for Wednesday February 16th

Hedge has been in the hospital and Emma is sick at home. Hedge had some complications from a fever and an infection he got and had some issues with his blood platelets. He has been getting some treatments and is doing great. He should get out of the hospital this week. .....from Mike

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A letter from a doctor: It may take weeks to months for his platelet count to return to normal (90,000 or higher range). The fact that his count is 40,000 is great and gets us out of the woods where spontaneous bleeding can occur. My recommendation is to recheck the count in one week. If it is stable (staying the same) or slowly improving than I would probably check it on a monthly basis for 3-4 months until it is normal. The truth of the matter is that children respond so well, whereas adults are more difficult to treat when they have ITP.

We will keep in touch and thank you for keeping me posted.

Best wishes.

Dr. L. Gernon

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ITP is......

Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura is a bleeding disorder in which the immune system destroys platelets, which are necessary for normal blood clotting. Persons with the disease have too few platelets in the blood etc.

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Hedge and Emma all well in this older picture.

Mike and Amber and family.