Maria's story

Big hearts give back woman's independence

Maria Garcia made her way to the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center Donor Pavilion recently to personally thank the people for saving her life.

For six months, Garcia dealt with a sickness that doctors could not properly diagnose, surviving only through frequent platelet transfusions.

The battle began during a visit to the doctor’s office on Oct. 1, 2008. An ordinary visit lead to her being checked into the hospital. The doctor had received Garcia’s blood results indicating that her platelet count was at four; a critical level considering that the average platelet count is 150,000 to 400,000.

Admitted to the hospital, Garcia spent the next several days working with doctors trying to diagnose her illness. “I can recall being given what seemed like lots of different medications and being tested for different ailments and before I knew it, I had spent 10 days in the hospital.”

Bringing her platelet count up to satisfactory level, doctors released her to go home. Garcia thought she may have beaten the illness after receiving platelet transfusions but her return home was short lived. After four days, Garcia had to return to the hospital as her platelet count had dropped once again to single digits.

With such a low platelet count, doctors kept Garcia in the hospital as a precaution. Despite having blood transfusions, Garcia's platelet count would only be at an acceptable level for a few days.

“Because I had such a low platelet count, doctors thought I had fatty liver disease but when treatments for that did not have results, doctors moved onto other diagnoses,” said Garcia.

It was not until doctors had eliminated other diagnoses that it was determined, Garcia had idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, (ITP). The illness is an immune disorder in which the body attacks the cells responsible for blood clotting (platelets), usually when they reach the spleen.

Under doctor’s advice, Garcia elected for her spleen to be removed. “It was a hard surgery that included platelets before, during and after the operation,” said Garcia.

After half a year of battling her illness Garcia left the hospital with a normal platelet count of 400,000. “I have my independence back and able to do the things I once was able to do including spending time with my big family,” said Garcia. “I am able to do simple tasks once again because of the platelet donors. I think they have hearts as big as Texas if they can think of somebody else and donate.”