Not impressed with 1st visit to Emergency!

Yesterday was a bad day. I was whipped from all the previous night's activities. Tuesday night I only got about two hours of sleep. Adjusting to wearing a sleep hat is easier than it sounds! I would over heat and undress and then five minutes later be freezing ... hot ... cold ... hot ... cold that was the pattern. By 3:30 a.m. I was so pissed off that I just stayed up. Needless to say I wasn't exactly a peach Wednesday!

My spirits and emotions just got worse as the day progressed. I was so tired and weak that I could barely get out of bed. And by mid-afternoon, the chills had set it. My doctor, PND, and HomeCare nurse have all talked to me about the magic number .... 38. If my temperature reaches 38, it's a medical emergency and I have to present myself to Emergency.

I monitored my temperature for a couple of hours .... up .... down .... up .... down. And, then at 6:30 p.m. the magic number appeared ... and stayed. I called HomeCare and she reiterated what I knew ... go to Emergency.

So I semi-reluctantly went to the hospital. I did, however, have a little peace knowing that as a cancer patient on chemo I'm considered a medical emergency I go to the top of the list. I was also told that I would not have to wait in the waiting room with the rest of the cattle.

Sadly, the Emergency Department didn't get the memo from the Cancer Centre. Not only did I wait in the waiting room I was there for almost seven hours. By the time we (mom, dad, and Mikeala) got to the hospital, my temperature had regulated itself ... and I wanted to leave. The nurse was adamant that I needed to stay and at least have blood work (so they can check my levels). Sounded reasonable so I agreed but told her that I would leave right after to blood test. She assured me that the waiting for the blood test would only be a few minutes.

One hour and chest x-ray later and still no blood work. Then my nurse spotted me (pretty hard to miss me since I looked that a smurf) - shocked that I hadn't had the blood work, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She took my blood (a million tubes ... and I'm not kidding) .... I felt light-headed and like I'm going to throw up ... so far the night was not going as planned. Then my lovely nurse pulled a fast one on me and hooked me up to an IV for fluids. That was her way of keeping me at the hospital!

Wait .... wait ... wait ... finally I got a closet in the back .... now it's 10 p.m. .... wait ... wait ... wait. Now let's no forget I'm a medical emergency. A nurse came in to check me out, asked for a urine sample, and then vanished into thin air but not before saying, "the doctor should be in shortly, there are only two patients ahead of you."

Well, the doctor did come in but not until after 1 a.m. Basically, the chest x-ray and urine were clear, and my blood counts were good (only one was up a little). So I had two options: 1) stay in the hospital over night so they can give me antibiotics intravenously; or 2) go home with oral antibiotics. The doctor recommended that I go home since they had nowhere to put me and by staying in Emergency over night I could run to risk of getting sicker.

By 2 a.m., armed with a couple of prescriptions, the Davis clan was off ...