My name is Alison Spencer. I’d like to introduce you to my daughter-in-law, Emmy Spencer. She is 34 and a Sickle Cell Warrior. What is Sickle Cell disease? It is an invisible deficiency where people see you and think you’re fine. But the truth is that every day you are suffering and getting worse as time passes.

Sickle cell is a genetic disease that transforms your red blood cells into half-moon or sickle shapes and makes them hard and sticky instead of round and soft. Her kids call this “stuck blood.” What that means inside Emmy’s body is that she is constantly producing little or bigger blood clots. When the clots clog a vein, that’s when her nightmare starts. The medical field calls it a crisis. Her entire body goes into extreme pain that can only be treated at a hospital. She also worries about the forming of clots. If a clot forms in a vein in her brain, she will have a stroke. If it forms in a vein in her heart, it will cause a heart attack. If it is inside her lungs, it causes a pulmonary embolism (she has had this multiple times).

Most patients with sickle cell are of African descent, but with all the beautiful mix that we have in the world, here she is, a Brazilian with sickle cell disease. Currently, she spends more time in the hospital than she does at home. With her husband working and taking care of the kids after work, it is hard to visit Emmy daily. So much of her time in the hospital is spent alone.

We are sharing her story because financially her family has been struggling a lot. The hospital bills are constant. Emmy is unable to work, so her husband is the only one that provides for their family of 4. He does amazing, but it is difficult for him to keep everything under control, and impossible to cover all of the bills, especially because Emmy is in the hospital so much for weeks at a time.

I am not trying to paint Emmy as a pity patient. She would hate that. She has a hard time sharing details of her illness with strangers, sometimes even with her friends.

However, we have a very big dream, the dream for her to be cured and live to be more than 40-45 years old, which is the “average life span” for sickle cell patients. But it is not her case due to recent complications.

She wants to be with her kids and her husband. She wants to enjoy every day of the life that she is blessed with and dreams of being free from pain and constant hospitalizations.

She now has that chance! The chance to live longer, to be the mom that her kids deserve, and to be healthy, pain-free, and at home. This is the chance we’ve been waiting and praying for! She will soon be going through the strenuous process of a bone marrow transplant. This is a lengthy and expensive process that will require months of hospitalization as well as chemotherapy. It won’t be easy, but we have hope and faith that it will work and will give her a quality of life she has truly never known.

We know, as with everything in life, there are no guarantees. But their faith is strong, and they feel this is the right thing to do, so they want to try.

If you can help them, even with just cents, that will be extremely welcome, and if you can’t help financially, please share this or pray for Emmy Spencer and her family. Every little thing helps. We know that what is right for her and her family will happen! Thank you.