September 23, 2019 - Drug Overdose Not Recommended

Since my last blog it has been quite an adventure, mostly in the hospital. 

On Saturday Setp 7 I woke up around 5am not feeling very well. I took my temp and it was 103.6 so I told Alan we needed to go immediately to the hospital. 

Once there they couldnt find anything immediately wrong with me. My temp came down a bit (but still fever), they did urine, stool, and blood culture samples, and a chest xray didnt show anything in my lungs. 

By Monday 9/9 they still hadnt figured out what was wrong with me. I was still spiking high fevers despite being on antibiotics and all the cultures were negative. The infectious disease decided they wanted a chest CT instead of xray. The CT revealed some fluid in my left lung and I also developed an angry cough during the day Monday. 

Official diagnosis : pneumonia. 

For the pneumonia they started me on cough syrup with codeine. 

I'm not sure when the itching started, but at some point I was feeling itchy all over my body. I tried benadryl to no avail. They then put me on atarax for itching which also didnt do much. I was scratching myself so much in my sleep it looked like I had cat scratches up and down my legs. Then came the skin rashes which led to a biopsy on Sunday 9/22. 

During all this time I had several visits with art and music therapy. I was also slated to go home several times, but a new symptom always popped up warranting additional observation. High fever, cellulitis in my ears, etc. 

On Sunday 9/23 I was scheduled to be going home the next day and things were looking good for it. My family came to visit and things were going fine. At some point my nurse came in with my meds which included a new med to help with the itching. I dont remember the exact name of the drug but it is a sister drug of narcan. 

Within a short time I was so sick i had to send my family home. What i thought was a routine trip to the toilet turned into hours of being unable to get up from the toilet because i would just immediately need to go back on. I was shaking and sweating and freezing cold all at once. My eyes were watering but I wasnt crying. I was throwing up bile  sometimes just dry heaving. At some point I noticed me legs and feet were extremely swollen. 

I thought I was dying. I called Alan and told him it was time. I was terrified that I was about to die alone. 

As it turns out this was an interaction of having the narcan related drug with the codeine. Over the course of nearly two weeks enough codeine had built up in my system that the other drug blocking my opiate receptors threw me into a full withdrawal. 

As I write this it is almost 48 hours later. I'm still having chills and sweats and shakes. I'm back to frequent urgent bathroom trips, which had been starting to get under control. 

Now they are saying they want me to go home today. I'm a little afraid but excited to be beyond these four walls. My biggest fears are the continued inability to control my bowels and of getting home just to spike a fever and head right back to the ER. 

I'm summoning all the good juju hoping I can get a few good weeks at home before the leukemia starts to get too bad. Will continue to do my MWF labs and transfusions as needed as long as they continue to work.