04/05/2019
My name is Rhory Kathleen Mcnearny, When I was 16 years old I was admitted to the hospital for having a completely black throat and not being able to swallow or drink anything for a week. The doctors ran a couple of tests and realize my blood was extremely low. First they thought I had leukemia. They transported me to the Seattle hospital and that’s where I get my care now. I was tested for leukemia through a bone marrow biopsy. The test it came to be negative. It was such a relief but yet we were still trying to figure out what was wrong with me. Then they diagnosed me with this thing called lupus and found out it wasn’t the right illness through a medication that wasn’t effective at all. Then the doctors dig deeper into my family and ran one more test a liver biopsy. I have this illness called auto immune hepatitis and I found out when I was 16 years Old that I was born with it. Autoimmune hepatitis is a sickness were the blood attacks the liver thinking it’s an illness and at the age of 16 years old I was told I needed a transplant. I am 18 years old and till this day I am still needing a liver transplant. I’ve had such severe and chronic pain I have been living with for a couple of years. My spleen is three times bigger than supposed to be. My white blood cell count and platelets are so low that I don’t clot which is another reason why they haven’t done the procedure. I was recently just put on the transplant list August 2018 and now needing to start funding for the transplant. It’ll still be a while before I get the transplant and I will get worse before I get better, however receiving the news about the transplant list of being put on gave me hope and for here on out I can only go up. I been fighting for a while now and thanks to the Seattle Children’s Hospital I have the chance to live.
