Oh -- so that's what it is!

Monday morning I headed to the local facility for a quick CT scan before work. Some people start their day with coffee and a bagel. I start with CT scans. Nothing to drink this time -- and the contrast is done by injecting the tubing that feeds to the needle in my hand, so it's all painless and quick with a mechanical voice telling me when to take a breath and hold it.

I headed directly from the test to work and once there, I called Dr. B. to let her know that I had completed the CT scan and that, finally, my fever had gone away over the weekend.

To my surprise, she already had the results -- and a surprise. I had pneumonia. Well, of course, now it made sense. The shortness of breath. The little gasps that followed an intake of breath. While SOB was a side effect of the antibiotic I was on, it certainly went hand in hand with pneumonia. Yet, it had never occurred to me that I had pneumonia. Where were the precursors. I hadn't had a cold or a cough. Just fever. One day fever, next day pneumonia? Was this the workings of chemotherapy?

At that point, I was almost happy to hear I had pneumonia. We could finally name this devil and move on. Nevertheless, we agreed that postponing chemo to the following week would be a wise move. I had three more days of finishing the antibiotic -- Levaquin -- and since the fever was gone, it looked like I was mending all right.

My knees, on the other hand, were getting worse, but come next week, I knew the pre-chemo Dexamethason dose would give some relief there. The good news was that Scott was bringing our granddaughters in for the coming weekend -- and not only was that an occasion to lift my spirits, but now I wouldn't be dealing with post-chemo fatigue. Maybe this was all a good thing afterall.