Some Laughs and Lessons at Camp Sickle Cell

Under towering live oaks and sycamores, on a ranch tucked away in the Santa Ana Mountains, 105 youngsters sing campfire songs, cook hot dogs and talk of life expectancy.

The children, at the oldest camp for sickle cell anemia patients in the country, have heard the odds--many die of the disease in childhood.

But Wednesday, KNBC-TV weatherman Christopher Nance, 41, who has the illness, told the campers to make their own odds, the way he did. At the age of 5, he heard his doctor tell his mother that sickle cell anemia would kill him before he reached his teens.

“I figured, ‘Gee, I’m not going to live very long,’ ” Nance told the campers. “ ‘I’m not going to study in school, I’m not going to play with my friends, I’m not going to do anything I don’t want to do.’ ”

But he realized he had the choice to fight for his health.

“If you have faith in the man upstairs, and you have the desire to take care of yourself, you can live as healthy a life as almost anyone else,” he said.

The campers, ages 7 to 14, listened quietly in an outdoor amphitheater, with a sleepy creek trickling behind them.

At Sickle Cell Summer Camp, children hike, swim and make crafts, but they also go to classes on hemoglobin, take frequent rest breaks and always carry water bottles with them.

Sickle cell anemia is an inherited disease caused by abnormal hemoglobin in red blood cells that results in chronic and severe anemia. It primarily affects African Americans.

The 28-year-old camp is sponsored by the nonprofit Sickle Cell Disease Research Foundation in Los Angeles, the first of its kind in the country and the only one in the West.

The camp was established in San Juan Capistrano, far enough from the city to feel like camp but not at a high elevation, which can cause problems for people with sickle cell disease, said Executive Director Mary E. Brown.

There is no cure for the illness, but it can be controlled with preventive health care measures such as proper diet, rest and drinking plenty of fluids. Patients can have long periods of illness, extreme fatigue and severe pain.

As a child, Nance said, he knew nothing of the disease that the doctor said would kill him.

“These kids know more about sickle cell disease than I did when I was two or three times their age,” said Nance.

He told the campers about the rigorous schedule he keeps to be at work for the 5:30 a.m. news: Bed at 5 p.m., up at 1 a.m., at his desk by 3 a.m. to prepare for his weather report.

Afterward, campers said they could not believe a TV celebrity has the same illness that they do.

Charles McLemore, 14, said he felt less alone after hearing Nance’s impassioned speech.

“It made me happy,” said Charles, who wore a backward baseball cap and baggy jeans. “I forgot about the pain a little. Someday, I hope I can reach his age and be successful like him and come back and tell the kids about my life.”

LaBrent Harvey, 14, said he wants to take better care of himself, the way Nance does. Sometimes, he just wants to be a kid and stay up until midnight, talking with friends. He couldn’t believe Nance’s schedule.

“Whoa, it shocked me to have a job like that and waking up early,” said LaBrent, of Fresno. “How could he have a job like that and [have sickle cell]?”

And LaBrent said he was relieved to hear that numbers don’t always tell the story.

When he was 8, he said, his doctor said he would be dead by 12.