Fear and Flu Season

On Christmas morning I woke up a different person. I felt incredibly weak. My joints and hips felt like they were made of glass, and I was running a fever. It seemed that I had come down with the flu, which was a bummer but not surprising considering how many people have been sick. After a couple of days I went to my oncologist for bloodwork and an exam. Once my labs were drawn I sat in the waiting room. Though I have been to this doctor for years, I never cared for his style and I never had much faith in his opinions which I usually take with a grain of salt.

Visit to Doctor and prescription

The doctor walked in and sat down. “Have you had treatment since I last saw you,” he asked. I haven’t had treatment in years. The doctor then told me that he was confused because my white blood cell count was pretty much nonexistent. This was strange because normally when our bodies fight infection our white cell is higher than normal because the cells are fighting the infection. My confused doctor ordered an antibiotic which I hoped would put me on the right path.

Symptoms / Not what I was hoping

After a few days my fever was under control. I had completed my antibiotic and while I was very weak I decided to go back to work. It was a tough Monday. The next day I woke up with a fever of 102 degrees. I took Ibuprofen and went to work anyway because I was so tired of being home. I took the rest of the week off and called my oncologist to explain that I was not better after finishing the antibiotic and I requested repeat blood work to see how things may have changed. The doctor’s nurse denied me the blood work or to be seen. Instead she ordered a new prescription for me.

I had been sweating so much during the night that I had to put new blankets on my bed every day. Lying in bed I remembered that I am more likely to get Leukemia after my history with chemotherapy. After a quick google search I found that the early symptoms of the blood disease were night sweats and weakness, which I had been experiencing. I didn’t want to jump to that conclusion, but It was definitely concerning.

Searching for an alternative opinion

Frustrated and nervous, I decided to find a family physician and hoped that I would get better care. Luckily, the doctor that I found was fantastic. She made sure to thoroughly understand my background and took the time to carefully explain opinions to me. What a difference that was.

I was surprised to learn that as adults, we mostly only carry bone marrow in our shoulders and hips. My new doctor presented a concern that the radiation I received to a tumor in my lower back last spring could have affected my bone marrow. This was a logical possibility since the bone marrow is where the white blood cells that I needed to fight my infection are produced. I hoped that this was not the case. Since my new doctor was only a practitioner, she still depended on my oncologist who had the “power of the pen” to order things like a Neulasta patch which could raise the white blood count.

The doctor made a phone call to my oncologist…

to bounce her theory off of him and see if he thought the Neulasta patch was an appropriate route to take. Her office was very quiet and I could hear much of what my oncologist was saying to her. At first I was pretty sure that I heard him mention Leukemia and when I listened more closely I was positive that he told my new doctor that I would probably be in Hospice soon.

When she got off of the phone, the doctor said that she would order blood work to see where my blood counts were and she also told me that my oncologist was to schedule a procedure known as a dry tap mid week. A dry tap is a biopsy that would test my bone marrow if they were even able to get a sample of it at this point. I apologized to my doctor and told her that I was having trouble processing what she was explaining as I had overheard what my oncologist had said over the phone.

She said…

As long as you are walking and talking it seems like a jump to conclude that you would be in hospice or that you had leukemia without doing the proper tests first.

…especially, she said, considering that we were all speculating based on blood work that had been done weeks ago.

Waiting

The following morning, I went to the lab to get my blood drawn. It was a really hard morning and I was having trouble staying positive. However, throughout the day I started to notice that I seemed to have a little more energy, which gave me hope that my white blood cell was on the rebound. My new practitioner called me that night and was pleased to explain to me that my white blood cell count had risen from nothing to 4.0, which is in the normal range. This proved that my bone marrow was still well and doing its job. That’s why the doctor told me to call my oncologist and cancel the dry tap. I told her that I needed to find a different oncologist after dealing with the dumbass with the moustache for too long and she helped me find one.

Bounce Back

Today I am feeling better and have returned to work after about a month. My new doctor called me with more test results. She explained that I had an insane case of the flu. The severity of a flu is tested by dilution. A sample is diluted in an attempt to try to detect the strength of the flu DNA.

To my understanding-

• A normal person would have a viral load of 1 in 8.
• An extremely sick person’s viral load is 1 in 32 (according to the most extreme case that my doctor had personally seen.)
• My viral load was 1 in 256.

Smaller to larger ratio is bad in this case. In my example of 1 in 256 it effectively means it took 256 times to dilute my sample before traces of the virus were eliminated.

Here’s the bottom line

It was easy to jump to conclusions like Leukemia, which would have been the end for me as I would not have been able to fight it on top of my existing disease. Though this conclusion was very logical, it was important that I tried not to accept it as fact until all was said and done. I always remind myself that there have been so many times when I was sure I was done for and then saw how quickly things turned around.

While they’re often genuine, knowledgeable and helpful, don’t put all of your faith in doctors and know when to find a new one. Never count yourself out.