Well I've had a couple of crappy weeks...

Not great news,

3 weeks ago when I was weaning off dexamethasone. I got a few of those pimple like pus things on my hand... so I do what I always do with pimple like things (because its habit and I'm dumb), I popped them. Well, they got infected, I drained them with an alcohol sterilized pin (because they were two big to pop normally, and I only had one hand to do it with... ever tried to pop with one hand? Its hard.) Had to do that twice... seemed to work, no more pus was vsible, but they continued to get bigger and quite painful. So two Fridays ago, May 20th (I had just started Chemo the Tue 17th of the same week) I went to see the family doctor. He said they were still infected and that I required antibiotics now. Great... so he prescribed me with a weeks worth of antibiotics.

New week, 4 days into the antibiotic on Tue May 24, the doctor finds out about the infection and cancels Chemo treatment because they don't want me in the hospital because my white blood cell is too low and possibly causes the infection to run rampant in my blood stream. So no chemo that week. Ok, so antibiotic is slated to finish that Friday the 27th. Wed May 25th, I started getting cold chills and a mild fever. So I took Tylenol for the fever and it went away (while under drugs). By Fri the 27th I'd developed a dry cough to go with it and a pain in my lower lung area when I coughed.

Weekend of 28th and 29th. Kaye decides to take me to the emergency ward of the hospital once my fever was demonstrated (I couldn't prove I had a fever before Sat, because she always wanted me to check after I'd medicated myself, bad timing). Primarily because a prolonged (now 4 days) fever is bad for a Chemo patient. So Sat they did a blood test and an X-Ray of my chest. They didn't find much, possibly something in my lung but I was discharged with a "just in case" antibiotic if it didn't go away in a couple of days. However, the next day, an enterprizing doctor decided to relook at my charts and asked me to come in for more tests. They decided I should take a CT scan. I did. He then decided I had the start of pnemonia in the bottom of my right lung and that I should start my "just in case" antibiotic right away.

He was glad I didn't have a "leak" of air from my lung. It turns out that's why they called me in again the 2nd day. They confused my new "stomach" for a leaked air pocket behind the lung and thought my lung was punctured or something. Go figure.

So here I am, another Tue (May 31,2011) and again Chemo is cancelled due to infection. Not a good track record.

To top it off, I had an appointment with the eye speciallist and they have decided after the FA (angiogram of my eye) that they still don't know what is in my eye. They were disappointed that the sack on my retina wasn't leaking, then they would know it was water/fluid. Well, it isn't leaking, so now I have to go to Princess Margaret Hospital in T.O. and visit the Ocular Oncology department to get a higher resolution angiogram with equipment that they are apparently the only ones in Ontario that have this equipment. And they are going to definitely rule out if the blob on my retina is a cancer lesion or not. God I hope not...

Hopefully this week will go as follows: I'll have my Birthday on June 1st... while getting a CT scan at Juravinski cancer center... fun stuff. Then I'll continue to take my antibiotics and the pnemonia will take a hike. Then next week I can start Chemo again... hopefully. I'm definitely concerned with the amount of time that my liver lesions have been getting as a break. I don't want the cancer to spread elsewhere... stupid infections... ruined my plans.

So how's your couple of weeks been?
-- Shane