Well... it's been a while since my last post. So...here's what happened. Friday, May 11, seemed good. Did half-day at work and went out to eat with Connie and Jake in Zionsville. All seemed good with the world. But, Friday night my body started to get funky. Woke up Saturday feeling really crappy. Was pretty much wasted - very weary and without much energy. Didn't do much Saturday except sit around moaning in bed or in my lazyboy. On Sunday, I woke up and felt quite warm. When I discovered blood in my urine, I woke Jill and told her she needed to take me to the hospital. We went to Clarion North and they admitted me within about an hour of my arrival. My temp was 103. BP was only 80/51 and there was the blood in my urine. I was also dehydratede. They started me on IV meds and fluids. I was a pitiful sight to see. All day Sunday my temp never dropped below 102. Finally, on Monday, the temp started to come down, got close to normal a couple times, but always ended up shooting back up to 101 or 102. Also, on Monday (or maybe it was Sunday), I started to develop a rash all over my body - I was very worried that my DH was flaring up badly which would not have been good.
Throughout the process, I was being visited by several docs - including the Medicine doc, an infectious disease specialist and an oncologist. On Wednesday, I was visited by a dermatologist. They had difficulty isolating a clear reason for the persistent temp. That's the reason for the infectious disease specialist. Apparently, the UT infection was insignificant enough that it would not have really caused the type of fever I had. So...they continued to run various tests - blood, urine, xrays, etc. - trying to isolate a cause of the fever. I was on multiple broad spectrum IV antibiotics as they kept testing. The dermatologist determined pretty quickly that the full body rash was definitely not my DH. It was a chemo toxicity induced rash and they gave me prednisone. That has worked and the rash has cleared up gradually over the past few days. In the end, they decided the temp was also caused by chemo toxicity. There are a few more details that I am omitting since this summary gives the overall gist of what has happened.
In an email exchange with Dr. Einhorn, he thinks that is accurate. Since the Taxol seems to have caused my severe leg bone pain, the full body rash and most of the side effects that landed my in the hospital for five days, he plans to shift me to a different chemo treatment. He will change to Taxol to Gemcitabine. And, since they gave me nupegen (sp?) shots in the hospital to boost my white blood cells, he is also adding neulasta to my treatments.
I was released from the hospital on Thursday and decided to stay home Friday to continue to let my body recover. Did run out with Jill to Target - got pretty tired. Today, Saturday, felt well enough to get out and we went in search of tile choices for the entry, half-bath and kitchen backsplash. Feel well enough that we will try to make it to the Broadripple Art Fair tomorrow.
This has certainly been a week of battles with the chemo. I didn't really realize that some side effects would wait to hit me about 9 to 10 days after the chemo. But...we will be more aware of that possibility the next time - next chemo is this upcoming Thursday. But, despite the challenges, we successfully made it through the week. Minor things still remain but we whipped it this time.
