Spoke too soon...

The deal is, if Charl runs a fever of 37.5C we have to phone the hematologist on call. If he runs a fever of 38C or more, we have to take him to Emergency. Last night he had a throbbing headache that wouldn't quit, and rapidly rising fever. We followed the instructions and headed to emergency at Foothills just after midnight.

Our doctor gave us a letter to take with us to emergency in case this ever happened. When you hand the triage nurse this letter, it's like you have a VIP status to get treated as quickly as possible. Not that they don't treat other patients as well, but we were astonished at how quickly Charl was admitted. We waited maybe 10 minutes for a bed, and within 20 minutes after that Charl was in the hospital bed, hooked up to an IV in one arm, oxygen tubes in his nose, a throat swab and Xrays were taken, and copious amounts of blood were being drawn from the other arm (6 small vials and 4 large ones that looked more like small bottles).

I can tell you that it was an unsettling sight to see my pale, shivering husband hooked up and helpless like that. We knew the staff was doing everything they could for Charl, but when a situation provides no comfort we turn to scripture and prayer for a comfort that can only come from God. I read Charl psalm 16 from my iTouch: "Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge ...I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken."
How complacent we become with a perceived improvement of health, and how frightening it is when the unexpected happens. You just never know when things will turn.

They take so much blood so they can run cultures to figure out what infection if any he has, and if there is an infection, which antibiotic to use to treat it. After several assessments from the emerg doctor, and hours of waiting, no obvious source of the infection was found. Fortunately, he was not neutropenic (where white blood cell count is too low) so by 5:00am they discharged him and told him to take it easy for the next 48 hours. If anything changes, or symptoms worsened, come back in right away.

Being positive has many advantages, the most obvious of which is not focusing on the worst aspects of the disease. But perhaps one disadvantage of being positive is assuming all is well and carrying on with life normally, while inadvertently pushing a bit too hard. Did we push it too hard? Or did he just pick up some random virus? We don’t know that, but what we do know is that he only had a fever of 38.5, but that was enough for the staff to treat his condition very seriously.

I thought to myself how different it would be if I went to emergency with a fever of 38.5. They'd point to the door and politely yet sternly tell me to get lost. As they should. In any event, we just hope he's well enough on Thursday to get through his last chemo.