Our 8 year-old daughter Rachel was admitted to Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa yesterday, March 6, to prepare for her bone marrow transplant. It is auspicious for us that she was admitted during
Although it sounds strange. I am beginning to believe that breast cancer possibly has saved my life. In October 2015, I was diagnosed with stage 2 lobular carcinoma of the breast. My cancer was found during my routine mammogram.
At the age of 3, I became ill with a rare blood disorder. I was bruising easily, and my platelet count was dangerously low. I was diagnosed to have ITP, had my spleen removed, and thought I was cured. However, my disease was either dormant or morphing into something else. My symptoms recurred with pregnancy, and after my second child was born, my disease was never dormant again.
It was early April of 2015 when I started getting headaches, weakness and abnormal heart rates simultaneously whenever I exerted myself. Stairs became a nemesis, as I could feel myself about to faint whenever I reached my apartment on the third floor. I thought that now would be a good time to visit the doctor. There I had blood work done and a few hours later they called and told me to go to the ER immediately. “So…I shouldn’t go hiking right now?” I joked, despite the weakness in my legs.
A PNH survivor for more than 25 years, Stephen King speaks about his life as a patient and an advocate in both formal and informal roles -- and offers advice for newly diagnosed PNH patients.
“I’m an engineer with a problem-solving orientation,” says the medical software manager from Atlanta, Georgia. “After my diagnosis, I thought, now that you know what it is, let’s fix it. It took a little time to sink in that there was no quick fix, and I had to learn more about it.”
Early Diagnosis, Treatment and Emphasis on Self-Advocacy
I grew up in Louisiana - born in New Orleans and raised in Lafayette. I joined the Army, and went to Seattle and worked at Madigan General Hospital where I met my wife. I was then sent to Vietnam. After I returned, I worked for a bank in Seattle for 16 years, becoming a vice president and manager. I helped finance an auto auction as part of this job, and as a result, I fell in love with the car businesses. I was accepted for a Ford training program that lasted for two years at a Seattle Ford dealership.
I was a very active 17-year-old when I got the news. It was October of 2005, the beginning of high school basketball season in my hometown of Beckley, West Virginia, when I became ill. I thought it was a really bad cold or even the flu, but I was used to being sick and fighting through it, so I didn’t think much about it. I started antibiotics while I continued going to school and playing basketball. I would start to feel better for a while, then BOOM, it would hit me like lightning again. I would take more antibiotics and continue my life as usual. I thought I was tough.
In February of 2011 I was 22-years-old and attending Orange Coast College. One day I began to notice that I was bruising easily. My legs were covered in bruises by the time I went to my doctor. The doctor told me I was probably anemic and run down due to my work and school schedule. She ran a regular CBC blood test.
