On Friday, Sue and I went to Hopkins for an MRI and doctors appointment. Fortunately and as expected, nothing in the MRI showed that there was anything other than the suspected arachnoiditis (inflammation of the spine). And fortunately the steroid treatment seemed to have been successful and much of the pain and numbness is gone.
We then traveled down to Lake Anna in Virginia where a friend had invited us to their wonderful house. We were planning to have a quiet weekend by the water and celebrate getting through a tough year since the "rebirth" of the bone marrow transplant. The rest of Friday was relaxing and our friend was wonderful, cooking us a dinner overlooking the lake.
Unfortunately, Sue woke up on Saturday with a very high fever and nausea. The on call doctor, after hearing the symptoms said that if the fever came down with tylenol and no new symptoms, that we just needed to get to a clinic that day to take cultures and probably start antibiotics. The fever came down quickly and mainly the nausea passed which made the 90 minute trip back to DC much easier.
But, assuming that we could just go to an emergency room to quickly get the labs taken (Sue's DC doctor called over to let the hospital know that we should have the cultures taken and not have to stay for treatment assuming that Sue continued to feel better and the fever was under control). But this was not going to be a celebratory birthday or even an easy ending to a tough morning. The local emergency room folks had their own way of helping us with the anniversary by dragging out the normally half hour process into an over six hour marathon.
Instead of the normal one nurse or tech to draw blood, it took three over the course a few hours. And then there was a battle of the wills on whether they could add on even more time to get an x-ray that Sue's on call doctor had not asked for. And although Sue was taking their foibles in stride since she felt better, it did prolong how long it took to get home and start to recover. By the end of the long day, the doctors found a sign that it was probably just the type of infection that Sue, Sue's doctor and I thought was the cause. And then we left with the same prescription that the doctor had told us we should be getting.
Sunday has been much better with tylenol and the anti-biotics seeming to work quickly to make Sue feel more comfortable. It also made us realize we could have saved a few hours by driving all the way to Baltimore/Hopkins to get better treatment despite the extra two hours of road time. Anyway, all in all it was not so bad and gave us some entertainment to see how different hospitals can be. And perhaps, a relief that things seem to be getting better despite these little bumps in the road, as after all a comical six hours in a local hospital seems so petty compared to the really dangerous and difficult time of the Bone Marrow Transplant and chemotherapy of almost two years.