Transcript

When do you tell someone you're dating that you have Sickle Cell?

Tosin Ola:
When do you tell someone you’re seriously dating that you have Sickle Cell? Do you tell them on the first date? Do you wait for a couple of weeks? Do you wait until you guys are in a more serious place in the relationship? I know it’s a complicated question, but I figure you guys are the right ones to ask. Let me know what you think:

Ade Adeyokunnu:
When you know that this is something that could be a long term thing, the earlier you tell them the better it is because you don’t want to, I guess, scare them off later on.

Phyllis Zachery-Thomas:
You know, the first or second date, that’s about the appropriate time to let someone know that you have Sickle Cell. And you can do it very matter of factly.

Ade:
If it’s someone who’s not going to be with you, it’s better you tell them early so you don’t even waste your time with them and that person is not even, you know, worth your time if they’re not willing to be with you because of that.

Phyllis:
I think just being able to say, “Do you know anyone with Sickle Cell,” is a great opening because that way you can kind of get an idea if Sickle Cell even runs in their family and this is something you need to know right away. If you’re looking for something that’s going to be long lasting, tell them, the sooner the better.

Tosin:
Great job on answering on all the questions. I actually think that there’s a little bit more to just deciding whether or not you tell someone so the next question I want to pose is how do you gauge what the right time is and in your experience, like, have you ever told someone and they stuck by you anyway or have you ever told someone and they ended up breaking up with you? Let me know what you think.

Phyllis:
As long as you’re not really trying to hide the fact that you have Sickle Cell, I think that the timing is going to just come whenever it comes.

Ade:
There’s no particular time you can put to it. You can’t so, oh, it’s a week or 3 days or it’s the fourth date or whatever.

Phyllis:
In my case, of course, my husband actually met me while I was in the hospital so the gig was up right away! I had no choice but to kind of educate him on what Sickle Cell was and why I was in the hospital.

Ade:
My past relationships, I didn’t really tell them to begin with. They kind of got to know like Phyllis said about her husband meeting her in the hospital. It was kind of like we’ll spend the night or something and I would like have a crisis or they would call me and I’d be sick in the hospital and then they would come see me or I would tell them about it afterwards.

Phyllis:
The reason I advise people to tell right away is because a lot of times these are people who really don’t feel good about having sickle cell in the first place and have had lots of people to walk out once they found out that Sickle Cell can be – not only on the individual but also on a relationship

Ade:
A really good movie – it’s not really about Sickle Cell, but it kind of relates to letting your partner know about a medical illness – is Love and Other Drugs. I think that movie might help people to get a better understanding of what you’re dealing with when you’re talking to someone who has some kind of medical condition.

Phyllis:
I guess at the end of the day, everybody makes their own decisions on what they’re going to do, but um, just be honest about it and don’t try to hide it because it is your life.