Monday
11AM: Wake up. Put contacts in and start my day on the couch relaxing. I do a lot of sitting around everyday. I really am tired today. Its such a nice day: sunny, almost 50 degrees. Maybe I’ll go for a walk later.
NOON: Boy calls. Talk to him for an hour. Put on a pleasantness show so he doesn’t worry about me. If I really tell him I feel awful, he’ll worry.
1PM: Retreat into my bedroom. It sure is loud having Chris and Mom home for Spring Break. Its too loud almost. Maybe I’m just being annoyed today. Runner’s World came in the mail today. Its funny how I have a subscription at a time I stop running instead of while I run. I read the magazine in bed and fall asleep.
2PM: Its so cold. Why am I cold? Its so nice outside. Two more blankets, a bathrobe and a warm purring kitty later, I’m finally warm enough to fall back asleep.
4PM: Wow that was a good nap. But I sure don’t feel rested. I take my temperature and hate what I see. 101.6. Time to go to the ER, something is wrong. I walk to the bathroom to take a shower before I go (hadn’t taken one since Saturday). Take half a shower, but get too pooped to finish it. Rinse off and get out. Take a break before putting clothes back on. Tell parents about fever. Pack for the hospital. Another break. I’m sooooo drained. Go to the hospital.
5PM: Arrive at Dickinson Co. Hospital. Mom came with me. We talk to the nurse at the window and they get me right into a room instead of making me sit outside in the waiting room with the "germies". As like any hospital, I sit and wait. I’ve come to realize there’s at least a half an hour wait at any given hospital for any given thing you go there for. They take a ton of blood tests and try to convince me to have a chest x-ray. I deny it. They’re going to give me antibiotics anyway, and the nurse I told that I didn’t want the x-ray said it’ll kill any start of pneumonia I had. So why do the x-ray, other than lean me closer to my doomed fate of forever glowing in the dark from x-ray and bone scan radiation?
6PM: I overhear the ER doctor outside say "I’m not touching her, call her doctor and send her somewhere else." I was the only person just coming into the ER at that time so it was obvious he was talking about me. He came in a few minutes later to confirm that. I got an IV antibiotic and was told to drive to Marshfield for platelets and blood. Great, just great.
8PM: On the road again. I still am weak. I’m in my PJ’s and a bath robe. Stop off in Antigo for beverages. Gas station attendant looks at me like he thinks I’m on some really crazy drug. Car of high school boys at the pump behind us do the same thing. I wave like an idiot. In their minds, I just confirmed what their faces suspect.
MIDNIGHT: A very tired and near fainting Karen arrives on 8th floor at St Joseph’s. Four hours is entirely too long for an anemic person to worry about her first blood transfusion and leukopenic isolation. Leukopenia means pretty much that the person has no way to fight off infection and that their immune system went on vacation. In combination with a fever, there is reason to believe there’s an infection. I sit and wait for two hours before they even start my IV fluids.
2AM: A very tired, slightly nervous, and slightly sedated Karen starts her first blood transfusion.
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I had three blood transfusions and a bag of platelets while I was in the hospital. I got four different antibiotics...each twice. Whatever viral infection I had is gone. I’m squeeky clean inside. Even my poop is prolly bacteria free. Waaaay too many antibiotics. I got released from the hospital on Wednesday night, spend the night at Grandma’s and went home.
Verdict: Feels better than chemo.
Best part of the trip: 1. Found out my blood type. 2. Purple Bunny