Well I let my 8th month anniversary come and go on Dec. 18th. I have been harboring a little cough that ended up turning into a worse cough with body aches. So on Friday at around 3pm I took my temperature and realized I had a 100.4 temp and decided I had best contact Toby, Dr. Champlin's PA (physician assistant) She spoke to Dr. Champlin who wanted me to get to the clinic as quickly as possible so that he could examine me and they could run some blood tests, do a nasal flush and start me on some Tamiflu. Unfortunately my car was in the shop and my son and husband were both gone. By the time I found someone to take me, it was closing in on 3:30pm and it would have been hard to make it to MD Anderson on a Friday afternoon before they closed at 5pm.
So Dr. Champlin just called in a prescription for Tamiflu to my local pharmacy and I started the first dose that evening. My fever went up to 100.9 during the night. But by Saturday's second dose, it seemed to kick in pretty quickly because my fever was down to 99.4 on Saturday afternoon and gone by Sunday. I still have a lingering cough. But they want to see me tomorrow morning and will take a chest x-ray and blood tests in the morning and I will see Dr. Champlin.
The only other significant thing that happened since the 7 month mark was that my CT scans showed the infection in my lungs was getting somewhat worse. So Dr. Chemaly, the infectious disease doctor switched one of my antibiotics and will have another CT scan of my chest done in a few weeks. I have another bone marrow biopsy planned for Dec. 29th. As a result of my infection getting worse in my lungs, Dr. Champlin wanted to put my Vidaza chemotherapy injections on hold.
Maybe next month I will have some Christmas pictures to share with everyone. I have a short bob like hairdo, that is filling out, but doesn't seem to be growing in length very fast at all.
As a last request, I would like to ask if there is anyone out there that can make the time to give blood or platelets during the holidays to please give me a call. I have a dear and courageous friend at MD Anderson who was diagnosed with MDS a month before me. We met in the waiting room shortly after I was diagnosed in September, and have encouraged each other on throughout our similar journeys and have stuck together for this year and 3 months process. She has had an unfortunate turn of events and needs platelets daily. I can give you more information about where and how to donate that I don't want to share on my blog. So please call me at 281-814-9507 if you feel like you could do this! She and I would greatly appreciate it!!
I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas, thanking God for the special gift of His son!
Gail
