Gaming helps nine-year-old Birmingham girl with sickle cell disease

A nine-year-old girl who was born with sickle cell anaemia has been gaming to help her through her treatment.

Tayshelice, 9, from Birmingham, requires frequent blood transfusions and periods of isolation in hospital to treat the disease.

She said making YouTube videos and playing video games with other children helped to distract her from the pain.

"We game together and we play different levels of different games against each other," she said.

"It feels much better, because it helps me take my mind of the pain and focus on something else."

Sickle cell disease, which tends to affect people of a Afro-Caribbean heritage, causes red blood cells to distort and become sticky, blocking vessels and restricting oxygen, triggering pain.

Tayshelice, who also suffered a stroke earlier this year, has been receiving support from Birmingham charity, Oscar, which specialises in mentoring people with sickle cell and thalassemia.

The charity has helped more than 500 children through treatment for the disease, with funding from BBC's Children In Need helping to fund arts and crafts sessions.

Tayshelice's mum Tameka Hewitt, said there was "always somebody on the phone" who could relate to what the family had been going through.

"For example, Tayshelice was really ill in January and we were at wits end and Oscar was just there," she said.

"Mentally, physically, emotionally, financially, it was just all round."

Alongside gaming, Tayshelice frequently posts videos on her YouTube channel to raise awareness of her condition.

"Having a long-term condition such as sickle cell, you have to be resilient from a very very young age and within Tayshelice you literally see that, everybody can see that," said her mentor, Aribah.

"Anybody, if you don't even know her and you meet her you will see that she's a very resilient young person and yeah we just love to build on those kind of characteristics."

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