Fevers and ER

I had my first round of Taxol the Thursday before last.  That Wednesday (a few days ago) I started getting a fever while I was at work.  I left work around 4:00 and got into bed.  One of the things that my doctor has drilled into my head is that if I have a fever of 100.5 or greater or chills, I have to call the the clinic or the after hours on call doctor. 

By 7:00 that night I was under 3 blankets and shivering uncontrollably.  But my fever was only 100 or so...which continues to confuse me.  A fever of 100 should not cause chills that bad, is nothing normal in my body right now?  By 1:15 am, my fever was 101.3 and the on call fellow told me I needed to go to the ER.  So, my mom came and picked me up (40 minutes later because she had to shower and then got out of the shower and realized she forgot to rinse the conditioner out of her hair and she had to stop and get gas.....I think she was having a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that she was driving me to the ER).

At the ER they drew my blood, gave me a chest xray and started an IV antibiotic.  My WBC (infection fighting part of my blood) was 4.1, and 4.0 is where normal starts.  But, being in the middle of chemo that wasn't surprising.  But something else in my blood test made them think there's a possibility of a bacterial infection, possibly in my port.  But I won't find out for sure until Monday because they have to grow the cultures.  I was there from 2:00-5:30 am, got home at 6:00 am and then was back there at 9:00 am for more chemo.  The doctor and I talked a lot about it, she made sure I was up to it and we went forward with it.  During chemo, I developed another fever.  Sigh.  I was shivering again but I kept telling the infusion nurse it was adrenaline and I was fine.  She walked away and came back with my doctor - I laughed and said I can't believe you told on me!!  So, she gave me a different antibiotic and some Tylenol and sent me on my way.

Friday I woke up and felt great and Elliott stayed home with me instead of going to school (Cameron really wanted to too, but it was show and tell day, which is like the best day of the whole week...so I picked him up 1:00 instead).  Erin and Nolan came over to play with us, and my dad and Marilyn came over.  I made soup, we had a great day - and I felt great all day.  Then that night at dinner time - another fever with horrible chills and under multiple blankets.  It went away with Tylenol, and then at 4:30 in the morning it was back. 

I hate to state the obvious - but this sucks.  This chemo has been easier, so I'm going to have mystery fevers to deal with.  It's scary to not know what's going on in my body.  It's entirely possible that when my blood work comes back on Monday there will be no infection anywhere, and we won't ever know what was causing the fevers.  I'm going to decide that the fevers are done as of right now, my blood work will come back and say it's all good, and I'll move forward with 10 more weeks of tolerable chemo.

Yah, that's right.