Three strikes and you're out!

My third chemo session came and went, again without a hitch. I drove myself this time. No reason not to. Past history showed that I was fine -- no adverse reactions. I also didn't take off from work the day after. Other than being just a little shaky, I had handled both previous post-chemo days like they were just another day. I'd just make sure that I didn't stay beyond 8 hours at work the two following days. I held pretty close to that promise. I came home, took a nap, and sailed through pretty much unscathed.

Six days later, however, I came home from work with chills and a headache. Took my temperature and there was the evidence. 102°. My chemo instruction sheet told me to call in to the oncologist if I had anything higher than 100.5°.

Dr. B. was on vacation. The next morning, I got a call-back from one of her partners who was on call. He had me go into their local office for blood work. Jeff took me in. The white blood count was pretty good -- and that in itself was a good thing. They also drew blood for blood cultures and had me pee in a cup to do a urine culture as well -- both tests checking for any bacteria that might be a source of infection, thus the fever.

I was to come back the next day to see the doctor who was on call. I went in to work and left from there early in the afternoon for the appointment. I was still running a temp, but was able to bring it down with Tylenol. Once the Tylenol wore off, I'd spike back up to 101.8 or 102°.

The doctor asked me all kinds of questions to which I responded no. Throat looked okay. He looked up my nose (with a light, not a rubber hose) and said, "Whoa, really red." He wrote out a prescription for Flonase and we both hoped the nose was the culprit. The nose knows!

The nose might have been guilty, but it had some partners-in-crime. The temperature continued its morning, afternoon and evening spikes to 102° when the Tylenol wore off. That continued for a week. I left a message for Dr. B to call when she returned to the office and she was most upset that I had had a fever for 8 days. I wasn't enjoying it either. As much water as I was drinking, I knew I was getting dehydrated -- and exhausted from the fever battle. She told me there was a slight urinary infection and prescribed an antibiotic that would take care of that and any other troublemakers that might be brewing, even though the blood cultures came back negative.

I hoped this would send the fever packing. But it had no intention of leaving its accommodating host.