How it all began!
When discussing my condition, I am often asked how I found out or how was I diagnosed. Everything started when I was a 20 year old Laboratory Technologist student at N.A.I.T. We were doing manual estimates of our blood counts and I kept getting high numbers of platelets. A normal range is from 140-400 and my sample was 800-900. Next thing I knew, I was off to the Hematologist and found out that I had Essential Thrombocytosis (high platelets). That was the beginning of my MPN (Myeloproliferative Neoplasm) journey. For many years, there was nothing to do except attend some appointments. I was lucky and did not have any complications. Then when I was 37 y/o, I was undergoing testing for thyroid cancer surgery and they discovered that my MPN had progressed to Polycythemia Vera (PV) which is where my bone marrow produced too many white blood cells (used to fight infections), red blood cells (carries oxygen) and platelets (clotting). What this meant wa...