Another twist in this ongoing saga that has become my life. I have known that I had some infection going on. I thought it was another case of bronchitis or pneumonia. My white counts had been gradually going up over the last two months but other than a little shortness of breath I had no symptoms. I don't care for the new chemo. That's another story for when I get caught up. Early Sunday night, November 30th, I had a small pain in my upper right chest and another one in my left forearm. The one in my arm felt like a clot. I am usually cold but I was shivering like it was 30 degrees. We got a hot pack on the arm and after a couple of hours that pain seemed to dissipate. But I was getting sicker by the minute. The under side of my arm had become hot, swollen and red and it appeared to be moving up my arm. Around 10:00 I noticed I was getting hot. We called Aaron and he and Jason gave me a blessing. By 11:30 my temperature was 101.5 on Tylenol so we decided we'd better head to the ER.
I was released about 4:30am after CT's and ultrasound of every square inch from my neck to my knees. The bright spot is no new cancer visible anywhere. The only thing they could come up with was a cellulitis that went septic. I have not gotten that sick that fast in my life. I now understand why people die from sepsis so easily. By the time they realize how sick they are they are close to death. Fortunately we realized early what was happening and got to medical help. There is still some edema on my arm but the pain dissipated after a few days and four doses of IV antibiotics.
The long term problem is still blood clots. They are really becoming a nuisance!! There is a new clot in my left upper arm 3.5cm long in the brachial vein. About October 15th I realized the effects of the City's medical plan changes. I could no longer get the Tarceva or Arixtra because of the cost. Anticipating problems we had repeated scans near the first of October. As a result of those scans we found the Arixtra was not working to stop clot growth. To everything there is a purpose. There always seems to be one bright spot in the negatives we run into. Now we were without effective clot control unless there willing to pay a 50% copay.. $2000 for one drug. As a result we found Dr. West's clinic in Pocatello. Vitamin C IV's and some herbal remedies are the solution. A program I can believe in but still expensive. He did tell me my blood has spirocettes in it. They only come from syphilis or Lime's disease. These looked like Lime's. We have a couple of natural remedies that are working on that.
An interesting cross link. The same protective coating that cancer cells develop to protect themselves is the same for Limes. Theoretically getting rid of Limes would also get rid of hibernating cancer. The only accurate lab test for Lime's is a florescent antibody test. The naturalistic diagnosis is a newer light microscope called a dark field that illuminates from the side instead of underneath and allows visualization of the spirocettes. Not so popular yet with regular medicine. There is some fascinating information available about Limes not associated with just ticks.
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