Saturday, November 3, 2007

Thursday Night Fever

I was able to take a shower today without my chemo pump. No tether, no limit to back into the water. At all. But quite a price it was.

Thursday night my temperature spiked to 102.4, which is 2 degrees above the threshold that should have sent me to the hospital. But cautious doctors kept me on antibiotics and I gladly avoided checking into the cancer institute. Last night, too, my temp rose but not above 100.8, and Dr. Z said if it went over that I should call. Whew.

Earlier Friday, I saw the doc to follow up with my Thursday night fever. He had some blood drawn, and the numbers were better than we expected. White blood count were up, platelets were down. I'm sticking to the antibiotics and monitoring my temperatures.

But the best event Friday was Dr. Z's decision to pull me off the chemo pump for the weekend to give my body a break.

Thus my shower this morning. What a relief. (Truth up front, I did get dizzy and somewhat collapsed in the shower for a few minutes, though I managed to sit down before falling down.) Still, the shower felt good and I am feeling much better now.

Another bit of good news today was when, for the first time in months, I was able to speak to my mom. Well, actually that's not true. I've spoken to her often, but this was a two-way conversation. She spoke back. That is the first-in-months event, and it felt good. She sounded great. Truly. It was her voice, though slightly higher pitch, but definitely her. It made my day. Made my week and month, too.

So I am happy to take the bad with good news like that.

Sounds like a fair trade to me.

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