AML: Voices in my Head

In my last post I briefly mentioned it had been a trying weeknd.  I am feeling MUCH better.  Good news is my ANC and white count are rising.  I have a WBC of .4 and ANC of 56.  It doubled since yesterday.  Better news, I have not had a fever for the last 24 hours.  I've still had a few headaches, but no fevers.

This weekend had flashbacks of my first round of Chemo when I was really sick and didn't know what was happening to my body.  By this point I've become quite attuned to what my body is telling me.   So that made a big difference in managing the fevers and the pain, mostly headaches.  Knowing what was coming allowed us to get in frontof the cycle of fevers and the headaches.  I was much more comfortable.  Don't get me wrong, it was a nasty weekend, but it was a more consistent and less stressful knowing that everything was being managed as expected. 

The infection this time was Streptococcus mitis.  So basically the bacteria that causes strep throat got into my blood stream.  This is the 2nd time I've had to deal with this one.  This round was a little rougher.

Tylenol managed the fevers well enough, but was not doing much for the headaches.  So I got Morphine to help with that.  Let me describe what the combination of Tylenol, Morphine and 103 degree fevers do to you...   First, try this...  Close your eyes for about 5 seconds and note the different shades of light, the spaces and floaties and whatnot that you see. 

OK, so imagine this... the game for me this weekend with the fevers and meds was to sit there for about 20 seconds with my eyes closed like that, watching all those things take shape and turn into different things.  Like making things out of clouds in the sky. This images were very detailed.  At some point I noticed as I tilted my head things would shift directions and take different shapes and I could switch perspecitive.  The things I could range from something as benign as a landscape to something out of a Tim Burton movie. 

I honestly have no idea how much time I spent this weekend doing that.  And if you had looked in my window, you'd have seen a guy with this eyes closed turning his head slowly in all different directions.  Sounds fun right...trust me, I saw some twisted stuff.  At one point the overnight nurse came in and asked if I was on the phone.  Evidently I had been carrying on a conversation with someone.  Must have been some of the voices in my head.  By the time Monday came, I asked if they had something a little less trippy.  They switched me to a synthetic narcotic Oxy-IR.  The voices and I are no longer in speaking terms. 

This trip to the hospital screwed up my schedule a bit.  No trip to Rochester this week.  Here is the timeline now. 

April 21st Benefit
April 23-26th Rochester for testing
April 28th Start Chemo
May 3rd Stem Cell Harvest (Germany)
May 4th Stem Cell Transplant (Rochester)

Don't forget to check out the benefit site, www.jongrann.com for silent auction items and the new iPad Raffle.   Hope to see as many as possible in Volga on the 21st. 

Thanks for the prayers this weekend.