GEORGETOWN, SC (WBTW) Tymia McCullough starting doing pageants when she was six years old. She says she had so much fun in the first one that she wanted to continue competing.
“I had to do formal wear, eight interviews and personal introduction,” McCullough said.
Her million dollar smile flashes perfectly as she dances to the beat of Elvis’s “Devil in Disguise”. It’s part of the performance that won her the current title
Hidden beneath this nine year old’s captivating personality is her own devil in disguise. She battles sickle cell anemia, a blood disorder that causes red blood cells to become abnormally shaped, die early and cause a shortage in her body. The misshapen cells get stuck when traveling through small blood vessels causing pain or other serious problems
“To see a nine year old child go through what she goes through, almost losing her at one year old, it hurts,” Tymia’s mother Susie Pitts said. “I cry but I try not to be strong for her.”
This young Georgetown girl has been hospitalized 35 times over the last nine years and received 31 different blood transfusions. Her mother says it’s because of people she has never met that her daughter is alive today.
“I thank you from the depths of my heart and soul I truly thank you,” Pitts said of the people who give blood. “A little bit of their time, a little bit of their blood compared to how much the body makes it give my daughter life. It gives her a chance to enjoy some of the things that she’s able to do.”
Tymia says she wants to show other kids that no matter what life throws at you, you can still achieve anything.
“I wouldn’t be here right now if people wouldn’t give blood,” McCullough said.
Donors can give blood this Thursday from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. at HealthFinders in the Coastal Grand Mall in Myrtle Beach and near Belk inside Magnolia Mall in Florence.
Blood donors of all types are needed but especially those with types A-B, O negative, A negative and B negative.
