D+2 — Fever Gone

No fever at all today. It might be the round-the-clock Tylenol, or it might be, if I do have an infection, that one of the powerful antifungal/viral/bacterial medications I am on is keeping that infection in check.

The cause of the sustained high fever remains a mystery. (Solving the mystery is now a matter of curiosity rather than urgency.) Here are the suspects:

• An infection stirred up by the sinus surgery the day before my transplant (I did have a low fever before the transplant)
• Reaction to the transplant
• Some other infection

Although I am on Tylenol now, that was not an option during the fever. The key pre-transplant chemo drug, busulfan, is hard on the liver, and Tylenol accentuates the effect.

Instead of Tylenol, I got a special pad for my bed. It's a thin plastic pad with a honeycomb of channels that fill with water, connected to a machine that keeps the water at whatever temperature you want. Even though it did not decrease my temperature, at least for the first day, it did increase my comfort. Or maybe it kept my fever from getting even higher.

I'm now rid of the fever and the pad. My complaint of the day is a strong metallic taste in my mouth. It makes everything taste terrible. I hear it's a common post-chemo experience. 

It will pass.

And then something else will be my complaint of the day.

And as long as I have a complaint of the day, it means I have another day. Under the current circumstances, that's a victory.