The Shot

I am a little fuzzy on the order that the next two events come in, so I will do my best.

At this point, my hair hadn't really started falling out yet. But I was feeling run down, and my ability to concentrate was going down the tubes. I was pretty nauseas most of the time, and dizzy like being severely drunk most of the time. I had a strange taste in my mouth and food just didn't taste. The only thing I could taste was really spicy food or sweet food (fruit soda, juice). So, I ate a lot of all that. The problem with that was the chest searing heartburn. It was so bad, I couldn't sleep at night or even sit comfortably most of the time.

I was ready for my next chemo. It had taken a few days to start getting my chemo reactions from the first round, but they kind of tapered off after a week. This time, I went to work and left early, and I went by myself. The nurse took me into Dr. Sapra's office and he did a couple checks on me, weight, and checked my side effects. Then they drew blood and started me on IV full of saline and had me sit until the results were back. A bit later, the nurse came back in and pulled out the IV. Something was wrong. Dr. Sapra came in and explained to me that my White Blood Cell count (WBC) was too low. If I were to get an infection or a fever, I could die. So, they had a shot prepared for me. It was called Neupogen. What it was supposed to do was artificially raise my WBC count so I would be able to have chemo in the next couple of days.

The nurse came in and plugged a shot right into the underside of my arm. The shot was ice cold, and hurt bad. I made another appointment with Dr. Sapra and went back to work. I was back at work for about an hour when it started. My cube mate and friend, Kim, was in a meeting. My hips started to ache. I shifted positions, thinking it was just the way I was sitting. Soon, the pain was shooting down my legs and up my back. It was so excruciating that I could barely move. I was barely able to breathe and I began to sweat. I didn't understand why I was feeling like this. I thought maybe it would go away if I walked around a little, so I got up and turned around. That was as far as I made it. I just stood there. The woman who sat across from me, Angie, saw that I was immobile and tried to help me. A bunch of people ended up gathered around me, no one knew what to do, including me. I was trying not to scream because of the pain. My friend, Ron brought the fan over and put it up to my face. Angie went to get Kim from upstairs so she could take me to the ER.

Kim came down and called my mom, and told her that she was taking me to the ER. The pains I was having were so severe, everyone at work was comparing it to labor pains. She drove as fast as she could during traffic. My mom said she would meet us there, and she would leave a message at the house for my dad to met us there. When we got to the Hospital, Kim helped check me in. I had a paper from Dr. Sapra saying that because of my immunities being lowered, I could not be in the waiting room for longer than 20 minutes. I was there for close to 2 hours. The pain made me sick to my stomach. Kim went and fought with admitting to get me in sooner. My parents were freaked out. I had rarely ever seen my dad so stressed out.

Kim finally said she had to go to take care of her kids. She left and they finally got us in. They only let one of my parents in, so my dad went home. They ran all kinds of tests on me, but could find nothing. They gave me some muscle relaxers and set me up with an appointment with my primary care doctor, Dr. Don the next day. The muscle relaxers didn't do anything except make me sleepy. The pain subsided slightly as the night wore on. I was tired the next day, but not in as much pain.

I went and saw Dr. Don when I got off work. She had freaked out when she heard what happened because she had given me a PAP the day before all this happened, and she thought for some reason that she had caused my pain. It turned out to be bone pain. No one had explained to me what Neupogen actually does. It pulls blood cells from your bone marrow. It starts from the densest bones – usually being the pelvic area. That's why my hips hurt so bad. It took a few days for all the pain to go away completely, but I was able to finally get chemo.