ONE WEEK AFTER CHEMOTHERAPY

Irene’s nausea and pain in her leg has not changed much during the week.  On Christmas Eve we spent the evening with our family at Gayla and Chuck’s home.  Everyone of our family was there and we had a wonderful dinner, the grandchildren reenacted the birth of the Savior and the cousins exchanged gifts.  We are appreciative that our children did all the planning and the work associated with the evening and we just showed up and enjoyed being with everyone.  Irene even managed to sample the food rather than stick to the soup and crackers which is about the only thing she has wanted to eat.

Irene’s pain in her leg was the most severe it has been all through that night.  She was up and down about every hour and just could not find relief even with the pain medication she was on.  I have joked with her that her pain threshold on a scale of one to ten is about a six where it would be a ten for most of us.  She admitted that the pain that night was probably a ten.

The nausea the last two days has been worse in that she was throwing up several times during the day and has not really been able to keep much of anything down.  A call to the doctor resulted in a new medication for the nausea and an increase in the amount of pain medication.

Last night (Monday) when she was getting ready for bed, I noticed that she felt a little warm.  We have been instructed to take her temperature on a regular basis, and that if her temperature ever gets to 101.0 that we take her to the emergency room immediately.  Last night at 11:30 p.m. her temperature was 100.6.  She had taken all of her medication, so we waited 30 minutes and took her temperature again, and it was 101.6.  We left for the emergency room and checked her in shortly after midnight at the Banner Gateway Medical Center which is about ten minutes from our home.  Her temperature at the hospital was 99.1when they admitted her.  Her temperature on our thermometer was still 101.1.  I will get a new thermometer today.

She had blood drawn, a chest x-ray and was started on an IV.  The test revealed that her white blood cell count was very low, and the ER doctor determined to keep her in the hospital overnight until the medical oncologist could see her this morning.  I spoke with her this morning and she had not seen the doctor yet, but the nurse told her she may be staying another day until the white blood cell count improves, and they are certain that she does not have an infection.  I will spend the rest of the day with her.

Thanks again to everyone for your faith and prayers on her behalf and for your expressions of love and concern.