Hi, I just joined. I would like to tell you a little about myself.

I was diagnosed with TTP June 04, 2004. I had gone to the doctor's
and was dignosed with a UTI (even with the purpura and vomiting,
numbness, etc.) and a few days later I was literally hours from
death when my husband came home for lunch and called the ambulance.

On the ride to the hospital, I couldn't tell the ambulance driver
what my phone number was and I was drifting in out of conciousness.

When I arrived in the emergency room, I had only 1/4 of the blood
you're supposed to have, I was so johndassed I was pumpkin orange,
and my platelet count was 7. Yes, that's 7,000. They told my husband
(we had been married less than 3 months at the time) that if I had
gone to the small local hospital instead of Dartmouth Medical
Center, I would have died.

I spent 6 weeks in the hospital receiving daily plasma exchanges and
undergoing surgeries. During this time, they tried to wein me off of
the plasma exchanges 3 times. Each time, my platelet count
plummetted.

When I asked for a second opinion, one of my doctor's called down to
U Mass General in Boston (where they are doing most of the research
on TTP). It was then that he found out about Rituxan. It's a drug
that's used mostly for Leukemia patients.

I started having infusions of Rituxan, once a week (5 hour infusion)
for 4 weeks, along with my plasma exchanges. Almost immediately, we
started to see a change. I was slowly weined off of the plasma
exchanges and by the time 4 weeks was up, I was completely off of
the plasma exchanges and had spent 2 weeks at home, finally.

Boy, did it feel good to not have a catheder in my chest. My skin
was finally able to breath again and started healing from the damage
the tegaderms did to it.

Since then, I have had blood tests every day, then every other day,
etc. Now, I only go every other week. All my blood levels are normal
and there are (so far) no lasting effects of the TTP - well, except
for the scars (looks like I've been shot).

Well, I didn't mean to go on like this, sorry. But, if any of you
have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at khunt@... or if
you have AIM, my screen name is VTCowgirlAppy. And, of course, I'll
be online checking up on this message board.