I started the meds on Friday morning, went to work and then attended to church duties in the evening. The following morning, I played basketball, went to a birthday party, went shopping at costco, and ferried people to and from the Church. A busy day for someone who's on chemo. Around 7pm, I started feeling unwell with severe headaches. Lani gave me Panadol to relieve the pain. After about an hour, I was already feeling feverish so Lani checked on my temp and got 37.7. Now, we have strict instructions that if I hit 38deg, I have to be taken to the Emergency Room. But because I had taken Panadol, we couldn't be sure if I had already hit 38 so Lani decided to call an ambulance.
We got to Westmead public hospital around 9pm and after about 2.5 hours of wait, were brought into our own ER room for monitoring. We stayed there till 6pm the following day before a ward bed opened up. I ended up in Palliative Care, in a room with 3 very old patients who are all stricken with different forms of cancer. They each took turns in vomiting convulsively throughout the day, even in the middle of the night. It was a very depressing environment to be in, but what can you do? At least there was a TV.
So I stayed in there til Monday afternoon when my oncologist decided it was safe for me to go home. They didn't get to identify the cause of my fever, so they attributed it being viral but put me on a course of antibiotics just to be sure.
The funny thing about all this is, on Saturday morning I told Lani that we forgot to take a selfie at the start of the cycle. Something that we always do while I'm having infusions. Well, it turned out there'd still be an opportunity to do just that. A selfie while I'm on the hospital bed.
Next time, I'll make sure we take a selfie as I take my pills. Coz I really don't need to stay in a hospital just so we can take a silly picture.
