Friday, August 5, 2016

Should I Laugh, or Cry?

Sorry it's been so long since we've talked, I probably had you assuming everything was fine and dandy! But let's be real, we've already learned that the easy stuff isn't actually easy. Don't get me wrong though, there has been a lot of amazing, wonderful adventures packed into the last couple months. 

We went on a vacation to the Bay Area, then just a few days later went on another one to eastern Oregon, and then about a week later went on another one to the Olympic peninsula. 
In between all of that we've had tons of fun adventures and a lot of sunshine around home, in the garden, at the lake, and up and down the coast. 

But then, in between all of that, there was misplaced lab work, some puking, some signs of wayyyy too high liver enzymes, some new lab work which caused my doctor to freak out (rightfully so) and call me after hours to schedule an emergency bone marrow biopsy because he thought I had relapsed. Results were supposed to be back in 48 hours, and over a week later I finally got the results telling me what I already knew, which was that my chemo doses were simply too high. 

Now I've been off of them for over 2 weeks, but my labs are still absolutely terrible. Unfortunately, after 11 months of this, I couldn't be more sick of staying inside, eating a neutropenic diet, staying out of schools, etcetera. So I haven't been on my best behavior, but fingers and toes crossed that I will not be severely neutropenic ever again, and I can keep myself out of the hospital for a few more weeks at least.*

*I kid you not, I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but not even 15 minutes after I finished writing that I spiked a 101 degree fever. For neutropenic me, that means go to the closest ER immediately. We showed up at 10 pm, I felt pretty darn good. The ER Doctor told me I looked better than last time he saw me, and we joked that we hoped he could find a neutrophil in my blood this time. Last time they couldn't find any (ANC:0). This time the good news is they found one (ANC:100) but that still means I'm severely neutropenic and can't fight whatever is causing my fever, likely an infection of some sort, so antibiotics it is. 

I thought for sure my oncologist would move me over to Riverbend, but he's letting me stay here in Florence. I'll be here until we know what the cause of infection is, and I'm back on the mend. Could be a day or could be a week, fingers crossed that it's the prior! 
Once again, with these darn wristbands. Lessons on properly attaching them should be day 1 of any medical training. 


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