I kept complaining to my husband but I don't believe he really understood how bad I felt. Anyway, towards the end of 6/2000 I started feeling extremely tired and a lot of bruises started showing up. On 7/9/2000 I got really sick and started throwing up, which continued throughout the rest of the week. At this time my husband made me go to the doctor to see what was wrong. I truthfully believed I was pregnant! 

On 7/14 I had a CBC done, along with several other tests, the nurse was immediately alerted at my resting heartbeat of 137 beats per minute, my heart literally felt as though it was going to leap out of my chest! After my doctor appointment I went straight home. My doctor personally called me not even an hour later and told me that due to my test results I needed to come down and be admitted into the hospital immediately. I was admitted into the cancer ward with a Hemoglobin of 2.9, a white cell count of .7 and a platelet count of 6000. 

I had nurses come in my room just to see me because I was the only one they'd ever seen with such a low blood count that was still walking! Initially they thought I might have leukemia but after researching a bit the thought of aplastic anemia came up. My doctor referred me to a hematologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, MO. After receiving 5 blood transfusions along w/several platelets, I went up to St. Louis there they believed indeed that I did have Aplastic Anemia. I am an only child so a perfect match from a sibling was not an option. I went ahead and started the ATG/Prednisone/Cyclosporine treatments and seemed to respond well. 

After I came home from those treatments, though I had to stay a few extra days due to reactions, I felt a lot better than I had just 2 weeks earlier. I maintained my blood transfusions and platelet pheresis along with neupogen, and procrit shots almost every day. Due to a miracle from God, I have not needed a transfusion since mid September of 2000. I still am on high doses of Cyclosporin which seem to be doing a pretty good job on their own. My doctor has recently started to very slowly start reducing my doses, however, I have just experienced a substantial drop in my counts which might change his mind on wether to maintain the reduction of medication. He has mentioned harvesting my bone marrow cells and freezing them, in the event I go into a sudden relapse and need a transplant. 

This is something that I am still in the process of finding more information on. Currently by the grace of God, I am maintaining on most days, count of Platelets-156,000..Hemoglobin 12.0...and white cell of 4.4. Up until now it has been a roller coaster of emotions, now I am finding out there are several out there with this disease and am not as alone as I thought I was. It scares me, because my husband and I are wanting to start having children within the next few years, and I just don't know how this disease will affect that. Thank you for listening I have needed to get all of this out and talk to people who really do understand this disease. I look forward to hearing from you.

 Love, Tamra Powers