So…my sweet Telly Belly had her first official fever post-treatment. I have to admit….I thought I would be a little more okay with it then I was. So….in celebration of the long holiday weekend, my parents and I took the 3 girls up to the farm for some wintertime fun and visit with the family this past weekend. My dad grew up on a dairy farm 60 miles north of Green Bay, WI in a small town of 600 people. That was our destination. We arrived late Friday night/ early Saturday morning. Saturday the girls enjoyed hanging around visiting with everyone, playing with cousin Mark, feeding the deer with Uncle Paul and Uncle Dan, playing with and loving all over the barn cats, and enjoying Aunt Darlene’s activities with her. Because I am in class and had lots of homework to do over the weekend, I decided it would be a good idea to stay up late Saturday night to finish my homework…so I would meet my Sunday night 5:00pm deadline and would not miss out on visiting with everyone during the day. So at 2:00 AM, I fell asleep hoping the girls would sleep in a little bit for me, however, at least I went to sleep knowing all my homework had been submitted.
To my alarm, Taylor woke up screaming at 5:45 AM Sunday morning because her arm wouldn’t move….
Yeah…so about that…as it turns out I think it just fell asleep on her. But as I was checking on her, I realized she was ON FIRE…. Lucky for me, I had my trusty little emergency kit stocked with tempadots. I knew she was hot, but was shocked to see how hot. She filled every dot on a tempadot which maxes out at 104.8…so she was at least 104.8. I looked at it about 20 times to see if I was looking at it right, but a dot is either blue or orange and they were ALL blue. So….I calmed her down, snuck downstairs and called the doctor. Actually out of habit, I called her nurse Dawn first, but basically just left her a message saying…”Taylor is 105 and sorry I called you because clearly at 105…there is no question on whether or not I need to call the doctor on call”. So I called the doctor on call…which to my luck ended up being Dr. Hugge! To be so far away from home and to get her first post-treatment fever (and as high as it was), I was very glad Dr. Hugge was the one on the other end in St. Louis.
Dr. Hugge thought that because she was as hot as she was that it was worth a trip to the biggest, nearest hospital for an evaluation, CBC, and possibly some antibiotics. So after consulting my Aunt Darlene (a nurse), my mom, Taylor, and I were on our way to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Green Bay (60 miles away). Another thing we had going for us in addition to Dr. Hugge being on call…was St. Anthony’s. If you had to make a trip to a hospital 10 hours from home, St. Anthony’s was were you needed to be. They were amazing, nurses, registration, doctor, and anyone else that we interacted with! The nurse was very accommodating to Taylor’s little isms about what kind of tegaderm to use or any other thing that she liked just the way she did but maybe not the way they would normally do something. So…her CBC came back and her white count was HIGH (which took me a minute to process) but all the White Blood Cells were normal, HEALTHY cells!!!!!!!!
(Leukemia cells are abnormal, unhealthy white blood cells) The elevated white count was indicative of some sort of infection being present. We left the hospital to go back to the farm with the recommendation from Dr. Hugge to come back to St. Louis sooner then later. As long as Taylor has her port there is a potential for a bacterial infection. The nurse drew blood to test for bacterial infections, but that test would not come back for about of 24 hours. If Taylor did indeed have a bacterial infection and she was to get sicker as time passed, we were better off at home in St. Louis then so far away. We made the decision to call our weekend short and leave around dinnertime.
We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon Sunday, and even got the chance to visit with Uncle Don and Aunt Lynn who drove up for the afternoon. Taylor was feeling much better being dosed up with Tylenol and Motrin. We got home in the wee hours of the morning Monday morning. Taylor and I went to the Clinic to follow-up with Dr. Hugge. She was feeling better and her blood cultures all came back negative. We could stop giving her Tylenol and Motrin scheduled and go to giving it as needed. She has not needed it since and made it to school today.
So after all that we made it home early and didn’t really need to, but rather be safe then sorry so I am not disappointed that we left early. I thought I would be more calm when she had her first fever, but I inside my heart was pounding with fear. I didn’t really think she had relapsed and that was the cause of the fever, but I knew anything was a possibility. She never had fevers that high before, except for once while she was on treatment. How will I be the next time? The more the year goes on and the longer it gets from her last chemotherapy (to keep the Leukemia away) will I remain just as nervous or will it get better or worse? But her White Count was high and they were ALL healthy cells….that’s enough for me for now! And she is feeling better…even better for me!
