Day 8

today the first round of chemo ended. what should have been an extremely happy event was marred by the appearance within fifteen minutes of freedom from the IV pole of a fever of 101.7. This is what people with no immune system do; it's well known, expected, etc. although not everyone does it according to my doc. My throat seems to have been the source and it's nothing that a little ceftaz can't cure. I had felt like maybe I had a fever earlier and requested a temp check and it was like 99.1 and then she came in for a full set of vitals and it was kind high. soon after I felt so awful there was nothing I could do but go to bed, but it turned out not to matter because I had to pee in a cup and go get a chest xray before I could blessedly get into my bed. The transporter gave me a little lecture on the value of coffee enemas in his cancer care which is something I didn't really expect at Dartmouth Medical Center. He also told me about how he had done homeopathic things for his cancer first and he's sure that that primed it for the chemo. Another surprise. I think I'm going to stick with the daunarubicin and cytarabine, myself, but I was relatively gracious if incredulous.

Today the family was here again and that was really nice. They left in waves around noon and then Reggie (sister) called and we had a nice chat--it's been a lot of years. She teaches seventh grade English in a suburban Chicago school. I have lots of patients with seventh or so graders in Bedford so it was fun to listen and think about the differences. Reggie says most of her special needs kids are ADD or ADHD but my sense is that in Bedford, autism is more common. She is just starting to get a spike of autism in Chicago.

Diane came and spent the afternoon with me, taking pictures of the nurse taking my last bag of chemo down. We also went for a 0.7 mile walk which is pretty good given that my hemoglobin is 7 and change. She brought me brownies (which I know are delicious b/c Diane is a great cook), but if it's not chicken soup or special K, I'm not really interested in it.

My fever seems to be coming from the back of my throat and I don't understand how someone with almost no lymphcytes can have swollen lymph nodes, but I seem to.

So, tomorrow hopefully will be a boring day with no more fevers (lots of luck to me there) and a visit from Cara. Diane tells me she can only get to this site by clicking on the link in the original email, but I've checked the settings and it seems to be public. Does anyone know how to fix this?