Not how I planned to spend my Sunday

After feeling really great the last 2 days (and even having friends over to watch the Pats game on Saturday night), I woke up feeling really blah on Sunday.  I went back to bed for a little while and could tell when I woke up that I was getting a fever.  It was only just over 100 but I had taken Tylenol an hour before so I decided to call the on-call oncologist.  He recommended going to the ER to check my blood counts and to potentially get some fluids.   Emily's birthday party was happening Sunday afternoon, so we decided Craig would go to the party.  I called our neighbor Carolyn, who is a nurse and has high school/college age children to see if she could bring me, which she could, so we embarked on a long day at the ER.  (Carolyn is also the person that gives me my Neulasta shot the day after chemo so I don't have to go all the way to Dana-Farber.)

It was a ZOO there - almost as if there had been some sort of mass casualty incident!   There were people everywhere - in beds and chairs in the hallways... in rooms...  It was insane.  It was a lot of people with flu like symptoms.  The nurses were commenting that people didn't come in on Saturday because they were watching the Pats game and then the flood gates opened on Sunday.   Given my compromised immune state, they got me into a private room very quickly and I masked up.   They did a bunch of blood work and my potassium and magnesium came back low so they gave me some pills for that.  (Most of my other counts, which have been low, were pretty good, which was a bit surprising!)   I got Zofran for the nausea and fluids for the dehydration.   They did a chest x-ray (which came back fine).  I saw both an ER doctor and the on-call oncologist.  At the end of the day, they aren't really sure what was wrong -maybe I had a stomach virus or maybe the symptoms were chemo related.  All in all, I was at the ER for 4.5 hours.  It was a long day.  It was AWESOME to have Carolyn there with me as she spoke "nurse" and would ask the questions I forgot to ask and filling in my symptoms when I forgot any.  (Meanwhile, Emily had a blast at her birthday party!)

I came home and pretty much went right to bed.  After napping for a little while, I woke up feeling better.   And this morning, I felt even better, although now I am pretty tired.   I spoke with my oncologist's office this morning.  At first she wanted me to come in for fluids but when I told them I had a lot of fluid yesterday and was feeling better today, we decided I did not have to go in.  Hopefully, I am ok to get my next treatment on Wednesday!