Day 4: I Feel Like I Have Been Run Over by a Truck!

More Blankets Please

Last night was the most miserable night thus far. The chemo continued to drip until midnight and once my nurse was through checking my vitals, I finally fell asleep. I've been running a temperature most of this evening and on into the night. The Tylenol and ice pack seem to keep it around 100 degrees. I guess at this point they are hoping that it is a reaction to all that my body has been through as opposed to an infection of some type.

Between the fever and the disease I fluctuate between being dripping wet with sweat and being freezing cold because I am dripping wet! The poor nurse had to change my sheets twice between 2:00 am and 4:30 am. Fortunately Joe had taken my previous “wet jammies” and washed them and brought them back, so I had dry clothes to put on. This type of “sweating” is about 1000% times worse than menopause! It’s odd how it only seems to show up during the night.

It seemed as though I had just closed my eyes when the breakfast tray arrived. I told her to put it on the table and close my door on the way out. I slept for several hours, right until Joe arrived for the day. Breakfast now really cold and nasty!

Round 3 of leukapheresis and chemo began much earlier today. Suzanne was there at 9:00 am. She had me hooked up to the machine in no time at all and since she was the gal that trained my previous blood suckers, she was finished in record time; 4 hours. My only complaint with her was that she would not leave me alone, even when sitting upon my “bed pan slipper”; that would be how I know about “stage fright!”  My starting blood count was 198,000 and with this treatment I was down to 134,000. Hopefully after the chemo, tomorrow morning’s count will be below 100,000 so this will be my last pheresis treatment. My fingers are crossed.

After the chemo finished dripping I totally felt as though I was comatose. I could not keep my eyes open for anything. I told Joe to check periodically to make sure I was still breathing. The fatigue was beyond any fatigue that I have ever felt. I was continuing to run a fever and my blood pressure was running so low that the nurse had to check it manually. No nurse’s aid with the fancy “all in one wireless” check your pulse, temperature and blood pressure on wheels could get an accurate reading. I am sure that was quite an imposition for the nurse that seemed quite annoyed with having to stop whatever it was that she was doing, just to check my vitals. She was actually the charge nurse, which I guess means that she has more time to FaceBook and I was interrupting her. Yes, as a patient I can see you on facebook as I lap the nurses’ station. Busted!

There were no laps today and no Netflix for me. I was in and out of consciousness all day with pity parties aplenty. When the doctor finally arrived around dinner time, he saw how wiped out I was and ordered blood. Finally at 11:10 pm they began to drip one unit of blood into my body. This took another hour to complete with many ins and outs from my nurse. I really have no recollection of them even drawing my blood in the middle of the night, they said I just flopped my arm open and never even moved. I am guessing that I slept straight through till morning. This was a really long, miserable, horrible day!