My son thought it was part of puberty, the rashes on his legs . He showed them to me last week. A few days later I saw a bruise on his hip. He wasn't sure when it happened and it looked like something you wouldn't forget. The sore in his mouth Sunday night got me on the phone to the advise nurse after bedtime.

It was the description of the rash that got her attention, thousands of pin pricks all over his legs. Its called peteccea and is a sign of blood cell failure. She told me to take him in to the ER immediately. Well, the boys were in bed and it didn't seem like Riley was in dire distress regardless of what ever was wrong with him. I said I would see his doctor in the morning.

I called for an appointment once the boys were off to school. Why miss school when its just some weird things going on. The doctor could see Riley at 6:30 that night. We were the last patients, the only car in the parking lot when we pulled in. No one was waiting in the lobby so we got right in. The doctor lifted Riley's pant leg and ran to stop the lab technician from leaving for the night. The labs had already been picked up though. He said call them back and he wanted blood drawn and added to the labs of the day. That was the first indication to me we had something serious going on.

The phone rang at 7:00am Tuesday morning. I thought it was a sub call to work. It was the Doctor. He had received the call at 2:00 am. Riley had very few platelets. The doctor was trying to connect with Dornbeckers. We were to expect a call. He had talked to the hemotologist he usually uses, but due to Riley being 14, it was recommended we go to Dornbeckers. Riley was not to go to school.

The boys had already left and caught the bus. So, I called the school and told them to bring Riley to the office. I was coming to pick him up. When we got back to the house I had us both pack overnight bags and all the entertainment items that Riley thought he might need for a long boring wait at a hospital. The hopital called. They wanted us in ASAP.

Turns out a normal person has 150,000 to 250,000 cells in a smear of blood. Riley had less than 5000 that they could find. Good news was there were no abnormal cells which ment it probably wasn't leukimea. Bad news was Riley lacked red cells white cells and Platelets. ITP usually only the platelets are missing. Aplastic Anemia fit Rileys symptoms. He was critical with only 5%. Anything under 20% is bad. That was Tuedsay.

Wednesday, we were back in the hospital for a transfusion. they took blood to match. Riley is A positive. Tom and are are O and AB, I think. We waited after the transfusion to see if Riley reated in any way. Most significant was that all his sores which had been popping out all over his mouth and face over the last few days faded and began to disappear. The largest sore in his mouth vanished. The bad news was that his platelet count did not budge. He had needed fresh platelets so desparately.

So here we are on Thursday, headed back to the hospital, probably for another platelet transfusion. He has to get those numbers up. The concern is that if he is bumped or bruised or cut he could bleed out, his internal organs could rupture. He could hemorage in the brain. Lovely thoughts to start my morning.

We are taking Trev with us. He has a 1 in 4 chance of being a good bone marrow donor for his brother. I figure we should just get it out there one way or another. If he doesn't match we go looking for someone who does. Because we are caucasion our chances are better than couples that are not the same. Native Americans have the worst chance since they are just not in the system.