Day 21 - This is a long one

Once again it's been a while since I've blogged. This time it's because there is no wi-fi for patients at The Grace hospital. It's 5 PM on Tuesday and I just got home a few hours ago from my 5 night and 4 1/2 day stay there. Here's the story:

I had started getting some minor chills early last week. I would take a Tylenol and they would go away, no big deal. On Thursday (Day 16) Adrienne and I went to Cancer Care for my Bleomycin which again I get on Days 2, 9 and 16. I finished around 5 PM and Adrienne and I picked up Anthony from her parents house, grabbed some takeout and headed home. I was feeling fine until we pulled into the garage when I started getting some shivers and shakes. Within 10 minutes I was shaking so badly I could barely hang on to the Tylenol bottle to take one. It was the worst bout of shakes I've ever experienced. I got in bed and Adrienne piled on the blankets and took my temperature which was 37 degrees C. In the next half an hour my shaking settled down but my fever skyrocketed to 39.3 degrees. I took another extra strength Tylenol for a total of 1000mg and my fever came down to 38.6 a little while after that. This was still too high as a chemo patient so Adrienne called the on-call oncologist. He spoke to my doctor who happened to also be on-call. When the doctor called back he told me to go to the emergency room right away and he would call ahead to let them know that I was coming. The fever could be a side affect of the Bleomycin but the fear was that it could also be an infection. And because it was day 16 of my chemo treatment my white cell count could potentially be low and therefore if it was an infection my body would have no way to fight it.

We called Phil and Christina (Adrienne's brother and his wife) and they came over right away to stay with Anthony while we went to the hospital. Phil drove me to the hospital because Adrienne was putting Anthony to bed when they got here. She met me later.

I got to the emergency room around 9 PM ish. I "Checked In" and saw the triage nurse. I waited for about 3 minutes before I was brought in for blood work and chest X-ray. Then I was brought right back into the room where I would spend the night. If you want good service in the emergency room go in as a chemo patient with a 39 degree fever. I bumped everybody there which I felt bad about but I also didn't want to get there germs if I didn't have any white cells so I didn't feel that bad.

Around 11:30 PM I got news that my white cell count was extremely low (.3 where 3.5-11 is normal). Because of that I was put on IV antibiotics just in case I had an infection and was told I would be staying for the night and admitted to the hospital in the morning. Adrienne went home for the night and I spent the rest of the night on a stretcher in a private room. I was also in "reverse isolation" meaning anyone who came in the room had to where a mask, gown and gloves so no one could make me sick.

My fever came back to normal over night and at around 9 AM I was admitted and wheeled up to the 3rd floor. Again I was put in a private room and labelled "reverse isolation". The room was as good as it gets with a flat screen TV which was free, a fridge and a microwave. The only bad thing was that I wasn't allowed to leave the room, but with no immune system I was happy to comply.I was told that as long as my fever didn't spike again and my blood work didn't show any bacterial infections that I would most likely go home the next day.

On Friday evening my fever again spiked to 38.8 which guaranteed me another 24-48 hours in the hospital. My blood cultures were also repeated to look for infection because none had shown up yet.

On Saturday the new cultures showed a "staph" bacterial infection. This meant I would be in the hospital for longer again and a new antibiotic was started to make sure they covered all the bases. They wouldn't know if I was getting the right antibiotic until the "sensitivities" came back showing exactly what kind of staph bacteria it was.

By Sunday my white cell count was high enough that I felt safe having Anthony visit so Adrienne and Anthony came by for 2 visits that day. Fr. Gerald also stopped by in the morning for a visit.

On Monday my doctors discussed my case with my oncologist and he said as soon as my neutrophils reached a certain level that I could switch from IV antibiotics to oral antibiotics and 24 hours after that I could go home if I hadn't spiked another fever. There was also a new doctor on at the hospital that wanted me to get an Echo Cardiogram. This is an ultrasound of my heart to make sure the infection hadn't moved into the valves of my heart. This wasn't a good news day. My neutrophils were so low that I thought I would be in the hospital for at least a few days before they would be back in the normal range and then I thought I was potentially going to have to get my heart valves replaced. I wasn't a happy person on Monday morning. It was later explained to me more clearly that the likely hood of the infection moving to my heart was very low and that it was treatable. Only in extreme cases would replacement of heart valves be required.

Today was much better. I found out from the doctors during their rounds that my neutrophils were back to where they needed to be so I would most likely get out of the hospital on Wednesday after I had my Echo Cardiogram. Then a few minutes later the attending physician came in and said that things had changed. The sensitivities came back and I had a different form of staph infection than they had suspected so no Echo cardiogram would be required and that I could go home after lunch.

So as promised at 1 PM the nurse took out my IV and gave me my discharge instructions. Christina came and picked me up because Adrienne had Anthony who was napping. Thanks again Christina. And here I am at home once again.

I knew Chemo would have side affects, I just figured I wouldn't experience 90% of them during the first cycle. I still have a few left to experience, or hopefully not experience. The good news is that as of today my first cycle is over and I am 1/3 finished, kind of. Cycle 2 was supposed to start tomorrow but because of this whole fiasco I get a reprieve for 1 week. I go back to clinic next Tuesday for more blood work and to see my oncologist. I also hope to get my picc line installed next Tuesday so for the rest of chemo I don't get poked. If I had had one this week it would have saved me about 15 needle pokes between chemo, IVs and blood tests.

That's all for now. I probably won't post anything else until chemo is back on next week. Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers, I appreciate it!