Surviving Aplastic Anemia

In Cave City, Scotland Pam Hunt, now 60 years old, has never let her diagnosis of Aplastic Anemia get her down or limit her activity. She was diagnosed originally with leukemia but after a bone marrow test was diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia. At that time she was 15 years old. Her treatment was to get transfusions every two weeks.

She was told to limit her activities, not to play sports, not to become pregnant because of the risks of injury and internal bleeding. She ignored the warnings and is a living example of how one's attitude can play a part in how to deal with a diagnosis like hers. After her daughter was born she played softball, went fishing and boat riding. Even today she can put in a 12-hour day but is ready for bed when she gets home.

“The specialists and all the doctors told me that, with aplastic anemia, the top age of an adult would probably just be 35 to 40 years old,” Hunt said. “I never paid any attention to all that and that’s been the success to my survival. I don’t think about years or minutes or days or hours. I just wake up and do my thing and thank God that I’m here to do it.”


MDS: Is it cancer, pre-cancer or non-of the above

I found this interesting blog post on Myelodysplastic Syndromes.  It discusses whether MDS will always lead to cancer.  It has a lot of good information.

Primary MDS represents a family of diseases, most prevalent in those over the age of 50 to 60, that involve unwanted variations in the function of the bone marrow in its role as the storehouse and processing center of the stem cells that ultimately turn into blood cells. These MD syndromes are called primary because they do not develop after a patients has been treated aggressively for cancer by radiation or chemotherapy which are known to cause MDS as a secondary, or side-effect. Nor do primary MDS patients have a known long-term exposure to hematologically carcinogenic chemicals like benzene, which can bring on MDS and leukemia.

Source:  http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/dbio/2008/01/the-myelodyspla.html