Living for The Dance: A Survivors Story

March 30, 2011 - PRLog -- 4:30 A.M. I am going to wake up and say to myself, “ Oh God not again!” Every time I go through this I feel that I will die.  I don’t cry, but I bite my lips and pray that it will be all over soon.  Yet another painful sickle cell crisis. Can’t walk… talk… it hurt to breathe. I lay there helplessly in anger. Often I would ask myself, “Why can’t I be normal, pain free and not have to spend half my life in and out of hospitals?”


I remember the first time I was in severe pain; I would lie on my mother’s bed and rock back and forth trying to ease the pain. It seemed like eternity for my mother to come with my pain medication. I would watch my mother stand by helpless and, although she had every intention of comforting me, it was painful for me to be held or touched. She would stand there worried, as I rocked back and forth on her bed.

My name is Dima Uchendu-Hendricks and I was diagnosed with sickle cell anemia at the age of six months. Since then, I have been hospitalized more than a hundred times. I would need a calculator to figure out how many liters of blood I have had drawn. Yet, I don’t want to be pitied, my life has been wonderful and much of that is due to my love of dance.

It was 1985 and Solid Gold was one of my favorite shows on TV.  Every Saturday night I would sit in front of my black and white television set just to watch Solid Gold lead dancer Darcel Wynne dance and practically leap off the screen. To this day, I distinctly remember pointing to the screen and saying to my mother “I want to do that!” Two weeks later I was enrolled in my first dance class.  


I was determined that Sickle Cell would not stand in the way of my dreams of being a dancer.My dance instructor Leta Tavares, Director of The Uptown Dance Center in Boston was always worried about me. Especially if I attended a dance class on the same day I was discharged from the hospital, but dance offered me something the hospital couldn’t , a sense of accomplishment, a realization that I could be just as good or better at something I loved just like the “normal” people . Dance let me be happy being myself and feel proud about who I was.

Dance to me was more than an escape from reality. It became a foundation for a self- image that was more than “the sick girl”. Although there were times that I would dance through the pain. Nevertheless, I still found joy in the movement. I have been dancing for twenty-two years now and that feeling has never changed.  Now when I wake up, I think of my beautiful son Ajani , and the many other blessings that have come into my life.  In 2007 I became Miss Black Massachusetts and was awarded a scholarship to help with my education. I have been a presenter and dancer for the Urban music Awards as well as a liturgical dance performer.  I am currently a spokesperson for The Greater Boston Sickle Cell Anemia Association, and a national spokesperson for The American Stroke Association. I have met with celebrities, national sports figures, and heads of state, and it was dance that gave me the self- confidence to speak my mind and become a force for positive change.   It has been said “It is good to have an end to journey toward: but it is the journey that matters, in the end (U.LeGuin)” and my journey has just begun!

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