Good Day, Bad Day.....

So my stepdad, Bob, found out yesterday that his bone marrow is producing more cells so they do not have to do a bone marrow transplant immediately. He just has to monitor his transfusions, blood levels and such until next month's appointment at Vanderbilt. Great News! Except for one of the medicines that he is on in the meantime is making him very ill with nausea, fatigue, and generally feeling pretty crappy. Despite the good news, he is still sick.

I have not talked at all about Bob's illness on my blog since it began in June. I felt it was a family issue that deserved privacy and delicacy. However, I have realized over the last two years that my blog reaches many people and many of those people lovingly pray for things I talk about, even I do not ask them too. Therefore, I have decided to share about this....in order to optimize the prayers for Bob. You can never have too many prayers, right?

After MANY tests, he was diagnosed with idiopathic aplastic anemia. In my medical textbook, Williams' Hematology aplastic anemia is defined as:
"a clinical syndrome that results from marked diminution of marrow blood cell production. The decreased production results in reticulocytopenia, anemia, granulocytopenia, monocytopenia, and thrombocytopenia. Severe aplastic anemia is defined as pancytopenia accompanied by a markedly hypocellular marrow and two of the following three features: (1) a corrected reticulocyte count less than 1 percent, (2) fewer than 500/l granulocytes, or (3) fewer than 20,000/l platelets."
What all of that boils down to is that his bone marrow is not working. The bone marrow is responsible for making your white blood cells (infection fighters), platelets (make clots and prevent bleeding), and red blood cells (do many things but mainly affect hemoglobin which affects energy and everything in your body). So as you can guess, with aplastic anemia, you can get very sick from minor illness like the flu because you have no/little white cells, you can bleed/bruise easily from minor injuries (razor cuts), and you have no energy. Most case have no known cause. There is limited treatment. Basically, you have to do multiple platelet and red blood cell transfusion and take shots that boost your white count. In the meantime, you can try a treatment called ATG (horse or rabbit serum) that is complicated and is the first line. Next, you monitor the bone marrow (like they are doing with Bob) and see how it responds to the ATG. The last line is a bone marrow transplant. So for right now, they are just monitoring Bob's blood levels and bone marrow to determine if and when he may need a bone marrow transplant.

I just wanted to let everyone know so that prayers can be offered up on his behalf and ones for my mom to remain strong through this. It is emotionally and physically draining for both of them.

Additionally, my sister, Gretchen, has had two seizures this week, one Monday in class and one today before leaving for class. She is at the doctor now to see how he wants to adjust her medications and where to go from here. I hate that she has to deal with this while working and going to school and trying to lead a normal life. It just seems so unfair sometimes. Yet that is the nature of life I guess. I have to remember on days when I begin feeling insecure, feeling ugly or fat or inadequate in many ways, that at least I have my health and have been fortunate thus far. It is all about perspective when it comes down to it.

Well, I guess I am going to go study. I have a peds test and think I should probably not wait until the night before! Have a great day.
~nat