Janice - Canada

Hi, My name is Janice LeBlanc. I live in New Brunswick, Canada. I am 35 and I was diagnosed with Glanzmann's when I was 5 years old. Congratulations on your new website! I have been searching for other people with Glanzmann's my whole life and have only managed to find a few so far so your website will help all of us find each other. Thanks.

Here a little bit of my story...

When I was about a month old my mother came to get me out of my crib and my arm was bruised from one end to the other... they knew something was terribly wrong.

I was diagnosed with Von Willibrands and treated for that for a couple of years without success.

At age 5 they diagnosed me with Glanzmann's. My whole family was tested for it (including cousins, aunts and uncles and of course, my siblings) I'm the only one that has Glanzmann's.

Most of my childhood was spent in hospital more than at home with episodes of nosebleeds, tonsilitous (which caused a lot of bleeding), and I was born a pure clutz so any falls and broken bones. lol

At age 6 they decided to operate to remove my tonnsils. I spent 8 weeks in hospital bleeding and it was touch and go for a while. But I survived.

At age 12 I started my menstral cycle and that brought me near death. It took me 6 months to recover from that. But I survived.

Between the ages of 12 and 25 I didn't have any major episodes except I got a baseball bat in the face and broke my nose... I told you I was a clutz. lol With packing for my nose I recovered from that with only a few black eyes for a couple of weeks.

At age 25 I got all four wisdom teeth removed with no episodes. They gave me platelets before and during the operation. It was a sucess!

At age 30 I got married and we decided (with the help of my doctors) to try and have a child. I got pregnant and ended up in a missed miscarriage where they had to do a D & C. They did the D & C without giving me platelets and everything was fine for about 4 days. At that point I started hemoraging. I stopped bleeding on my own with no transfusions.

Two years ago I had a ruptured ovarian cyst and ended up in hospital with internal bleeding. They had to operate to stop the bleeding. The operation worked with no problems.

Throughout my life I have been very fortunate in that I have never had a GI bleed. My blood count is always on the low side because of menstral cycles and we're still working on that.

My life with Glanzmann's has been quite an experience.

I am 35, divorced, and back in shcool after all these years (yikes!!) lol and I'm enjoying life to my fullest because Glanzmann's will put me in my place if I'm not careful.

I remember contacting a doctor a few years back and he replied to my e-mail "Congratualtions on making it to adulthood with Glanzmann's". I had never really thought of that because I have always known I will be here for a long time (I'm very stubborn! lol)

Well, this is my story. I look forward to being in contact with a lot of you and hope I can help you in some way with my experiences.

Stay Safe,

Janice

e-mail Janice