Morning

I have been told I get to go home today around 10. The blood specialist came in this morning her name was Dr. Jordan and she was wonderful. Honestly, just a great doctor. She sat down and started asking me all kinds of questions. One of which was asking if I had battled a major virus in the past few years. I answered no and then of course after she was gone I remember my black widow bite. Anyway, she had reviewed all of my test results and looked at the small red dots I have on my skin. She stated she is really leaning towards ITP. What is ITP? :

A: ITP is an autoimmune disease. In autoimmune diseases the body mounts an immune attack toward one or more seemingly normal organ systems. In ITP, platelets are the target. They are marked as foreign and eliminated in the spleen or sometimes, the liver. Because this process removes platelets from circulation, people with ITP have a low platelet count or thrombocytopenia.

She said this could very well be the root of all my issues. My platelets dropped to 78,000 today so there was another decrease. According to her even though it's still a decent range it's lower than they are comfortable with. Also according to her Baylor doesn't like allowing surgeries for anyone with under 80,000 platelets. She said the average persons run 150,000-400,000. I asked her what her thoughts were on this passing to Jude. She states she believes it's a very slim chance unless my platelets get down to 10,000. So the plan is to send me home on steroids to bring them back up. I will go back into her office next week to have another CBC. If they have dropped again then I might have to do shots and IV's each day. Regardless right before the 36 week mark they will start me on additional medicine to see if they can get me high enough for an epidural. I know I can do the labor natural, but I guess it helps them if I have one in case of emergency c section. A precaution I guess because of my issues. Anyway, that was my understanding of everything. whew! What a mess this all is. I had someone tell me they had never seen someone have so many issues when having a baby. The ITP sounds horrible but on one hand I am relieved that we may have found the cause of all this. Now her diagnosis could change but she is pretty sure. So Jude has been labeled "a beautiful baby" on the hospitals strips which is their way of saying his heart looks perfect. So as long as he stays ok then we will make it. I have just been scolded by a nurse and told when you go home "NO cooking, cleaning, working (except by computer in bed) you do EXACTLY what you have done here!!" Ok, so I guess Mike will be a bit tired in the next few weeks. It's amazing how one person being down and out can affect so many others. I miss my work, my friends, and my family. It is very difficult for me to let go of my work and wash my hands of it for a bit. I am so used to identifying myself through it I guess. It's just me and what I do. Well thank you for the sweet emails everyone and Luane you crack me up! Have a great day! Soon this blog will hopefully be filled with pictures of a smiling baby!