It's burnin' up in here

(3/13/08)

Well I had a nice day and a half at home, and now I'm back in the hospital again. Man, this is getting ridiculous. I started having a high fever yesterday (102.3 F) and had to come into the emergency room. Luckily the on-call oncology doc (Whew! Say that one three times fast) called ahead and I was actually roomed pretty quickly. Plus, because of the zoster and potentially low blood counts, they had to isolate me, and I ended up in a pediatric room. Normally I guess this doesn't mean much, but at Stanford it seems to mean you get sweet diggs over the cold, sterile, and boring adult side. The room had a TV with normal TV, games, on-demand movies, and some other stuff that was less exciting. Plus the computer actually was accessible and allowed you to get onto the internet. The last time I was in an emergency room, there wasn't much more than the standard bed and sink in the room (well, plus all the doctor gadgets on the walls, of course).

They came in and did the bloodwork pretty quickly, and then we had to wait for the results. In the meantime, it was Shrek 3 and The Incredibles (true, the movies were all kid-friendly, but I happen to love cartoons/animation). The ED docs had specific instructions from oncology on what to do with me, depending on what my neutrophil count was (neutrophils are the white blood cells that help to fight off infection, according to my limited medical knowledge):

a) < 500 - get admitted for IV antibiotics and antiviral drugs
b) 500-1500 - go home with oral antibiotics
c) 1500+ - go home

Of course, the answer was a), and here I am. The docs think I'll need to stay here for a couple days until my counts come back up; then typically the fevers go away and things should be relatively "normal." Since I have to stay in the same room (usually I can go out into the hall at least and walk around), let's hope I don't go too crazy...