A Mystery Illness...

I had my chemo treatment of Avastin on Monday. Prior to my treatment, I was asked to sit in the waiting room for about 15 minutes. There was a woman in wheelchair who was moved sort of close to me. She looked pretty sick and was maybe about 5-6ft away from me.

When ever I get sick or get some sort of illness, I always try my best to remember how I got sick. Well anyway, Tuesday came and went and I had gone to work. I felt fine in the beginning and many had commented on how great I looked; in that I looked very healthy and refreshed. I went to lunch with a friend and then about 2pm I started getting a really bad head ache, I was literally freezing to death and started feeling really dizzy as if I had a fever. I did feel my forehead as it felt very hot to touch. I also felt really groggy and my abdomen ached as if I had done over 100 sit ups. I knew it wasn't anything that I had eaten because it wasn't that kind of pain . I also noticed I was getting a shortness of breath which kind of scared me.

I emailed my carpool friends to let them know that I was not feeling good. We finally were able to leave; just a little before 4 pm. Well I almost survived a full day at work. Once I got home, I put on some warm PJs and curled up in the down comforter.

I called my doctor and of course he was in surgery. The chemo nurse asked if I wanted to schedule an appointment with him on Friday at 1pm. Well the problem is it was Tuesday evening; so I just asked her kindly to have him call me tomorrow. We would try our best to deal with this temperature. I then called an advice nurse who had suggested that we immediately drive to the ER and of course being the hard head that I am; I was not about to give up. I already knew what my fate would be if we were to do that. We would wait in the emergency room for upwards of 10-18 hours or longer and then sit in the hospital for maybe a week. Yeah, we could always call 911, but no way. I was not down with going to ER, getting violated, stuck, probed, and so much more. Not worth it; I figured my husband and I are strong together and we can get through this.

I was still freezing and when my husband returned home he found the thermometer to find out what my temperature was. It shocked me that I was getting closer and closer to 104.5, then it got up to 105.1. I got really scared then. I had remembered my mother telling me that if the temperature got up to 106 that brain damage would then ensure. So then we stripped all the blankets and tried to get my temperature back down. I drank some iced water and I took some Motrin and then some Theraflu. Hopefully the temperature would come down. It was officially a waiting game.

After about an hour my temperature finally got down to 99.1. We were ecstatic and I ended up crashing early. I think it must have been the Theraflu. It was such a long night.

The temperature finally came back and I sweated so much that I soaked the bed. It kind of stank a little bit (weird?) My husband sometimes gets cold during the night and while my temperature was rising; he was at least able to keep warm even though I had soaked the sheets. My temperature finally went away around 3 pm and I felt much better but then around 5pm it started to rise again.

My alarm went off and I awoke briefly to take my temperature and to make a decision about work. Should I go in. Well I felt quite groggy but then I could tell that my head was quite warm just by touching it. It seemed to take forever for the darn thermometer to come up with a reading. It went past 99, then 100, 101, then it finally beeped at 102.3. Shucks! I thought.

I just wrote an email to my boss and then called my carpool buddies to let them know I wasn't coming in for work.

I took 2 Motrins and some Tylenol Cough syrup prior to going back to bed since I could not stop coughing. I wasn't really coughing up much, it was mostly the shortness of breath. I slept in most of the morning and just waited to hear from my doctor. Before I knew it, it was already 11:30am. My bed was soaking wet and my temperature was down to normal. I felt incredibly groggy as I changed those wet sheets and took a shower. I never called another advice nurse as I thought I might need to.

My doctor finally called later in the afternoon and wanted me to email him and if I had severe symptoms as I had last night to go to ER. Still hard headed am not heading there just yet. I'm starting to feel better.

For now, I will just get as much rest as possible, drink plenty of fluids, and try to get better. As far as replenishing my body after the huge night sweat, I have been using these Electrolyte Stamina which comes in individual packages and you mix it will a small glass of water; then I'm drinking lots of water or at least trying to. The vaporizer helps quite a bit with that. I still feel groggy; mostly from the cough medicine; the shortness of breath is gone, the chills are gone, so is temperature. On the road to a full recovery.