Not as unscathed as I thought

Naturally, two days after my son's field  trip, I came down with a cold. A cold on chemo. I guess that experimental spit got to me.

During chemo Friday, I thought I had a sinus problem since only my left nasal passage was plugged. A not uncommon occurrence in a person with a deviated septum who is addicted to Afrin.   Despite my dislike for the stuff, I asked for extra benedryl during my infusion to see if it would help.  It didn't.  As the night wore on I began coughing, and as I plowed through my first box of kleenex, I realized I had a full-fledged cold.

I had a miserable night.  Who doesn't when you have a cold?  Mine was compounded by the fact that the Taxol causes heartburn and gas, and with all the coughing and post-nasal drip, I was closer to puking than I ever have been while on chemo.  With the chronic "herceptin drip" I always have, plus this cold, my bed was a veritable flood of snot.   Naturally between the wet pillow, the coughing, the almost-puking and the burping,  I was finding it hard to sleep.

Sorry guys, I'm taken.

I actually doubled up on the ativan, shoved a keenex in each nostril and spread some on  my pillow and tried to sleep that way.  Yes I did.

My attempts at keeping dry worked only marginally.

The funny thing is when I was at the Exploratorium, I didn't see one person cough, one kid sneeze, one person pull out the tissues that entire field trip day.  I tried not to touch the exhibits and pulled out sanitizing wipes when I did.  The only area of danger was when I forgot I was Cancer Girl and put on goggles to look at a perspective change experiment - those goggles were probably on 400 kid's eyes before mine.  But, I didn't get an eye infection, I got a full-fledged cold - cough, headache, general misery.

At 5:30 am this morning, I woke up feeling hot.  I took a temperature and it was 100.8.  I was told to call the doctor "immediately" if it got over 100.5, since, of course, I have few infection fighting white cells.   But, I'm guessing immediately didn't mean 5:30 in the morning on a Sunday.  And, if it did for him, it didn't for me.  I can only be so compliant.   So, I took two Tylenol (another no-no) and went back to sleep.  My fever has not gotten past 100.2 for the rest of the day.

During the brief periods I've been awake today, I have pictured my poor old white cells coming out on crutches and walkers and canes to try and kill that infection, and beating it back enough to keep me out of the hospital,  and I'm so proud of them. 

They need to keep it up as tomorrow I have a long-overdue appointment for a tissue-expander fill, and I am also supposed to go to work. 

Think under 100.5 degree thoughts for me.