The beginning part 2

Okay, now that you've already read all about the ERCP, I'll fill you in on the next illness.  The day after Easter I started with a cough.  By Friday of that week, I was running a fever and had completely lost my appetite.  Fevers suck for everyone, but for someone with a compromised immune system, it's a really big deal.  Lee brought me to the emergency room on Sunday, because 4 days with a fever is not very good.  The doctor at the ER was really good and he called up the oncologist on duty to review my blood work.  They agreed that everything looked fairly normal for me and they decided to do a test for erlichiosis, a tick borne illness.  That test came back negative, come to find out it was taken early in the illness so that is why it was negative.  The doctor thought it was some kind of virus.  My regular doctor put me on an antibiotic and then a stronger one and after another week of fevers, I went back to the ER.  The physicians assistant began to suspect erlichiosis and spoke to someone about putting me on doxycycline, but the answer was no.

I was getting weaker every day, the fever was seriously kicking my ass. I actually called my doctor crying more than once. I almost passed out in the shower and couldn't even make myself a cup of tea or soup.  After 19 days of having a fever, it finally broke!!!  I began to feel better, but not great.  I was still weak and couldn't eat very much.  I went on like this until the beginning of June, mind you this all began in April,  and I called my doctor telling her I still felt like crap.  She had more blood drawn and called a few days later saying it showed signs of erlichiosis.  I went on doxy and it took another 4-6 weeks to finally feel completely better.

In between all this, the surgeons office kept calling to schedule surgery to have my gall bladder out and my liver doctor was calling for me to have a colonoscopy.  You can only imagine the language coming out of my mouth.  I had had more than enough!!  The doctors were concerned about my liver and my high iron levels, so they wanted a liver biopsy done during my next surgery.  They thought that I might have something called hemachromatosis, which is a hereditary, so my family needed to know.  Spoiler alert...it wasn't hemachromatosis!  In August, I scheduled my gall bladder surgery.  I really wasn't looking forward to anymore medical nonsense, but I just wanted to get it over with already. Part 3 will be gall bladder surgery...what fun!