I'm bacckkkkk!

Hello, hello, hello!!!!!

I am sitting at Hotel Froedert right now as I blog. John brought down his laptop this morning with a cup of coffee and an egg mcmuffin (I know, I know, but honestly I have not eating much in the past week, the food sucks here and I am starving!)

This will be a pretty long post, so I hope you are not nodding off by the end.

The two days after chemo went well until Friday night when I spiked a fever of 101.9 and was sent to the clinic for blood work (normal WBC counts will drop around day 5, so it was kind of unlikely they said that anything was wrong). I checked out okay, went home and by Sunday night spiked a fever of 103.5 and a very bright red breast (the bad boob, as I refer to it). Unfortunately my WBC, white blood count, was 300. Normal is 3,000-10,000. Not good. There proved to be infection in my right breast just by looking at it, so an overnight stay with IV antibiotics was in store. Ok, I can handle that. Just to let you know the ER was fabulous there. I was seen right away, not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing LOL meaning how much trouble is this lady in. LOL

Up to the floor, get checked in, all hooked up, pump the fluids, glad to be back NOT. This part is a bit graphic so if you get queasy feel free to go on to the next paragraph. On the way to the bathroom I sprung a leak in a small incision in my breast which was filled fill pus. Within 2 hours I was back in surgery to remove the soft tissue expander. There was no way they could leave it in with my white count so low.

Since that time my blood count has gone back up!! My electrolytes, sodium, potassium, all that stuff is coming around. My hemoglobin and hematocrit where really low so I ended up having a blood transfusion on Wednesday. I actually perked up after that.

I am honestly an emotional wreck right now. Physically I am pretty good. During all of this Sunny was supposed to have her ACL repaired on Thursday. They preoperatively did an x-ray of her leg to check everything out and found that she has bone cancer. I spent the day on Thursday crying about my dog. I am still having trouble taking this all in. Those who know me know that I love my Sunny girl. My heart breaks for her. She is still the same old Sunny for now. We will deal with the disease as it comes and go from there.

I would like to thank all my friends, family, neighbors and Komen sisters for all your prayers and support. As I have said before, I could not be doing this alone. Although I have a deep inner strength I never knew I had, I do need help, so I thank you all from the bottom of my heart!!!!!! Thank you Jess for updating my blog, Cathy for AGAIN always being there, my friends Connie and Sara from the Komen boards who have kept all my sisters updated and helped me along the way with encouraging words and Lisa, the wig lady, who so graciously came by my hospital room with my wig to show me and make sure the color was right (and it was, it is so cute), my hubbie who is a wreck with me right now, trying to carry on as usual, my immediate family who have kept my spirits up and kept me going, the wonderful, kind caring staff I had this time around (I had some great nurses) and everyone else that has played any kind of part in this ordeal!!!

I look forward to going home TOMORROW!!!!!

Love to you all, Gail