A little health update

It's been a while since I've talked about my health.

I mentioned before that I decided to try a new treatment for my ITP. It was more aggressive. It is a drug called Rituxan. It is actually a "chemotherapy" treatment they use for people with non-hodgkins lymphoma.

It took me a few months to wrap my head around agreeing to allow something that strong to go into my body. I mean it was like I would be willingly putting that into my body when I really didn't HAVE to. It wasn't life or death. It is a treatment that some people respond to and some people don't. It was an expensive gamble. But I had been on Prednisone for nearly a year and it was really starting to have major side effects on me. It was time to try something that might be a long-term fix.

So for every Friday in the month of January I went to the cancer clinic/infusion center to get a 3.5 hour long IV. At first it was really intimidating because I was with people who had more serious health problems than me (A lady in the clinic totally broke down in front of me because she was starting her second round of Chemo for her cancer).

But mostly I just sat in a room with other people getting IV's themselves. I would surf the internet for the first hour and then slept once I couldn't keep my eyes open. They put the Rituxan with Benadryl. I don't know why, probably to relax you, but man that stuff knocked me out. This is not your over the counter stuff. I would sleep like the rest of the day. Like literally couldn't keep my eyes open! So the actual day of the infusion I would be knocked out, but after that I felt fine. I really have felt no other side effects! I was scared to even try it because I had no idea how I would respond to it.

The week after the first infusion, my platelets barely even moved. I was nervous but was optimistic that it would work. Week after week they steadily went higher. I had even went  into the Urgent Care on a Sunday morning while I was super sick, because I had gotten multiple nose bleeds. The doctor checked my platelets and they were 180,000. Phew.

Two weeks ago I went to get my blood drawn and they were 260,000! I never remember them being that high, ever! I went in this past week and they were 230,000! I don't have to go back for blood work for 6 weeks!

That is huge! I feel so blessed. I don't want to speak too soon, but I'm hoping this was the answer I was looking for and that my platelets stabilize at this level for a long-period of time. I know this won't be permanent, but this will help me be able to focus on other things in my life.