Things That Go Bump in the Night

(Monday)

I had been running a mild fever in the evening for a few days, but not high enough to warrant any action. On Sunday evening, my fever reaches the magic threshold —38 Centigrade.

This means tests, throughout the night. They don't take any chances with fevers.

Around 1:00 a.m., Transport arrives to take me down for chest x-rays, to look for pneumonia. He wheels me to the elevator, down to the scanning floor, through a maze of turns and doors to the x-ray waiting area, which is empty. I am feeling pretty weak, and I am just about to get out of my chair and lie down on a couch when the tech comes in for me. As we're rolling down the hall, I feel a little flushed.

He takes me into the x-ray room and has me stand up with my chest against whatever it is they shoot us against. I'm tired. He aligns me and the background the way he wants, and steps out of the room into the control room. A voice tells me to breathe in and hold it, and then to breathe normally. I'm feeling lightheaded. I say out loud, "I'm feeling lightheaded."

The next thing I know, I am regaining consciousness in the wheelchair. I'm sweating and disoriented. The x-ray tech is next to me and tells me I was out for two minutes. (None of the doctors or nurses I later tell this to believe the two-minute estimate, chalking it up to the natural tendency to overestimate the duration of scary or unpleasant events.) The tech brings me a wet hand towel to cool me off, and somebody calls for the nurse from my corridor to come down.

By the time the nurse arrives, I feel fine. She gets into protective garb — why am I not in protective garb? — and stands next to me while we take the x-ray. And then she wheels me back to my room.

There's no obvious explanation for me passing out. My blood pressure is OK. I have only a light fever. I do sometimes get lightheaded when I stand up after sitting for a while, but in this case I had been standing for a while before all the blood suddenly rushed away from my brain. I had a nearly identical experience my first day back, during a CT scan of my head. (Sorry, I forgot to blog about that.) In that case, I was dehydrated. Maybe this time was a psychosomatic replay — back in the same corridors, standing up, getting aligned with the machine. Next time I'm doing one of these tests, I'll know to warn the tech.

After I get another hour or so of sleep, they're collecting blood for blood cultures. They also leave a kit for collecting a urine sample. The collection protocol is far too complicated and too time-consuming for me to comply with at 4:00 a.m. — I really have to go. At 6:00 a.m., I am able to follow the rules. Disturbingly, what initially comes out is blood instead of urine. Just a little, but still. The only amount of blood that is OK in these circumstances is none. I would have been even more disturbed if the same thing hadn't happened about a week ago. It doesn't hurt, there is no sign of infection, and I do have really low platelets. It's still just wrong. If it happens again, say my doctors, we'll consult a urologist.

Now, each time I pee only pee is a small victory. Every few hours, another win...