Patient reflects on decades of progress in sickle cell treatment

Audrey Smith, 78, was diagnosed with sickle cell disease at a young age. She has received care at Johns Hopkins for more than 20 years. "I'm grateful for the concern and the love that they share with us all," she says. "They want us to live, and live well."

One of Audrey Patricia Smith's early defining memories of sickle cell disease was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in 1959, when she was 12 years old and visiting the ocean with family friends. Before then, Smith had not yet experienced a pain crisis.