Hi there, my name is Davenna Love and I am 15 years old. I was diagnosed with ITP June 6, 2012. Before I was diagnosed, I was a stubborn brat that was running around getting into trouble. I never thought about my health or anything, I was just so careless about things. Then one day, I was breaking out in hives, it was terrible! I took Benadryl and it calmed down, when I woke up from the nap the Benadryl gave me, I notice these little red and purple spots on the areas where I had the hives. I told everyone about them, I told my mom and dad, my friends, everyone. I also had a real heavy period and I was on birth control. I was really starting to get curious because the spots were spreading, I had nose bleeds in my sleep, my period was lasting for months, and I'd get huge bruises that I don't remember getting. So, I started doing my own research for a while and I thought I had blood cancer. Then, I finally went to the doctors but they only checked my blood for anemia so I just thought I was ok.
After a couple months, I just ignored the spots and such until I caught a terrible headache that wasn't curing with aspirin. I also noticed that my urine what brown, it looked like tea. That's when my parents took me to the ER, as I was waiting in the waiting room I started throwing up a lot and I felt myself somewhat disappearing. There they also gave me morpheme to ease the headache. Next thing i know, I wake in a hospital in San Fransisco days later! I had a big cut on top of my ribs, I was really yellow and I couldn't remember anything. My parents and nurses tried to spark my memory, they said I had bleeding in brain, I had 4 surgeries, my spleen was gone, one of my lungs was filled with fluids, i had absolutely no platelets, and I have aggressive ITP. I didn't know what to think, I had no idea what platelets were and I was just really scared. I ended up staying in the hospital for the rest of June. The doctors and nurses kept telling me what a miracle I was. Unfortunately, I had to do the immune suppressive therapy while I was there, it made my hair fall out, made food taste like soap, and it made me nauseous all the time.
Thankfully, now my counts are of some what staying stable in the 400-500 range, my hair is growing back, I only have to take penicillin and the Romiplostim injection (NPLATE, it doesn't have very bad side effects.)
Everything is going good now, but I come to the forum because I don't have any of my friends support. My family is real supprotive, but they can't relate. My friends are all too busy with school and my own 14 year old sister isn't helping either. I'd like to get some support and give support.
P.s. I can't go to school either so pretty much I have no social life
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