Jessica Kath hates needles.

The 18-year-old Mesquite woman had endured nightly needle sticks since she was 3 to connect her to a medical pump that cleaned her blood. Regular infusions treated her rare blood disorder � diamond blackfan anemia � which leaves her body with toxic levels of iron. The only thing to keep the iron from killing her was the thing she hated the most.

A drug that does the same job and can be taken orally has been in use in other countries for several years. The week before Christmas, Jessica got word that it would be available to her. She took her first dose on Valentine's Day, and blood work completed last week showed that the medication has been effective in lowering her iron levels.

"It's a lot easier," Jessica said Thursday as she underwent another blood transfusion at Children's Medical Center Dallas.

As her nurse put the needle in her hand, Jessica sang a song in her mind to distract herself. But at home, she was in charge of inserting the needle into her own skin for cleaning treatments.

"I took deep breaths," she said, remembering how she coped with the daily agony. "I'd be sitting there, and I'd have my little piece of skin that I would pinch, and I would take a deep breath as I brought the needle back, and as I was putting it in, I would hold my breath."

But the worst part wouldn't be over then. Repeated pricks and irritation caused scarring and golf-ball-size knots under the skin on her lower abdomen, where the pump was attached.

"When I would wear the pump at night, I couldn't sleep very much, because when I would want to change positions, I would have to pick up the pump and move it.

"Also, when you're sleeping, the thought of a needle being in your stomach wasn't very helpful. I wouldn't sleep very much."

When she began the nightly treatments at 3, Jessica was given a teddy bear to reassure her. Before every treatment, she would first stick the bear with a needle, put a bandage on it and give it hug.

By the time she was 4 ��, Jessica took over her treatments. But before long, Jessica's mother, a pediatric nurse, would have to battle with the girl to get her to endure the needle prick. Sometimes Jessica's grandfather would come over to help, resorting to holding the girl down while her mother stuck a needle in her.

Jessica got more inventive with ways to resist.

"She'd go hide in a closet," said Kristi Davis, Jessica's mom.

Other times, Mrs. Davis remembered, Jessica would hide the medication needed for the treatment.

As she got older, Jessica would sometimes skip the treatments or remove the appliance before all the medicine had been dispensed.

Even with the blood cleaning, iron levels build up over time in patients who have frequent blood transfusions. Jessica had one about every month, sometimes more often. By the time she turned 18, her iron levels were dangerously high. But doctors had predicted they'd be high enough to kill her before she turned 16.

That was before the iron-cleaning medicines were introduced and well before they were available in pill form.

Now Jessica crushes two quarter-sized pills each day and mixes them with a large serving of orange juice. The scars on her stomach are fading, and her iron levels are slowly dropping.

The first night she got ready for bed without the pump, Jessica says, she giggled all the way to her room.

She graduated from Poteet High School last month, and Jessica is preparing to move to Austin, where her mother recently relocated. That will be Jessica's new home base, though she'll spend most of her time on the campus of Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches. She's planning to become a pediatric nurse, specializing in hematology and working at Children's Medical Center.

"I've grown up around here," she said from a chair in the infusion room at the hospital. "I just want to help little kids and comfort them.

"I can tell them, 'I understand. I've been there.' "