[jobra818]

Well Michelle that is a bit of a crazy story. It was 1992 and I was into my 4th year with AA, doing rather well, and I was taking oxymetholone at that the time. I was a pretty good athlete and competed in many sports at the time. My counts were running pretty normal: roughly hgb 15, white 4-5 and platelets around 120's. I went to a rural high school where the elementary was in the adjoining bldg and we had plenty of access to see the younger children. I was visiting with one of the small kids in the lunch room and found out her brother was home with the chicken pox. I at this time had managed to not have had the chicken pox yet in my life and the funny thing now looking back was my doctor at the time was thinking about getting me the vaccination but it was new and risky. There was a chance that I would get them from the vaccination. Well I helped my doctor with the decision and managed to catch them through the little girl. I was out of school for two weeks and miserable. A few months went by and my platelet counts started dropping while everything else stayed the same. Dr. Brian Wicklund of KC Children's Mercy, my wonderful doctor back then, decided to track a syringe of platelets through my body to find what was killing them. A radiated amount of platelets was administered and found that my spleen and liver were the culprits. Unfortunately for me the liver was doing the most damage so no action could be taken with surgery. That is when I started taking cyclosporine. The theory is that after the antibodies in my body fought off the chicken pox my body continued to make a large amount of the antibodies so they decided to go after my platelets and destroy them. It took well over a year to get the platelets under control.