How Can We Help?

One of the questions I often receive socially is "how can we help?" 

For the most part, Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (TTP) patients are fully cared for by doctors, nurses, family members and close friends. Their blood is monitored every day. They receive prednisone to stop the autoimmune issue. They receive plasmapheresis to give new plasma in support of new platelet generation. They are treated for other potential complications such brain implications, heart issues, kidney damage, deep vein thrombosis, eye issues, etc. 

So how can you help? 

Support Family Members 
The first issue is supporting the family members. The people who go to the hospital every day. They may drop by in the morning, work a full day and drop by after work. Likely, they are not taking care of the home. Not buying groceries, cleaning dishes, shoveling snow, cutting the grass, walking the dog, etc.  

Can you step in to take the lead? Check it out? Do kids need to get to school, hockey, Scouts or other functions? Is there supper on the table? Maybe you can find a few friends who can just perform one job per week. It may make things go quite better for the spouse of a patient.  

Our friend even made sure I had transportation to and from appointments when I was an outpatient. I needed this, since I had lost my license due to having a seizure (during my first TTP episode). 

Give Blood 

Although your blood will not directly help your personal TTP patient, supporting your local blood donor clinic is encouraged. Blood products are required every day by many patients. For a TTP patient, the plasmapheresis requirements for one day, may be higher than the supply of 30 donors. And plasmapheresis many go on for many days in a row for that patient. So TTP patients may be a big draw on the blood supplies. It would be helpful if friends could help give some back. 

Provide Charitable Donations 

TTP is a big mystery. Most patients do not know why they are afflicted and they do not know if TTP will come back. They don’t know what to do to try to stop it. TTP is a rare and there isn't a lot of medical history to help the doctors.  Patients and their loved ones need answers. Charitable donations to an organization such as the Answering T.P.P. Foundation may help. 

The Bruce Fights TTP team will also support the Walk to Answer TTP Together on September 16, 2017. Your donation would be appreciated. 

Thanks, 

@BruceFightsTTP