Saturday, December 15, 2012

It's Never the Same

 

Did I say we had been down this road before?  That we knew what to expect?  I was wrong.  Every time leukemia relapses it is different, always playing nasty new tricks.  This time Roger has had bone pain.  He has an infection in his jaw bone that has caused his jaw to be puffy, droopy and red.  It has now crept up the side of his face and given him a yellow-black eye.  His arms are covered with dark bruises.  Believe me, you wouldn’t want to see a photo of him now.
He has a head cold, (Did he catch it from me, or from someone else?  No matter …. it’s a moot point now.)  He has a fever and a cough that keeps him up all night.  He spends most of the day sleeping.  He's not bouncing back from chemo as fast.  He doesn’t eat enough to sustain a bird and when he does eat, it is only over-processed foods like soft white bread, canned chicken noodle soup with saltine crackers.  He refuses to eat anything else.  There can’t be much nutrition getting into his system.  He frequently seems disoriented.  I don’t know if it’s the disease, the head cold, the drugs he’s taking, or all of the above, but I don’t like it.
He is tentatively scheduled to be in Salt Lake City at the end of next week for a T-cell infusion.  It seems unlikely they would proceed while he has an infection and a fever.  Where does that leave us?  At the moment, scared stiff.

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