[Ryan Jay]

I never really told my story on here. I probably should have. I was originally diagnosed with typhoid, which I did have.

I was spending time down in Mexico with friends and family in April of 2010. I remember climbing up stairs and practically passing out. The doctors down here in Mexico saw how low my counts were and thought it had something to do with either Dengue or Typhoid. Anyway, they cleared me to fly back to Boston, but when I arrived I broke into full typhoid (I actually had two strains of it).

OMG! I was so sick. Doctors were wearing protective suits around me because my blood counts weren't making sense to them. Typhoid shouldn't cause your platelets to plunge to 27.

After clearing out the typhoid with a round of Cipro, my blood counts were still down to nothing and I needed transfusions.

Finally, a really awesome doctor walked into the room and told me straight out. "Look, I think this typhoid thing is just a red herring. I saw a patient about 20 years ago in a center in Detroit who had this rare disease called Aplastic Anemia. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm looking at you and all the signs are pointing to AA."

It took me about a week to process the news. And there were times when I just crumpled to the floor, no doubt a combination of the physical and emotional impact of everything.

I felt better in August, once we got the battle plan put together. ATG wiped me out until November, and then my counts really started to rally. Yay!

Anyway...that's my back story, which should have been posted much earlier.