I want people to look at me as Aishah, who has done this and that, who has helped these people and who has supported these people.”
Aishah explained that her experience with sickle cell disease hasn’t been the same as everyone else's.
“The second reason is because I don’t have the exact same experience that other people with sickle cell have,” she said. “I am lucky and blessed to have a high haemoglobin F. This usually presents in people from the Middle East, but I’m African so it’s quite rare.”
“There are a lot of people with sickle cell that passed away that I know or who have had to get bone marrow surgery because of how serious their health disorder has become.
“I’ve been lucky all these years. I’m not saying that I don’t experience hard times. I do get painful episodes, I do struggle with breathing at times and with my immune system I need to be very careful about being sick because it can affect me very differently.”
She continued: “Opening up on national television is not an easy thing for me to do. I didn’t expect to do it to, be very honest. I am happy that sharing my story is going to help people and it has already helped people.
“When we were at the event in my old secondary school Colaiste Chiarain in Leixlip, straight afterwards students were already coming to me and texting me saying that they were more willing to open up.
"I can only imagine how much more comfortable they will be knowing that I have the same illness that I have been raising awareness for the past few years.
“That’s the goal. I always say that as long as I’m impacting one person, I’m really happy.”
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