Even White Blood Cells like to vacation

Hey everybody - didn't mean to worry or freak anyone out being in the hospital for 6 days. My white blood cells decided to vacate my premises and left my immune system functioning with no protection. Funny thing is that I didn't even feel sick. My sister (bless her heart) was over helping with things while I was getting my body pain managed when see noticed I was a bit flushed. Well, the result of my temperature readings was DANGER - go straight to the EMERGENCY. So being a good girl, I went to the hospital - oh this was last Thursday night. RCH emergency wasn't that busy and after pumping me up with lots of good IV antibiotics I was sent home at 3:00 AM.

You see for three days my bod had been feeling like it was being put into a rock crusher starting at my feet. The pain was unbelievable. This kind of pain is a side effect and of course, it will affect people differently. Plus the pain didn't start right away like the nausea did with the first three Chemo doses. Being a little slow, I was virtually pain free until Sunday night after Grant took off to New York City for work, the agony snafued me with a vengeance. A clearer analogy would be a lower body 'charlie horse'. I am talking brutal pain. I was taking up to 5 baths with Epsom salts a day and night just trying to relax. During the day Thursday I saw my GP and he had just the right stuff to take the pain away - Oxycodone aka 'Hillbilly Heroine' What a wonderful drug. It doesn't make me loopy like the other kinds and even though the pain is still kind of there - I just don't care. Everything is just fine and I am sooo relaxed.

Everything seemed to be going just swell on Friday. Woke up, got dressed, went to the bathroom, ate, drank lots of water, the usual stuff. Grant was flying home late tonight. I was in no pain. My sister was spoiling me etc etc etc - just another day. When 20:00 hours rolled I thought, 'I wonder what my temperature is?' My sister had gone for a 30 minute nap at 5:30 and I didn't want to wake her because she needed her sleep - I kept her until the wee hours of the morn last night..... Sure enough I had another fever but it was not as high so no rush to the emerge was necessary. I waited an hour and called the Oncologist on Call and hearing my story he told me to pack my favorite snacks because I needed to head back to the hospital for a few days. He would call ahead to the Emergency department to prepare them for my return.

Talk about deja vu, the staff was entirely the same and we all had a good laugh and joked about it. Thus there I have been since Friday night.

It wasn't that bad - I had a private room, everyone treated me well. I even had a bathtub in my ensuite. Quite peaceful and someone was always asking if they could get me anything. I was restricted to my room due to the 'Reverse isolation' situation I had to recover in. My veins were a problem. Three different IV's were needed to pump me up with antibiotics. Blood work everyday which had to be taken from my feet due to the lack of left arm use and that my right arm had an IV in it. Oh what fun you say. Actually, it hurt less than from my arm believe it or not.

Today I am happy to be home. I have one week before I get hit again with Chemo so I am restricting myself from gallivanting around so I will be strong like Ox.