Scrap Girls Digital Scrapbooking Forum: lorac - Viewing Profile - Scrap Girls Digital Scrapbooking Forum

First, thank you all for your prayers and wonderful words of comfort while I recover from my ordeal.

I have several requests for prayers for friends and family and decided to put them all in one posting.

1)My cousin Filomena has breast cancer. They got all of it, and took some nodes as well. She starts her 'chemo' next week.

2)My friend Rick's brother had a tumor removed from his brain. Unfortunately they couldn't get it all as it is inoperable. Doesn't sound good, so he needs some prayers.

3)My cousin Denise is still coping with her Lymphoma and is in need of prayers also. She is doing okay, but she has her days.

4)My cousin Ginny has been having lots of problems with kidney stones. She is in extreme pain right now while they work their magic on her.


Thank you for your prayers for my cousins and friend. I know how 'magical' and 'powerful' those prayers are.

First, I want to thank everyone for the prayers and good wishes while I've been going through this health crisis.

Last Thursday I went in for my Endoscopic Ultrasound and biopsy of my lymphnodes in the stomach. My spleen has been enlarged and my platelets have been dropping. Those results came back and there is no lymphoma in the nodes. Great news!

So while I was waiting to be taken into the procedure room I was 'relaxing' on the gurney and I noticed these little reddish/brown spots on my hand and a black and blue. Didn't think anything of it and didn't say anything to the doctor. I thought I just had a new 'beauty mark' pop up. I go in for the procedure and all goes well with that. I get home and I notice that I now have these long scratch marks on my upper left arm. Doctor calls and I tell him. He says that I probably scratched myself during the procedure.

Friday morning I wake up and now I have lots and lots of little reddish/brown spots all over my hands, my arms, my legs, etc., and a few scratch marks on my back. Called the doctor and he told me to get over to my Primary. She was out of the office so her nurse, bless her, got me an appointment with a dermatologist, the only opening he had that day for 11am. My friend drove me over, as I was feeling kind of 'loopy' and I didn't want to take any chances by driving. He looked me over sent me down for some blood work, as it didn't look like an allergic reaction and when he heard that my platelets were low off I went to the lab. Two hours later the results are back in and my platelets are 'dangerously' low at 2,000. Normal is 70,000 and over. The physician, Dr. Hashem who performed the procedure on Thursday was looking for me and we finally caught up with each other. He said for me to get over the the ER right away. My platelets were so low that I could be bleeding elsewhere in my body. That's what those little reddish/brown spots were: blood. So off I go with my friend to White Plains Hospital, a fabulous hospital.

Get to the ER, more blood work, fluids etc. Get admitted into the hospital, finally around 7pm or so. Get set up with IV, platelets, fluids, etc. Dr. Hashem comes by and says that from he could see from the results, so far, from the procedure is that I have ITP and it doesn't look like lymphoma (which it isn't). ITP is an Auto Immune disease that they don't know how people get it, but they know how to cure it. Thank goodness for that. My sugar spiked to about 465 so I was put on Insulin 3xs a day and added an extra diabetes pill to my Metformin. Had about two bags of platelets and some globulin iv'd. Platelets went up to 38,000 and sugar was down to 294 when I was released. I'm now on about six different drugs. Don't know how long I'll have to take them, but I'll be monitored over the coming months to keep my platelets in check. I checked my sugar this morning and it was down to 209. Still high, but better than over 400.

So I'm in the hospital from Friday night until I was released yesterday, Monday afternoon. Great hospital and the nursing staff was wonderful. One of the nurses sat up with me one morning from around 3am until about 5am just talking to me. It had all come crashing down on me at that time. They had come to take my final blood draw and I was so stressed at that moment that I couldn't contain the tears. She passed by and saw that I was upset and so she sat with me for over 2 hours. What an Angel she is.

I have an appointment with my Oncologist this afternoon and he will tell me more. So for now, that's it. Thank you all again for all of your prayers and good wishes. Please keep them coming, as I still need them. Will post again later, after I see the doctor.

Love you all!

Tomorrow I'm heading to the hospital for my Endoscopy. Samples of the 'suspicious' lymph nodes will be taken and a biopsy performed. Another sample will be taken and sent to the Lab for further study. If all goes well, I will find out tomorrow after the test if the nodes are malignant or benign. If malignant, then the options are either chemo or radiation. If benign, I will be as happy as my cats sleeping on my bed right now.

Hopefully they will have an answer for me tomorrow as to why the spleen is enlarged and my platelets are dropping.

Prayers would be appreciated very much.

I know that this question has nothing to do with Scrap Girls, but I don't know where else to turn. I know that just about everyone is a Facebooker. I just rejoined Facebook and I'm getting friend requests from people that I don't know. I've already unfriended two guys. I've tried to look in their help section, but it's so confusing I can't figure out how to receive a friend request before I'm friended.

I only rejoined because I wanted to find a couple of people that I haven't heard from in a long time. If I can't receive friend requests before I'm friended, then I'm going to leave the site again. Can anyone help me with this?

I'm not really happy with Facebook because I have issues with them not paying any taxes and then getting a huge tax refund. I won't go into that any further, as SG is not the place to write about these things. This is a Happy Purple Place where you can come and get away from the problems of the world and visit with your friends.

Finally got to speak with my doctor earlier. He says that there are lymphnodes in the stomach area that are suspicious. I will be talking with another doctor tomorrow to schedule both a colonoscopy and an endoscopy and he will give me more information. The endoscopy allows them to take samples of the lymphnodes and do a biopsy.

Thank you all for your prayers and good thoughts. I will let you know as I find out more. Please keep those prayers coming. I'm a nervous wreck right now.