STRONG/COMMON LANGUAGE ALERT
In deference to my boss Gwen Jones I won’t go on a filth-laden rant this morning. She’d say that’s common and she’d be right. So I will confine my nastiness to one sentence (all of you know I have the technical skills to write a correct sentence that’s two or three pages long); I won’t even do that. This is the shittiest week I’ve ever had and yesterday was the shittiest day.
I am back in the hospital for neutropenia. I am so disgusted I stole a definition from some website instead of writing an easy one for you guys. The long and short of it means I have an infection and have no defenses against it. I am so sick of this baloney!!
This week started with falling on the floor of my home because my legs wouldn’t work right, I moved on to the, “Golly, you don’t have any platelets. You need a transfusion.” That wasn’t good enough though, what week would be complete without a nosebleed component for a guys with no/low platelets. Oh that’s an image you shouldn’t forget – blood pouring out of my nose like a crimson waterfall.
So yesterday I go to the doc’s office to get my blood done and I am told get my fat Irish buttocks over to the ambulatory infusion section and get another transfusion. Okay, no big deal. I do that.
I get home and I’m just beat. I can feel a little chill coming on – this isn’t my first rodeo – so I hunker down under some blankets on my leather Lazy Boy and take a nap. Have you ever achieved temperature perfection? Well I did yesterday and I wouldn’t come out from under the blankets. Kate comes home from work and asks me what I want for dinner. Dinner? The thought of eating anything makes me want to puke. So I continue to hide under the blankets.
At about 6:30 I finally roll out of my blanket constructed beaver lodge and lie down next to Kate to watch the news in the bedroom. I reach over and touch her and she say’s, “Oh God your hands are sooooo warm.” So I spend the next few minutes rubbing her neck and feet (don’t ask) and it dawns on me that one of the signs of a bad transfusion is a fever. Kate gets the thermometer and it turns out I have a 101.7 fever. The magic number for calling the doctor is 100. So Its about 7 p.m. and I call the doc’s office and they tell me to stop what I and get to the ER. I have to get antibiotics into me immediately and I’m going to be admitted as soon as they find me a bed.
When I get to the ER, they immediately separate me from everyone else, put me in a room for my own protection, and there I am probed, felt up, x-rayed, ignored, and finally sent upstairs to the cancer ward where my nurses are – I am so glad to see them. Well, I’m here for a few days anyway.
It’s all too much.
I guess that’s it for now. My phone number at the hospital is 733-6219.
Peace, love to all,
Bill
Description
Neutropenia is an abnormally low level of neutrophils in the blood. Neutrophils are white blood cells (WBCs) produced in the bone marrow and comprise approximately 60% of the blood. These cells are critically important to an immune response and migrate from the blood to tissues during an infection. They ingest and destroy particles and germs. Germs are microorganisms such as bacteria, protozoa, viruses, and fungus that cause disease. Neutropenia is an especially serious disorder for cancer patients who may have reduced immune functions because it makes the body vulnerable to bacterial and fungal infections. White blood cells are especially sensitive to chemotherapy. The number of cells killed during radiation therapy depends upon the dose and frequency of radiation, and how much of the body is irradiated.
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