Aches, Pains and a Car Ride

My apologies for the absence in updates lately, I have had a little stay at the Chateau Foothills.  Not gonna complain about it, the "Beige" time was kinda nice! lol

November 23rd - Day 9 of cycle 1
I still felt great, trucking along.  Burgandy had an appointment in the morning at a medical clinic so I had her go in and get me a mask before I entered as I am in my susceptible time.  Later that day Porchia came over to visit me and have dinner and we went to pick up Burgandy from basketball tryouts.  On the way home I had Burgandy go in Sobeys to get some refried beans for our delicious fajitas we were making.  While she was in the store out of nowhere my joints started to ache.  I felt like I had a sudden onset of the flu and my wrists, ankles and knees were so achy I wanted to just crawl into bed immediately.  When we got home something told me to take my temperature...A whopping 104 degrees!!!!

I did what they taught me to do in pre-chemo class and called the oncologist on call at the foothills, together me and Dr. Webster went through my list of symptoms.  He told me to relax for an hour and take my temperature again that perhaps it had spiked because of physical activity or something.  In an hour my temperature had gone down to 102.9...still WAY too high especially for someone on chemotherapy because a fever is a sign of infection and when you are in chemotherapy it kills your white blood cells which means your body is not able to fight an infection.  Porchia, Burgandy and I continued to monitor my temperature for another two hours until finally at 9:00 pm I had had enough and Porchia and I headed into the Foothills Emergency Room. 

 I was put into a room immediately and put on reverse isolation, meaning I had to wear a mask to protect myself from infection.  They assessed me again, took my vitals, asked my allergies, I informed them I am allergic to scallops but don't anticipate them being served in this fine establishment.  The nurses and Porchia were great and when I felt like I needed to breath properly they would trade me places and wear the masks for a while so I could be comfortable.  Porchia and I stayed awake until 5:00 in the morning laughing in the emergency room and keeping our spirits high.  Despite the fact that we failed in finding Porchia a hot doctor...we sure did have fun!  My wonderful sister in law Jennifer brought me my overnight bag that I had my little Burgandy pack and I was prepared to hear the news.

Ilia the oncology resident came in to assess me and educated me on white blood cells and Neutrophils.  My white blood count at that time was down to 1.2 and we had yet to get my neutrophil report.  I asked him what the lowest number of neutrophils he had seen was and he said 0.9 and I asked what the possibility of zero is and if that means you are dead.  He laughed and said no but you are in danger if it is at zero.  Not even twenty minutes later Ilia was back to inform me of my neutrophil count.  Turns out zero really doesn't mean you are dead because my neutrophils were ZERO!  And at that time my relationship with my mask became serious...I was in a committed relationship with someone and I wasn't sure I even liked them! lol.

At 5:00 am I was moved up to Unit 46 and was told I would be having a nice stay at the Chateau Foothills.  The nurse that admitted me into Unit 46 did not win brownie points with me!  At this time I have now been awake for 22 hours and I am getting a little groggy.  He without a care, took my blood pressure on my left arm and then asked me what medication emergency had given me, like I was the nurse administering them to myself.  To top it all off he then brought in two swabs, please understand this nurse had a VERY heavy accent and I had no clue in hell what he was saying but I am pretty sure he wanted me to go to the bathroom and stick that swab where the sun don't shine.  If I in fact needed to do that...I don't mind...however, I am not going to volunteer my butt hole when I am not even 100% sure that is what he wanted!  Boy would I have looked silly if what they really wanted was just a throat swab!  None the less I refused further treatment from this nurse and began to cry. 

In a couple hours when the new shift came on I told them how upset I was with the treatment I had been given and how concerned I was with the blood pressure being taken on my left arm as I am terrified of getting Lymphedema.  The nurses from this point on where amazing and I would like to give a big shout out to Ryan, Kurt, Lisan, and Raj who I had an awesome bond with.  I was in a unit that treated mainly elderly people with cancer and I was informed quite often how nice it was to interact with a patient as vibrant as I was.  Ryan and Raj touched me especially.  Ryan was my age and never looked at me as a patient and always came into the room and said "yo whats up"  he would have a chat with me and be on his merry way to check the other patients.  Raj was one of my night shift nurses and informed me that his sister who was 30 was recently diagnosed with Breast Cancer as well and fortunately they had caught it in time that she would not need to undergo chemotherapy or radiation.  I gave Raj my blog and told him to share it with his sister in hopes that I can inspire other young women with Breast Cancer.  In the morning Raj came in to say goodbye and told me that he had read my entire blog and we had a small chat on my future plans of reconstruction, children, etc. 

Thank you to all of the nurses on Unit 46 that touch peoples lives like mine everyday!