Doctor Feelgood
Administrator
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 Posted: Thu, 05 Jul 2007 08:37:24 Post Subject: |
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I guess he is serious... 
I'm not much of a "sharer" and I don't want to thread-jack, but this is all stuff only a handful of people on here know and it seems appropriate to let it out now. Where to begin?
I became sick right at Christmas of last year, and it wasn't clear what was going on at first... People were throwing out all sort sof cancers, etc, but none were right. I have something you may have never heard of called Aplastic Anemia. Basically means the bone marrow died. The key thing the Doctors stressed is how susceptible I was to serious injury, infection, exhuastion, etc since I had about zero platelets, red blood, hemoglobin, white blood in my system.
Although the immediate chanced of survival were low, they have risen to levels which I still don't find acceptable.
This week marks the six month mark of knowing what is wrong with me, which is pretty big according to the doctors, and summed up nicely (maybe not so nicely) on Wikipedia...
| Quote: | Untreated aplastic anemia is an illness that leads to rapid death, typically within six months. If the disease is diagnosed correctly and initial treatment is begun promptly, then the survival rate for the next five to ten years is substantially improved, and many patients live well beyond that length of time.
While there are no reliable "cures" available for this disease, aplastic anemia can often be managed quite effectively through ongoing treatments. |
I have been on disability since January 19, been stuck with more needles than I can ever imagine (I used to black out from blood tests I had such fear of needles), been pumped full of more transfusions and infusion than I can count, and spent so much time in hospitals that sometimes it seems that the doctors and nurses are my friends.
So, I survived the first 6 months... Now on to the next stage. My initial treatment was conducted in Bethesda MD at the National Institutes of Health (9 days in early February), and the 6 month mark of that is what determines my future. I'm better than I was then, but not good... August is when they tell me whether they want to try another drug, let me fend for myself, or go straight to a bone marrow transplant (which is only anything but fun, but not a sure thing, and has a tremendously long recovery time).
Anyway... I may not be the best cheerleader for taking care of yourself, but I now realize you have to get checked, and you have to try your hardest to get treatment. It might be painful, but its for you and every one else around you!
In addition to that happy little tale... My Mother wound up getting an infection on a trip to the Caribbean last fall... Came back to the states the weekend of Thanksgiving, and didn't get out of the hospital for 4 months, a good part of that time spent in a coma. So, she fights through months of misery and recovery and finally gets out of the hospital in March, just in time to see her first grand daughter born. So, she is out of the hopsital for that recovering for a few weeks and she finds out that she has cancer. Her chemo starts today, surgery to be scheduled! |
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