Neutropenic Fever

Saturday morning, I woke up feeling a little listless and a little achy. Jan and I headed out for our morning walk. I had been hoping to jog, and I thought that the blood transfusion I received on Friday would make the jog faster than my previous one, when I was left in the dust by a walker. But after twenty minutes of easy walking, I was ready to stop.

I took my temperature when we got home: 100.6. Half an hour later: 101.8. I called my doctor, and we discussed whether I should go to the local hospital or make the two-and-half-hour drive to Chicago. We decided to stay local, both for convenience and to avoid the risk of getting seriously ill somewhere between Kankakee and Peotone.

Until yesterday, I have never been in an empty emergency room. I guess Saturday morning isn't a popular time to have an emergency, at least compared to Saturday night. So I got right in, had some blood drawn and x-rays taken, took Tylenol to bring down the fever (102.8), started an intravenous antibiotic drip, and got admitted to the hospital.

Neutropenic fever is a common occurrence after chemotherapy. The chemo drops all the blood counts, which is why I received platelets and blood late last week. But that still leaves the white cells wherever they have dropped to, which means chemo patients are especially vulnerable to infection. Of the white cells, the neutrophil cells are the most measure of infection resistance.

My neutrophil count reached zero today, and it was nearly zero yesterday. People with low (or no) neutrophil counts are neutropenic, and neutropenic patients often have high and unexplained neutropenic fevers.

That describes my case. The labs here have checked my blood, urine, and lungs without finding any infection. I slept most of Saturday and Saturday night, and today I feel pretty good. I have a low-grade fever instead of the sheet-soaking heat of yesterday.

I will stay in the hospital until my neutrophil count reaches 1000. That will probably be about a week.

While I'm not happy about being back in a hospital, I'm very happy with the care. I have a large room, the staff are very good, the food is good (really), and they brought me an exercise bike.