The scariest portion of this one week journey occurred this past Sunday night. I needed to take TK to the emergency room after discovering she had a fever of 101F. For those who are familiar with chemo, fevers can be extremely dangerous as it may be a sign of an infection. Chemo significantly reduces white blood cells so any infection can become life threatening.
I called the on-call doctor and explained the fever and she said that I needed to take TK to the closest emergency room. I didnt expect this.
TK resisted but I shuttled her to the car and sped to our local ER. She was taken in immediately as cancer patients get priority. They ran a full gamut of blood, urine tests, nose and mouth swabs to test for flu and strep. Fortunately, all tests came back negative and her WBC (white blood cells) counts were relatively high - thanks to the Neulesta shot administered a few days before.
Thankfully, she was OK. The ER doctor theorized that her body was naturally reacting to the chemo and the fever was her way of fighting it. Despite it all, fevers are dangerous and advised us to return to the ER immediately if this happened again.
Its Thursday night and it's been scary. She's gone through the uncertainty of an ER visit, bone aches, muscle spasm in her back that make her cry, fevers that scare the shit out of everyone.
She has 5 more of these infusions over the next 17 weeks. I pray to god that she'll be spared of more pain. It's been bad enough in the last 7 days.
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