Not this kind …                       … this kind.

Everything seemed to be going well last week.  Even though my white blood cell count was too low for chemo, I felt pretty good.  Then Saturday came along and instead of an evening on the town, I spent the evening in the emergency room.  I started to get chills and body aches Saturday afternoon.  My son had been sick with a cold during the week so I figured I caught something from him.  My fever began to rise, and following the protocol for a fever when you’re neutropenic (low neutrophils), I headed to the ER once it had been over 100.5 for an hour. I spent about 3 1/2 hours there while they ran blood and flu tests and did a chest x-ray.  Everything was negative, so the assumption was made that I caught a virus and just needed rest and chicken noodle soup.  Fortunately, my white blood counts had returned to normal, so there was no longer a real concern about the fever.

Sunday morning I was still feeling a bit puny, so I stayed in bed (and missed my son’s soccer game – boo!).  By afternoon I felt much better and visited family for my sister-in-law’s birthday.  By evening, I was not feeling well again and noticed that I had swelling around the tissue expander on my left side.  (These were inserted at the time of my bilateral mastectomy to stretch the skin for reconstruction to be performed at a later time.)  I slept very poorly Sunday night, again battling body aches and a bad headache.  I had an early morning appointment with my oncologist, and she agreed that there were signs of an infection and it was best to postpone chemo once again.  I was placed on antibiotics but may be able to proceed with chemo on Wednesday if the drugs seem to be working. I also do not have to make up the missed session of Taxol from last week – we’ll just head straight back into the Taxol/Carboplatin combo that was so enjoyable a few weeks ago. 😉  They will adjust the dosage, though, so hopefully that will reduce the side effects I had previously.

So my new chemo day will be Wednesday each week (provided we go forward this week) and I’m still on track to finish in the same time frame.  Only six more weeks of this unpleasantness.  I can handle that.