I'm pulling general assignment shifts tonight (2 to 10 pm) and tomorrow in the main office. As long as nothing more pressing comes up, they let you work on your own stuff in the meantime.

I'm working on a story about a little girl from the area who was granted a wish through the Make a Wish Foundation. I asked the PR lady at Make a Wish if she had contact info for the family. She called the girl's grandma, who is her guardian, and grandma called me.

The little girl is 9, and will be going on a Disney cruise through Make a Wish. I asked grandma if she would be willing to share what the girl's illness is.

She said "sure, it's so rare it will be good to get it out there so people know about it."

The little girl has aplastic anemia, the same thing that nearly killed me last year.

We were both so stunned that we could hardly hold a conversation beyond "this is unbelievable" and swapping stories about blood counts and courses of treatment. She's doing very well now, but was in and out of the hospital for 5 months last year (and I thought 5 weeks was bad!). She goes in for blood counts every 3 months, which is what I need to do, and hope the new hemo I'm seeing on Dec. 5 will agree.

500 people a year are dx'd with this disease and one lives in my area -- what are the odds? After getting home from the hospital, I called the Aplastic Anemia Foundation, because they run a program where they'll put you in touch with other survivors. I was hoping for a support group or something. They couldn't even find me another person in my STATE! I got one in California and one in Connecticut, but nobody from the Midwest.

This is just too weird. I'm still fairly stunned by it!

Candy