Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Background of my situation

          I wanted to start this blog to help the my friends family understand my illness and my treatments. So I will start with some background information. 
          We will go back and start with when I was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia. When I was sixteen and in high school I went to the doctor for an unrelated problem. They decided to do a blood test to check for infection. My blood counts were so low that the doctors thought the machine was broken. So they tried again and my counts still came up low. So, they wanted to try one more time to make sure that it was me and not mechanical error. Well sure enough it was me!! So they sent my to the hospital and they did a test called a Bone Marrow Biopsy. To perform this test they have to go into the hip bone and aspirate some bone marrow to test and check for and abnormalities and other problems. just and FYI if anyone else has to go through that procedure just remember the doctors lie it does hurt way worse than the dentist!! They concluded that I did have aplastic anemia. Which basically means that my blood does not make enough blood cells as a normal person does. So things they worry about with this diagnosis is number one bleeding or excessive bruising. Also a big worry is infection and the possibilities of catch a secondary problem like a cold or flu or pneumonia. Up until just recently I haven't been at critical levels where they had to intervene and do something to fight it. I have always had a lack of energy which turns out to be a side effect of this problem. I was just thought that it was my normal to have low counts and it would all be ok. 
       So now to explain what is going now. About six moths ago I had an abnormal period where I bleed excessively. Well that was from two different problems. First was my blood problem, second was that I have a fibroid tumor in my uterus. At the point they did a blood transfusion to give me back what I had lost. At that point I did fine until about the last two months. I had some more excessive bleeding so I was put in the hospital and received another transfusion and some platelets. They kept monitoring my counts and they kept dropping so so after another platelet infusion and another blood and platelet infusion the doctors wanted to do another Bone marrow biopsy. Again the doctor lied it hurt  like crazy!! They found that yes I still had aplastic anemia. Luckily I didn't have any cancer cells or abnormalities. Thank goodness it hadn't gotten worse in the past fifteen years. At this point the doctors, my family and myself have decided to do a drug treatment called anti-thymocyte globulin and cyclosporin most of the time is shortened to AGT with cyclosporin.Basically how it works is it attacks my T-cells and creates an environment for new good cells to grow up in. I started the treatment on Monday and they do the treatment for four days. Most of the time the side effects are flu like symptoms, achy bones and joints and rashes. each day of my treatment I will update my blog and let everyone know what is going on! 

No comments:

Post a Comment