Sickle cell patient describes ‘life-changing’ feeling after blood exchange transfusion
A popular social media personality known as Tomi the Artist, who is living with sickle cell disease, has gone viral after describing the dramatic improvement she experienced following a blood exchange transfusion.
The young woman shared a video on X (formerly Twitter) showing herself dancing while expressing amazement at how different her body felt after the medical procedure.
According to her, doctors replaced her sickled red blood cells with healthy donor blood, leaving her feeling stronger and more energetic than she could remember.
“They sucked all of the sickle cell blood out of my body and filled me with AA blood and lowkey I feel like crying a bit,” she wrote. “There’s no way this is how y’all actually feel on a regular. My body feels so lithe and supple. I can breathe. It didn’t hurt much when I stood up.”
She went on to describe the experience as though she had been given a completely new body.
“It literally feels like I got a new body. I can’t remember the last time I felt this physically good. Yes, I’m in pain, but pain is a constant. It’s everything else that has changed. I don’t feel like a skeleton on legs, and I just noticed I’m not even dizzy.”
The woman also reflected on how living with sickle cell disease had affected her perception of herself.
She said she often believed she was simply being lazy or exaggerating her condition, partly because of comments from family members. However, experiencing the difference after the transfusion made her realise how much she had been enduring.
“I feel like crying because I’m always so hard on myself, believing that I’m overreacting or not trying hard enough. It doesn’t help that my family says it, too. Now seeing the difference, it’s so clear. I’m such a fighter. How did I get anything done before?”
She concluded her posts by encouraging people who are eligible to donate blood, noting that blood donors play a vital role in improving and saving the lives of people living with sickle cell disease.
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