After I had finished six rounds of chemo, every other week, I was getting set to take my PET Scan to determine where I stood. I thought that the general battle was over. Almost ten days after my last chemo, my friends visited me from England. We sat in my apartment and watched E! and then a soccer game, through which my friend Karen continually rolled her eyes as her husband Chris watched with excitement. When we got hungry, Chris begged to get Subway, because he really loved Subway. And I had coupons. All in all it was a lovely visit. And then, for some unknown reason—not because I felt sick—I took my temperature. It was 100.4. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t feel unwell, but knew that a temperature above 100.5 was a reason to call the hospital. First, I called my mother and told her. I swore it was that I was just tired and needed to drink more. She said okay, and to take it again in a little bit and we’ll go from there. When I called her a half an hour later, she was already on her way in. We called the Oncology Center, and after not hearing back for over an hour, we beeped my doctor. She told me to head to the ER and get a CBC done. It was probably nothing. Happily, I got in the car and went to the ER; I had to call ahead of time to tell them that I was coming so that they could put me in reverse isolation. The first time I had gone to the ER was about a month into treatment. I had spiked a fever, had a runny nose and a cough. I cried when they put me in the room and told me I might have to be admitted. I begged and pleaded not to be. Because of a mysterious outbreak of something or other in the hospital they thought it would be better for my overall health if I went home. So, they put me on Cipro and Augmentan (sic) and sent me home. I was better in a few days; I had just a cold but on chemo a cold could kill you. But this time I wasn’t so lucky and it wasn’t a cold. But more on that. So I walk into the ER, tell them all I need is a CBC and that was it. However, they were like “uh, there’s protocol on a chemo patient.” And I was whisked away to a private room that had been recently scrubbed and told to put on a gown. And the inevitable “pee in this cup”. Damn! And then sitting on the bed, my best friend who happened to be the PA on duty that night wandered in. She looked sick to see me. They accessed my port and then drew blood for cultures. I had to take a Chest X-Ray. I was put on IV antibiotics. I so very badly wanted to go home. I kept insisting that I didn’t feel sick, I wasn’t sick, that I was just tired and needed to get out of there. But more than that, I wanted them to call my oncologist and tell her what was going on. She had told me to have them call her as soon as I had gotten there. I kept insisting that it was important and I was being ignored. I didn’t want any antibiotics or medicine until they cleared it with her. “It’s protocol,” the smug, self-satisfied bastard of a doctor told me. “I understand that, but I need you to call her.” “We’re not calling her until we know something.” “She asked me to have her called. She needs to know what is going on.” “No,” was the simple reply. He told me that my chest x-ray showed a “haziness” and that I had pneumonia, case-closed and was going to be admitted for overnight observation. I was put on Avelox and that was the end of it.

The next day, I woke up with a horrific cough. Just to note: this was one that I hadn’t had the day before. My hospital room was freezing. I had hardly slept. The oncologist on call visited the next day, told me he wasn’t convinced that I had pneumonia (the X-ray was apparently not as definitive as the ER doctor had said it was) and that I could go home on PO medication. Yay! Or so I thought.

The next few days were hard. The symptoms ebbed and flowed. One minute I couldn’t breathe walking to the bathroom. Another I was fine. At some points I couldn’t even talk. I had become very tachycardic and tachyptnic. My mother kept calling the Oncology Center, and at one point was told “If she gets any worse, bring her in.” My mother’s response, “What like when she’s dead?” Frustrated, they took me in anyway. At the office, my pulse-ox was 95 and my heart rate was 144. Still, I wasn’t admitted (apparently no beds). But we waited there for 6 hours. Eventually we went home, were I was put on a different antibiotic and labored upstairs to bed. That night, my fever spiked at 103. I was freezing and begging my mother to make me warmer. She said I was burning up and held me and rocked me back to sleep. The next morning, she said that there was no way I was getting better and needed to be in the hospital. As soon as a bed was ready, they carried me downstairs to the car and I was gearing up to spend my holidays in the unit.