Everything is about balance. All the good news this week needed an opposite weight on the scale.
I was lucky today to finally be able to hug Melody after so many months and hang out and joke and eat good food. It was a great end to a great week, and then I got chills out of nowhere.
Teeth chattering uncontrollable shivering and no ability to feel warm even with an electric blanket and I don’t know how many others piled on top. Those chills preceded a fever that climbed to 101F and some discussions about calling professionals. I stupidly forgot I am a cancer patient operating a body beaten up by months of chemo. Tried to play it off.
That was my body’s cue to spike a fever in just a short time to almost 103. No fun. Apparently when cancer patients get fevers they really go Buster Poindexter (Hot! Hot! Hot!)
I cannot say enough about how great Froedtert’s 24 hour cancer clinic is. Instead of spending 8 hours in an ER we can have a triage nurse slide us into a slot in a specialized clinic and the nurses and doctors are part of the same team that are already treating me. It was a chaotic nightmare getting parked and into the building because of the timing, but the staff are all amazing and immediately started working to figure out the cause and how to help me.
There’s nothing obvious as a cause, and it took 4 hours for me to get under 100F, so they’re blasting me with IV antibiotics and have admitted me while we wait to see what grows in the blood cultures. The entire focus is to make sure I am in good shape for surgery, which would not have happened in the ER. I am very lucky.
As I type this a nurse is asking me all sorts of questions and preparing me to not get a lot of sleep tonight because the usual vitals and labs and IV changes and such, but I feel much better and I am treating it as a practice run for not getting any sleep after surgery.
Anyway, good night, and be cool, because I cannot.
If you see Ellie be extra-nice to her. She has been a fucking rock during an incredibly stressful day.