A 17-year-old senior at Cardinal Hayes High School, who hit major obstacles during his four years at school, perseveres despite the life challenges he's faced at such a young age.

Elijah Mike is a senior at Cardinal Hayes High School and recipient of the Inner-city Scholarship Fund, and has battled sickle cell disease from birth.

"Sickle cell is not an easy thing to deal with at all," he says. "There's been times where sickle cell has made me miss school. Or even when I was hospitalized back in January, I couldn't come to school the week before midterms."

Despite battling this life-threatening disease, Mike says he's gotten into most of the colleges he's applied to, especially his first choice, the Sophie Davis Biomedical Education program at the CUNY School of Medicine to pursue a seven-year bachelors/medical degree program.

"I grew up in hospitals since I was little because of sickle cell and was always served so instead of always being served, I want to be the one to serve," Mike adds.

He says he is up for the challenging seven years ahead of him which will allow him to receive his bachelor's in science in three years and medical doctor's license in four.

Mike says he will be the first child on his immediate family to go into the medical field and says he will not let this disease define him.