My friend was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. At first I wasn't sure what it was as I'd never heard to it, until she told me it was a rare bone marrow disease. As the months went on, I have seen my friend's health detoriate. She lost a huge amount of weight, was always sick, had no energy and was not herself at all. She has been hospitalised on two occasions from being unwell. She has no immune system to fight anything. She attends hospital twice a week for bloods and injections to boost her blood cells. It's awful to see her this way, she was such a happy and outgoing person. She has just bought a house and had to give up work due to the illness. She is awaiting the bone marrow transplant. A donor has to be found first as her family are not a match. All awareness should be made for this rare bone marrow disease as nothing about it is known. The cost of these injections are a huge amount. The Aplastic Anemia Trust provide a great amount of support and deserve to be recognised.




This is my friends story.

I was diagnosed with Aplastic Anaemia in December 2018, after lots of tests and bone marrow biopsies and months of waiting for answers.
Aplastic Anaemia is a rare bone marrow disease in which the immune system attacks the bone marrow which causes it to fail to produce cells to circulate the body, the body lacks all blood cells.
The cure for this disease is a bone marrow transplant ideally from a sibling matching the bone marrow. If there is no sibling tissue type match they do a treatment called immunosuppressive therapy (ATG).If that treatment fails (it takes 3-6 months to see if it works) they will then do a unrelated donor bone marrow transplant if and when a match is found, this illness has me so exhausted and hospitalised on a few occasions due to infections.
I'm getting the ATG treatment because my siblings were not a match. Im currently waiting on my date to be admitted to hospital for about 6 weeks for ATG.
In the meantime, I attend hospital twice a week for bloods and injections (GCSF) to try to give my immune system support as it is so low. I am also on anti viral, anti fungal medication to minimise infections.

Erica Parker