Lockdown

I am in lock down.   No one is allowed to touch me without washing their hands.  I am not allowed to touch anything.  No door knobs.  No visits to the grocery store.  After my last chemo session, I went to Whole Foods and picked up organic fruit just for some real fun and excitement.   Now, I can not even cut my cuticles.  No raw food.  Best not to have even salad right now.  Everything should be cooked well.  I am washing my hands 20 times a day.

I am home-bound and bored.  Bored with DVD's of TV series, bored with food, bored with movies, struggling to read between the headaches.  During the weekdays at least I can work from home and bug the people at the office with questions and irritating suggestions about things I have been thinking up from left field.  I am sure they are ready for me to come back and do some real work and leave them alone. 

My white count is low.  When I got chemo last Monday it was 4.  Normal values are 4-11.  And this type of chemo causes Neutropenia, which leads to a reduction in white blood cells.  White blood cells are what fight infections.  And the treatment for Neutropenia is a drug called Neulasta.  The typical side effects of Neulasta: bone pain, joint pain and headaches.  Not anything the doctors want to put me through again if they can help it.  And definitely not somewhere I want to go again.  I think we have all figured out if there are side effects, I will have the worst of them. 

Who knows how low my white blood count is now.  I don't know how low it can go.  Friday afternoon I started to get an infection at the site where I had my lymph nodes removed.  My scar got red and raised and my temperature started to go up.  The whole area started to swell and feel uncomfortable all the way around my back.  I still had a headache and felt like I had the flu.  I have felt like that since chemo and that hasn't changed. 

The infection started at noon on Friday.  Perhaps the infection was caused by the craziness of trying to organize and pay hospital, doctor, lab bills after comparing them to the insurance explanation of benefits and deductibles.  That activity alone is enough to make a person sick.  I paged Kelly at 3 pm.  Kelly is an APN,  which stands for Advanced Practice Nurse.  I trust Kelly.  I didn't want to wait until the weekend and even though I wasn't that sick yet, I would rather deal with her than the on-call doctor who doesn't know my case as well.

She was worried.  She wanted me to take my temperature every two hours and start on antibiotics immediately.  If the redness and swelling around the scar increased I was to call immediately.  She mentioned drawing pen marks on my body to trace the redness to see if the area got bigger.  If my temperature went up even with the antibiotics, I was to call immediately.  She mentioned getting to the hospital immediately if the antibiotic didn't work.  Now, Ken was worried. 

Thankfully, now 48 hours later the antibiotic is working.  My temperature this morning is back to my normal 97.5.  The pain and swelling are down.  Antibiotics for 8 more days.  Looking forward.