For those who wonder...

Hold on, this one will be a long one!!

Not sure when it all began, but beginning at a very young age, when I would take Jake for his regular check-ups, the doctor would say that he had low blood. He prescribed iron supplements. This was all that was ever mentioned that was out of the ordinary. He continued to take the iron for quite sometime.

One day, when Jake was about 2, my mom noticed some minute(very tiny)
red spots on Jake's neck called petichiae that concerned her a little. WE took him to the doctor's and he said nothing to worry about. Not too long after that he developed a larger red rash all over his abdomen that within a few days turned purple(very strange). Another trip to the doctor's determined he had a virus, still nothing to worry about.

On 2-26-81 he was hospitalized for a swollen eye determined to be periobital cellulitis(an infection around his eye). As I recall, the doctor said it may have been caused by his recent virus. Upon taking blood during his hospital stay, the doctor became concerned because he had very low white blood cells. Since Jake didn't have any symptoms of anything, the doctor decided it may have been due to his recent virus, I believe at this time the doctor also noted he had an enlarged spleen, but wasn't too concerned due to the recent illness. This is where it really all began. From here on out, Jake had numerous ailments from constant ear infections, several bouts of pneumonia, constant blood in his urine, vomiting bile, rigid and distended stomach with pain, bells palsy(facial paralysis), and juvenile arthritis along with the ever present very low white blood cells.

The doctors tested him for leukemia two times(not a pleasureable thing).
They said they assumed he had some sort of an autoimmune disease, but could not determine exactly what. He also had liver and kidney biopsies.
After numerous times in the hospital and in and out of specialists offices he was finally diagnosed with something called ITP(idopathic thrombocytopenia purpra), which basically just meant some sort of blood disorder where he had many symptoms of different diseases but did not have any certain disease. The one main thing the doctors decided to focus on was his spleen. They said it was 3 times the normal size. After much watchful care and medications to try to get him back to normal, it was finally decided to take out his spleen. The doctors decided it was quite possibly what was causing all of his problems.

The doctors warned that they did not know for sure if he could make it through the surgery, but it was worth trying.

Bruce and I were married 1-7-84 and on 1-16-84, Jake was admitted for his surgery. I really didn't think he was going to make it and I tried to prepare myself for losing him. However, he made it through with flying colors; he was such a fighter! He was five years old and had missed 47 days of kindergarten that year. The following two years of school he didn't miss any days at all!! For all the rest of his elementary school years he only missed five days total!! It was a MIRACLE; he was never sick again(well maybe with the sniffles). It was such a transformation. We had 6 wonderfully happy, healthy more years with him.

I will blog about his last days at another time, since this has already been a long post.