How I feel / What it's like living with this disorder.

This condition is a strange one  as there are several different aspects that affect my daily life.  First things first, I don't feel sick or ill. Being aplastic anemic means I'm exceptionally low on blood cells (red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets).  Red blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the muscles in the body, white blood cells prevent infections and fight disease, and platelets stop bleeding and prevent excessive bleeding.  Living with this condition means: fatigue, reduced ability to fight infections and an increased risk of bleeding.  None of those symptoms necessarily equate to me feeling bad.  That's probably the strangest thing about this particular disorder.  I feel relatively normal, especially because I was in relatively good (who are we kidding...) excellent (closer), bullet proof tiger shape.

As a result my day to day life is only affected by the precautions I must take to ensure that I do not become sick.  These precautions include, but aren't limited to: washing my hands 10+ times per day, wearing a mask in public, avoiding touching door handles, not smelling flowers, not eating raw foods of any kind (fruits, veggies, greens), avoiding people in general, not making out with women (a sad day for the greater sex).  The tough part about the day to day is feeling like an isolated shut-in.  I realize it's temporary, but these are the things that I struggle with more than any physical illness.

I will make it through this because of the wonderful support, love and attention provided by my friends and family.

My Story

A little background about myself and how this all came to be.  I've been a relatively healthy guy for my entire life.  I typically got sick about once every year and  half or so.  In 2009, while I was with Kaiser Permanente, I went in to get some routine blood work done for a physical. My platelet count came back a little on the low side of the normal range (140).  The Dr mentioned this but told me it was nothing to worry about, so I really thought nothing of it.

Fast forward 1 year later.  It's thanksgiving of 2010 and I get more routine blood work done.  My platelet count came back very low (50).  The Dr's wanted to do a bone marrow biopsy  in order to see if anything was wrong with the major component  of blood creation within my body.  If you haven't had a bone marrow biopsy, a large needle is inserted into your back, while you lay on your stomach.  Through this needle they extract bone marrow and a small piece of bone.  At that point, it was believed I could have a form of leukemia, lymphoma, or some other sort of scary blood disease.  I had the biopsy done in January of 2011 and it came back as negative for any sort of blood cancer.  No irregular cells were found. Phew!! I can go back to living a normal life, or so I thought...

In April of 2011, I began to find it increasingly more difficult to complete my boxing and muay thai classes.  It was a very strange feeling.  I didn't feel winded, but I did experience muscle fatigue.  It was almost as if the oxygen  wasn't getting to my muscles.  I could feel lactic acid build up in the my muscles after a relatively small amount of exercise.  I didn't think much of it, until two weeks later, when I experienced a blurred spot, in the center of my field of vision, in my right eye.  Shortly after that, I experienced a smaller blurred spot in my left eye.  At that point, I got really scared, but luckily I had an appointment the next day with a retinal specialist.

I went to the Retinal specialist the following day and they found that I had significant bleeding in both retinas.  I was experiencing blurred vision because some fairly significant pools of blood had formed in my eyes and were affecting my ability to see clearly.  The million dollar question then became, "What is causing the bleeding?"  I was referred to a general physician the very same day.  I was examined head to toe by a very good general practitioner who then referred me to the Alta Bates Hospital Emergency Room for blood work.  He mentioned that was the only place that could get the work done and turned around the same day.  I went to the emergency room and had my blood tested.  Once the results came back I was admitted immediately.  For anyone familiar with CBC blood count numbers, my hemoglobin was a 3.2, my WBC count was around 2, and my platelet count was 5.  My room was flooded with ER nurses who wanted to see the guy who actually walked in with those numbers.  I was almost walking dead at that point.  After I was admitted and checked for spontaneous hemorrhages I was immediately given a blood transfusion (4 units of Red Blood Cells and 1 Unit of Platelets).  I was given 2 more units of Red Blood Cells the following day and another unit of platelets the following day and 1 additional unit of Red Blood Cells the following day.

I spent a week in the hospital having various tests done with an additional bone marrow biopsy for good measure.  Luckily, to this point they have not found any malignant cells, the problem is there weren't many cells at all.  I was diagnosed with Severe borderline Very Severe Aplastic Anemia.  The term Aplastic Anemia means "failure of the bone marrow".  Many things can cause it, but it's very rare for an exact reason to be determined.  70% of cases are a result of the immune system becoming confused  and attacking the bone marrow stem cells that create blood and inhibiting those cells from creating blood.  I currently am at about 5% of the blood production of a normal human being.  Lucky for me, I'm in great shape and the body can adapt and run on less blood than would be found in an ideal situation.  Score one for Bryant.