Well darn!

Hello!
Ready for a platelet update?

Well, guess what? I went back to Mayo today, and got some blood drawn.
Sadly, the unit of platelets didn't stick! Darn! Thankfully, there are lots of great blood doctors at Mayo, so I went to visit them this afternoon.

It turns out that something mysterious has caused my immune system to go a little wacky and start producing antibodies that are eating my platelets! WEIRD! So the antibodies ate up all those lovely little platelets that I got at the hospital yesterday. They said there was no need to give me new platelets today because my body would just eat them up.

So instead, I get to take lots of steroids! Watch out! One of the side effects is crankiness! Eeeeek. I hope I won't be Cranky Pastor Emily. The steroids' job is to make my immune system be quiet. Then, after the immune system is quiet, the platelets can grow again.

Then, on Friday I will go back and they will check my blood and my platelets.
Hopefully my platelets will have grown, grown, grown.
If not, then they will come up with a new plan. There are still lots more ideas for what they can do if this doesn't work. So, no need to fear.

Also, I feel really healthy and have felt healthy all along. No symptoms other than the bruises, and they just make me look really tough anyway.

In the meantime, I just need to be careful and avoid contact sports, scissors, razors, and any other situation that could lead to blood. I also need to be careful when flossing, brushing my teeth, and shaving. Since I don't have much of a way to clot my blood (without the platelets), I need to avoid getting hurt. I don't really use scissors that much anyway! So no problem there. :)

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers.
I'm trying to laugh a lot.

Someday I will write a funny memoir. It will be titled:
Blood: How I lost my platelets and found myself.

Dramatic, eh?

Have a good night! You might want to say a special thank you to your platelets before bed! Who knew they were so important!