Being in bed, and not being able to do anything for two whole weeks was completely awful. When I was in 7th grade, I had a disease called Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (or ITP).  This is a bleeding disorder in which your immune system destroys the platelets for normal blood clotting. The normal amount of platelets in a girl is between 162 and 380 thousand platelets, and I had 1 thousand.

I can still remember the day when my mom and dad took me to the hospital. The doctors told me that I had 1 thousand platelets and that I was lucky that I had no internal bleedings at the moment. As soon as they saw the amount of platelets that I had they told me that I had to go to intensive care in the hospital. At first I didn’t know what was going on. I was lost. My mom got very worried and so did my dad. All I remember is that the doctor told me that I couldn’t get up from the bed. Not even to go to the bathroom. I had to do everything in the bed. I can still remember my mom’s face when the doctor explained all of the procedures to treat my ITP condition and all the studies that had to be made to find out the cause or if I had something else like Lupus, or another type of cancer.

When I woke up the next day, the nurse came in and told me that I was going to undergo a test called “medula ósea”. I don’t really know what this is but what I do remember is that a bunch of different doctors came into my room and started setting up a bunch of things next to the bed where I stayed. When they were done organizing their equipment, they told me that they were going to put a needle through my lower back to remove some type of soft tissue. I panicked. The doctor then said that I would have anesthesia and that I wouldn’t feel much during the process. After the test I felt a lot of pain in my lower back. It was uncomfortable, and the fact that I couldn’t stretch or move out of the bed was even worse.

While we waited for the results, the Doctor started to give me some type of treatment me in order for my platelets to rise. I don’t really remember what the Doctor gave me, but I know that the first treatment that I was given didn’t work. After the failure to normalize my platelets, the Doctor started giving me prednisone (an anti-inflammatory steroid medicine), which increases the production of platelets. This medicine tends to swell the people who consume it, and I was taken 60mg of prednisone every day for about 2 or 3 months. I consumed so much prednisone that my face completely changed. I got very frustrated because I also gained a lot of weight. One of the prednisone’s side effects is that you tend to be aggressive all the time. I was always aggressive with my mom, dad, and sisters. I had no patience but eventually I learned to control that. I had to undergo many more test and some were very scary because they had false warnings like the one of Lupus, but eventually I was able to go home, without treatment, because my platelets rose to 200 thousand. I spent the whole weekend in my house since I couldn’t really do anything. I couldn’t go under the sun; I couldn’t do exercise or play any sports. The only thing I did during the weekend was to relax and watch TV in my room. Even thought I was sent home, I still had to go every morning to the hospital and get a laboratory test to monitor that everything was ok.

On the next Monday morning, I woke up very excited because I was going to go back to school, back to normal. After I did my daily check up at the hospital, I went to school. When I was taking Jr. Ethics with Ms. Wanda, the office calls and says that I have to pack everything carefully because I had to go back to the hospital because my platelets had lowered again. I spent another week in the hospital, taking prednisone, having more tests done, and not being able to get out of bed. The prednisone started to work properly and this time, when the Doctor sent me home, after a week, she told me that I had to keep taking the treatment until further noticed, and that I also had to keep going every morning to the hospital to get the daily checkup.

Taking prednisone was the hardest thing I had to do. This medicine completely changed me in terms of months. I had a bad attitude most of the time with my family, I got a hairy face and hairy arms, and I also gained a lot of weight. At one point, I got so swelled up that my cheeks hurt if I laughed a little. I got very frustrated. I cried because of what I was going through. I always asked myself “why did this happen to me, why not someone else?”

As time went by I kept going to the health clinic and met little kids and kids my age that were treated for similar conditions to mine. There were little kids, maybe 4 or 5 years old, that had no hair because they were fighting cancer, there was this little girl who had lost and eye because some type of cancer, and there was also a little boy named Melvin. This little boy was about 5 or 6 yrs. old and he was always the happiest boy in the room. He was always jumping around and playing with other kids. Melvin has blood cancer. When I first met him, he was a boy with a lot of hair, and a very cheerful personality. About 3 or 4 months later I noticed a hair less boy, sitting down very quietly and tired next to his mom. The boy was Melvin. I almost didn’t recognize him. He had been taking chemotherapy, which completely changed his physical and emotional appearance.  When I saw him that day, I realized that I was very selfish. Everyday I saw about 25 little kids suffering from different types of diseases and conditions much worse than mine but I was to focused on myself to realize that.

After being able to experience all of this, I find very important the fact that we always have to be grateful for everything, even the little colds or flues that we get because I know that what I have is way better than having to deal with what the little kids I got to know have. This experience made me realize how we have tiny problems and we think that they are a big deal while other people, including kids way younger than I am, are dealing with bigger and extremly serious problems of life and death situations. We have to be grateful for what we have and for whatever that comes in our way. After this expirience, I learned that there will always be people dealing with problems and situations way worse than what I can compare my own problems to.