One of the things that has surprised me this consolidation is that I have felt better emotionally and worse physically. I have also been surprised by how variable my physical state can be in one day. I felt great this morning and went for coffee and a walk on the beach with Patrick and now I feel pretty icky and would turn down even a drive to look at the beach. I am pretty sure it will pass in a few hours, just as mysteriously as it came on, but for now yuck! The good news is that I don't have a fever (99.5 has been my max so far) and no concerning symptoms: just tired and achey.
As long as I'm griping about my symptoms, let's talk about mucositis. I had a trivial amount with induction, none with consolidation #1, but now I have a small amount. If you're curious, it started out feeling like a canker sore on the side of my tongue (nothing to see, hurt a bit), then got worse so that by this morning, my tongue was swollen enough that the teeth were embedded into it and made little dents in the side. It hurt to move it much so I sounded a little funny (mostly my "s" sounds turned into "sh" sounds). Chewing on that side is not really an option and hasn't been all day. As the day progressed, the whole inside of my mouth felt a little swollen and--you know how when something is inflamed you can feel your pulse in it?--like that. Now, my tongue is for sure less sore, my lip feels a tiny bit swollen, the roof of my mouth feels like it does a couple of days after it's been burned and my throat is just the tiniest bit sore only on the left. I worry because my first neutropenic fever was pretty clearly pharyngitis--sore on the left. However, at that point, I was on no antibiotics and now I'm on levaquin. I am very lucky because the whole mucositis thing even at its worst earlier was probably no worse than a "1" on a pain scale although I can totally believe that it could get to a "10." I can really see how it could affect people's eating because I really don't feel like eating anything that requires chewing and mine is really minor mucositis. (Thank you, Eva, for the potato leek soup!) I am going through the whole big explanation of what it feels like because no one had ever given me a good explanation of what it felt like before so, now, you know.
Otherwise, it was wonderful to see Patrick and the ocean. I napped and did the crossword and sudokus and a little driving today.
I am right about at the time that I began feeling good after my last consolidation so I am hopeful that tomorrow I will just wake up and feel great. For now, it's early to bed and off to Manch tomorrow for likely more platelets.
I am hoping for marrow recovery soon for myself. May you have recovery soon of anything important you have lost.
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