PICS: T-BOZ ATTENDS THE 2008 SICKLE CELL DISEASE JAZZ EVENT WITH BOYFRIEND TAKEO SPIKES.

Below you'll find pictures of TLC's Tionne 'T-Boz' Watkins at the 2008 Sickle Cell Disease Jazz Event at the Hilton Philadelphia City Avenue on Saturday, June 14, 2008, with her boyfriend of 4 years, NFL ball player, Takeo Spikes (he's the biggest dude in the pictures below!). The Jazz Event is the primary and largest fund-raising event hosted by the Community Advocacy Committee, a volunteer group focused on raising awareness and monetary support for the Sickle Cell Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. For those of you who don't know, T-Boz not only suffers from the disease, she's also the national spokeswoman for the Sickle Cell Disease Association. In 1996, the 38-year-old singer went public with her disease. She's made her biggest impact as a spokeswoman for the association. She has beaten the odds that are set against about 75,000 African Americans with deadly sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder that causes red blood cells to become sickle-shaped, making it difficult for them to pass through blood vessels. She wasn't supposed to live past her 20s, let alone sing and dance her way to stardom with TLC before giving birth to her baby girl Chase at 30. She says her optimism and faith in God have, fortunately, kept her free of strokes and blood transfusions.

To minimize frequent pain episodes, Watkins says she uses daily doses of folic acid, natural vitamins, a 45-minute treadmill walk, a positive attitude and a prayer. "That's the best medicine for me," she says. "I was put here for a reason. And God covered me. I was told that I'd be on disability my whole life. But everything I ever wanted to do, I did. I'm all for taking over the disease instead of letting it take care of me. I don't sit around and wait to be sick. I tell all my 'patients' to get up and be happy when they're pain-free. They used to say that sickle-cell patients don't last past their 30s. But, hello, that's been proven to not be true!"

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About 10% of sickle-cell patients have strokes by the age of 20; blood transfusions tend to be the treatment. As a carrier of the blood disorder and spokeswoman for the SCDAA, Watkins encourages people, especially African Americans, to donate blood. "We need more blacks to give blacks blood because ... we need each other." (Black sickle cell patients may be less likely to have a reaction to blood from an African-American donor.) To stress this point, she has supported minority recruitment activities with the Red Cross.