32 E-mail: round two at the hospital or, "There and back again"

6/25/2006

Round 7 of chemo has come and gone and I felt really good Thursday and Friday. I had a sore throat earlier in the week that hung around for days, but Kelric caught his first cold and I wasn’t surprised that I showed some signs of his illness. We took Kelric to the doctor last Monday and got medicine that eased his coughing and congestion symptoms. At times it sounded to me like Kelric was losing his voice. I started to lose mine. But he’s an otherwise healthy baby who is bouncing back from his first illness and I expect he’ll be fine this coming week.

I have been in high spirits because there is only one more round of Taxol to go and then I’ll be done, done, DONE with chemotherapy. I’m so excited about being done that I’m actually looking forward to my last infusion.

Nothing can be so simple, however, as to feel halfway decent as I wait for my last dose of poison.

Guy and I spent the wee hours of the morning at Seton Medical Center last night. The sore throat that had tormented me over the last several days blossomed into a full blown sinus infection. Never a simple thing when you’re in chemo, they couldn’t just look me over then send me on my way with a prescription for antibiotics in fifteen minutes’ time. No, instead they had to be cautious and take blood samples and a urine sample, a throat culture and a chest x-ray. Blood samples had to come from different sites on my arm so I’ve got two new bruises to add to my collection.

My white blood cell count was at 46, a sure sign of infection. A 10 is the high end of normal and my white cells were at 15 last Thursday for chemo. The good news is that we caught it before things headed towards pneumonia and now I have antibiotics to help me get over the infection.

I’ll tell you, it was a hard choice to have an oncology doctor paged at 10:30 last night when we were ready to go to bed and I discovered that my fever had risen to 102.5. I’d been sick all day. Neither one of us wanted me back in the hospital, even if it was friendly Seton rather than deadly South Austin Hospital, and we were sure the doctor would tell us to head to the emergency room. She did, and we groaned about it. I’m glad we did it, though. Not only am I on the road to recovery sooner, but I think I would have worn out Guy throughout the night by waking him repeatedly with my coughing and nose blowing. Then we still would have had to go to the emergency room today and he would be even more exhausted. As it was we didn’t get out of there until 3:00 in the morning. After getting my prescription filled at a 24-hours Walgreens and eating breakfast at Whataburger, we didn’t get to bed last night until 4:30 a.m.

I wore my blue sleeping cap to the hospital because I figured I would be admitted again and it’s more comfortable sleeping in the sleeping cap than my daytime head scarf. So I was still wearing my sleeping cap when we made our late night run for food. There were teenagers in the Whataburger and I heard a girl say, “That’s a sleeping cap.” The whole group stared at me as we came in and placed our order. It made me feel very uncomfortable. I was tempted to whip off my cap and expose my chemo-bald head so maybe they would understand the oddness, but I decided I was just cold enough that I didn’t feel like taking the cap off and I didn’t owe kids who should be in bed at that hour any kind of explanation.

When we first arrived at Seton’s emergency room, however, it felt really good to take off the cap. That was before the Tylenol had kicked in and I was burning up with fever. Even my husband who will surely come back as a meat locker attendant for his love of cold rooms felt overly chilly there. I loved the cold, though. I was also proud of my presence of mind to suggest that we both bring books to read while we waited. There was an awful lot waiting. When we left we walked back through the cold area and I appreciated Guy’s complaints then.

Kelric is visiting his grandparents in Killeen this weekend. We’ve missed him terribly and are anxious to have him returned, but it was fortuitous circumstance last night that our baby wasn’t here. I can hardly wait to see our son this evening.

In the beginning it seemed just awful that the joy of a new baby should be mixed up in the agony of treating cancer. Having a baby in house, however, has made it easier in some ways. The joy of spending time with my son has been made sweeter by the challenges and the time apart. His baby smiles cheer me to my soul, and the motivation to stay alive to see him grow up has helped me accept the treatments. I’m firmly convinced that the pregnancy led to the discovery of my cancer before it advanced to a stage with a higher mortality rate. Not only did Kelric save my life by coming when he did, but he has helped me enjoy living when chemo made life a dark and difficult time. Guy, too, has been a tremendous source of cheerful thoughts and encouragement on the dark days. It seems that cancer treatments can cause great strain on relationships and many have ended because of it. That has never been a flicker of a concern in our relationship, though. Whatever fears or struggles Guy goes through as he worries about my health, he remains rock solid support for me.

We even took time out to do something fun Friday night. We went to the Cactus Café and saw Jimmy LaFave perform. The music was incredible. It was one of those evenings when the band hit the perfect groove and the singing was right on. The keyboard player visited with us before and after the show. That was neat. The Cactus Café is a small venue and we sat at a table next to the keyboardist’s part of the stage. Sometimes I would look out over the crowd while the band was playing and I would see heads bobbing in time to the music. I saw people smiling. I also caught people staring at my head scarf before the show started. It amazed me how many people I caught staring and how none of them looked away when I looked at them. I liked wearing the head scarf, though, because it made us more memorable. I felt totally inspired to write poetry during the concert. Because of being seated at a table and having light from the stage, I could see well enough to scribble poetry into a little notebook I always carry in my purse. I didn’t mean to, but I ended up writing poetry through the entire concert. The range of emotions encompassed by the music was just right to break down my writer’s block and the poetry, rough as it surely was, just flowed. I wrote three poems, and Jimmy LaFave and the keyboardist noticed me writing in my notebook. Guy told me sometimes he would look over at us while he was playing and smile. When we talked to the keyboardist after the show I apologized for writing during the concert. I meant no disrespect, I told him with my scratchy throat making my voice uncharacteristically soft. I explained how the music inspired me. He thought it was a high compliment that I felt inspired to “compose” throughout the concert and he said he would be sure to tell Jimmy. That felt really neat.

Angela

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