Makenzie has been diagnosed with a blood disorder called Idiopathic Thromboctyopenic Perpera. Hopefully by the time I learn to pronounce that horrible name, she will be all better!! "Normal" people have between 200,000-340,000 platelets in their blood. Makenzie only has 21,000 platelets in her blood. This means that her body and brain are at risk of major injury from kid bumps and tumbles. What does that mean to us??? Well for starters, we go in for blood draws many times a week. If her platelets drop more, we are admitted and start treatment- which is very scary and traumatic. If her platelets are the same, we get to go home and wait until the next blood draw. If her platelets increase, this means that her body is trying to correct this wonky mess all on it's own. So far, with all her blood draws, her count has remained about the same- small drops and small increases. There are 2 kinds of this disorder- acute- meaning it last about 6-9 months and then she justs gets better; or chronic- which means that it will never go away and we will have to start treatments. There is no way to tell which kind she has- it is a wait and see game. If she still has low platelets in 9 months, then we assume that is chronic. Her Doctor is opitmistic that she has the acute kind. I asked about giving her some of my platelets if we were compatible but, her body would just destroy them. She is making enough of them on her own but her spleen is just destroying them.
Poor Kenzie is handling this like a champ. She screams quite a bit at the blood draws, but I promise her that she can have anything she wants when we are through. First she started off small- like a fruit roll-up; now that she has caught on, she is asking for bigger things- like a puppy! What is hard is that she cannot do the things that she used to do. No bike riding, no ballet on the kitchen table, no jumping around, etc. She misses school like crazy and when she starts back, she will not be able to have recess or P.E. with the kids. She feels the same, so she doesn't understand why she can't do these things. We have been seperating her and Colson because they just can't get ahold of the no roughhousing rule. Poor Colson misses her like crazy.
We are so grateful for the friends and family we have. So many people have dropped games and activities off for Miss Kenz to help keep her busy. We all appreciate that sooooooo much. Something like this really makes you realize how lucky we are to have such wonderful people in our lives. I also can't help think about those kids that have more serious problems and how hard it must be for them to stay at the hospital for long periods of time. It amazes me how kids are so darn positive. I have been a total mess lately- crying all the time, ignoring my daily life, watching Miss kenz like a mad woman so that nobody bumps into her, waking her up just to make sure she is o.k, etc. Kenzie on the other hand just be bops around happy as can be. She tells EVERYONE we see how brave she is when she gets her blood drawn and shows them her cool bandages. The poor guy at the video counter can never figure out what to say to us. Anyhoo, we will continue to monitor her closely and let you know what is going on. Thank you to all of you who sent me emails and to those of you who sent get well wishes our way. Please continue to think positive thoughts.
I obiviously haven't picked up my camera in quite some time but here are some pictures from the last time I had the camera out.
And Uncle Beetle..............Makenzie says as soon as she gets all better, she wants you to take her down cardboard hill!!
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