Last year, my son Patricio suddenly started having frequent nosebleeds. His legs were covered in bruises, and he had petechiae, so we rushed him to Levine Children’s Hospital. There, we received the shocking diagnosis of ITP—his platelet count was only 5,000.

At first, he was given transfusions, but even after two they didn’t work. The doctors then tried corticosteroids, but every time the treatment stopped, the bleeding would come back. After a couple of very hard months, he was finally started on eltrombopag. Thanks to this treatment, Patricio has regained his strength and is now back to playing baseball and living a regular, happy life.

He gets a CBC once a month because his platelets have stabilized around a normal levels of 190,000 which has allowed him to continue to play baseball! My son's training schedule is all week and even sometimes even twice, and has played at least 3 games as a catcher! I make sure to send all the information to the nurse of the school and the coaches at the begining of the year and me and my husband love to watch all his games!!!

As you can see Patricio has a normal life, and I’m so happy about it!! But most important, HE is so happy AND his last platelet count was 266,000!

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