Because I will never forget that I was down to 4k once.

Went for the routine 6-week checkup, and things are still going progressively great. My platelet count is holding at that long-term goal I had set based on my original, pre-ITP average of about 315k -- they numbers are now holding steadily between 278k and 285k, which has now become a miraculous thing to me.

My doctor took me off the Cyclosporine completely which is a huge milestone in this entire healing process, and it's a huge relief to me for so many reasons. Cyclosporine is the drug that helped my rebooted bone marrow keep producing and protecting my new bone marrow cells; that's the way I understand it.

But like everything in life, it had side effects. It's an immuno-suppressant which just means it weakens the immune system, making the patient more susceptible to infections and any common passing virus or cold, which is how I got into this fix in the first place. Luckily, I didn't stay sick with a constant cold or have any type if infection. Thank you, God. But it left me with a deeper compassion for anyone who has to take this type of drug long-term or in bigger doses. Although anything that happened to me, my mind automatically switched to the thought of someone who had worse or bigger doses and drugs to deal with. Unless you have an overblown, unnecessary ego and have take trapeze lessons to fill the void in your life, that's a key thought that can help just about anybody through a day.

Yes, that last sentence is based on someone I have known, if you can believe that. Ohhhhhhhhhmmm...stress is bad for the immune system. It weakens it. Ask me how I know.....ohhhhhhmmmmm....

The other side effects that really bothered me, I had to learn to cope with in a zen-like balancing act -- the constant gnawing in my stomach got crackers, lots of peanut butter crackers; the burning of taking the liquid-versus-powdered caplets which is all that needs to be said about that got whatever it wanted which was usually a good night's sleep; the brain-drain effect made me lose my concentration and my car keys at least a zillion times, more than the usual average; and the depressing feeling it causes was and still is the hardest thing to deal with daily, trying to sort out what is chemical and what is emotional from some of the other things swirling around and down in my life right now; but I wrote a note to myself and pinned it to the wall, saying "It's not forever, it just feels like it" which had coincidentally become a recurring mantra of mine over the past 10 years.

Sometimes I stop just long enough to get a sense of how much things have changed in my own life in the past couple of years, on top of getting this crazy ITP thing. I'm still not ready to examine it fully and talk about a lot of it which I know for a fact weakened my system so badly that my body's defenses went haywire. But when I do talk about it someday soon, I promise it will be beneficial to you or anyone who's reading this for information or hopefully inspiration.

Speaking of that...

Good or bad, life hasn't slowed down enough yet for me to impart everything I've learned by now, but the only thing I can comment on briefly is that I have had a bittersweet taste of being a patient of patience.

Being sick for more than two weeks at a time is hugely different than anything I have dealt with personally, so far. Healing is a full-time job with lousy pay but great benefits. Living with illness one month, six months, twelve months, eighteen months -- I'm coming up on my nineteenth month, and I'll be honest about if it helps anyone else reading this: most days, I wake up scared. I'm tired. I'm pissed off. I'm sad. I'm confused. Yesterday, I stopped to think about things, and I almost threw in the towel on it all. But that's all part of the process. I know this now. It's the *screw it* step that gives you a boost when you need it, when you ar not as low as you feel worn down to be.

So, screw it: I'm confident with the progress and results and eternally hopeful, and I'm not giving up this close to what I like to call The End. Like my father always said with a thumbs up to my mother after his many treatments, his many operations, "Never give up, never say die."

Hoping to not jinx myself, I'm donating the rest of my leftover unused meds back to the hematology clinic since this drug is so expensive but such a necessity. Even though it has its side effects, there is no other way to beat it unless you fight it with the big guns, and I don't want someone who can't afford it (which is just about everyone) to go without this drug.

While my mother was talking to everyone at the clinic exchanging laughs and smiles, after my doctor had looked over all my blood counts and levels and gave me the good report, he called me aside and told me just as a reality check, "This could come back. I just have to tell you that. That it could come back." Then he looked down to the notes he was finishing up on my records. I looked at him long enough to process my emotions, which I have gotten seriously efficient at doing, until he looked back at me, and I looked to see what he was thinking behind his eyes. I asked, "Is this genetic?' and he shook his head no. "Can I ever donate blood again?" He shook his head no. I searched for any information I could get from his expertise to prevent this from ever coming back. "I think it was a combination of things, don't you? I mean, what can I do to not get this again, what did I do, what can I do to prevent it?" And he just took a breath and said, "It was just bad luck."

That's the first time I'd been officially diagnosed with bad luck, but thank God, they do make pills for that. It was actually a relief. And a reaffirmation.

Good. I think he meant, yes it could relapse, but really, let's see how much of my luck is up to me.

Double good. Then I will not get this again, I can almost assure you. I am not going back to the stressful life I knee-walked through like a zombie for the past few years. That was not me, and the irony of that is that it was killing me, and it wasn't even my life that it was taking. I won't get this again, and I will prove it.

Nope, "Never give up, never say die." Not until I'm good and ready. And if I do get this again, then I am just lucky and mad enough to be ready.



Next update: May 2nd