ITP

Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura
Translated in parts as "we don't know why" "blood platelets" "with bruising" This is what we now know that Ally has. It came upon her quickly. On Monday when we came home from Florida the pictures I took show that she had no bruising. By Wednesday night she had so many we called the doctor. Some were swollen big and hard from the pooled blood underneath. We probably didn't explain the situation with enough severity to the doctor, focusing on the hard swollen bruises which they said would go down with time. By Thursday we were afraid to take her out of the house. Some of the parents at Paige's soccer practice asked if we'd had her blood tested and we just went into full on panic. Not sure if bruises were an emergency or if they'd say that we should have just gone to our doctor's office in the morning, we finally decided that we were willing to pay the copay for our peace of mind. So we dropped the 2 older kids off with Chris' parents and headed for Johnson Memorial since it was the closest and we figured they were less likely than a city hospital to report us for abuse. They took one look at her and sent us to Children's Hospital in Hartford.

At Children's they examined her, took some blood and after a few nerve wracking hours determined that she has ITP. The hematologist explained that sometimes after a child has a cold or virus their immune system gets all out of whack and starts viewing the blood platelets as a foreign substance and attacks and destroys them. A normal platelet count is 350,000. Ally's was less than 5,000 and that's just as small as their machine could count. The level that constitutes an emergency is lower than 10,000 so things were pretty scary. At that level the body basically can't clot so any cut might not heal and the real fear was a bump on the head that would cause an intracranial bleed. He also said that there is growing evidence to suggest that the MMR vaccine might also cause this. And Ally just had hers on April 9th. Since it is a live measles vaccine the body starts to fight it off and then goes nuts fighting itself. So when the time comes she won't be able to have her booster shot. Most likely she's already immunized from the first time and since everyone else is there is virtually no place in this country to get the measles. If she had the booster her ITP could come back.

So we were admitted to a room and she was given a drug in her IV and monitored for reaction. The drug was not without it's own side effects. There was fear of kidney failure among other things. But she seems to be doing fine. It is the same type of drug given to mothers with an RH incompatiblity in pregnancy. How it works is that the red blood cells (which she has plenty of) give themselves up as decoys to the immune system so the platlets have a chance to grow in numbers. It should work for 30 days and by then her body should be able to take care of itself. But her platelet count might not be back to normal for 6 months.

We left the hospital around 3pm on Friday. Ally had her platelets checked on Saturday and they had risen to 25,000! So she's getting better and has had no more bruising. They expect the platelets to rise and fall as they gradually increase so she'll have to have her blood taken and tested probably weekly for 3 months. At least we're off to a good start.

Detective Taggart is That You?

You bet it is!
Dad met up with John Ashton at a golf tournament at the course next to where he lives and then we all met him for beers. Very cool! Lots of stories and memories of the guys as juvenile delinquents stealing cars and getting into trouble. Also he took out my mom and said he could see from the resemblance that I was her daughter. Very cool. More stories when I see you all in person.

And we're off!

Headed to lovely Estero Florida in a few hours. Packing the car, getting the snacks and surprises ready. So exciting! Can't wait!!