Fear me.

“A cat’s rage is beautiful, burning with pure cat flame, all its hair standing up and crackling blue sparks, eyes blazing and sputtering.”  William S. Burroughs

In thinking about my post for today I wanted some image that might portray what I am feeling at the moment and the image of cat, its back arched, hair standing up, tail puffed out, ears folded back flat against its head and its eyes, oh those eyes, the warning they broadcast.  Fear me.

This weeks chronological recap.

Monday – Appointment with my Nephrologist.  Unsure why since my prior week’s creatinine was measured at 1.28mg/DL.  For me that’s pretty fucking remarkable, excuse my profanity, more to come.  For almost eight years since my diagnosis of IgA Nephropathy I have lived with a creatinine that generally hovers around 1.5 to 1.6mg/DL.  That in itself, while higher than the “normal” 1.2mg/DL, was quite acceptable.  So to see my creatinine fall to 1.28mg/DL is, well, fucking remarkable.  But the Nephrologist and by extension my Urologist are stuck on the mid-cycle chemo CT scan that showed what could be a severe case of Hydronephrosis.  So my Nephrologist sends me off for another lab.  He also schedules a sonogram of my abdomen in search of the ever illusive “constriction” that they just know is there.  Why do they know?  Because of the “what could be a sever case of Hydronephrosis” my mid-cycle chemo CT came up with.

Tuesday – I go and have the sonogram performed.  Remember the constriction they are suspecting?  Interesting that they decide to sonogram my gall bladder, liver and entire lower abdomen.  But they do.  I don’t care, it doesn’t involve needles or scalpels.  I go home, feeling rather lethargic, very tired.  The rest of me feels fine, just tired.  Not an unusual experience during chemo.  I’ve grown used to feeling tired all the time and after chemo it will fade away.  Later that night, however, my temperature spikes to over 102F.  I’m sick.  Again.  Now I ache all over.  I’ve been pushing liquids all day.  A lot of liquids.  Feels like the flu except no headache, no runny or stuffed up nose, no hacking cough.  Just generalized muscle and joint pain.  We fight it, I take cold showers, we get the temperature down to 101F and go to bed deciding to call the Cancer Center in the morning.  Oh, no news from the Nephrologist regarding Monday’s lab work.

Wednesday – I get up early.  Temperature is hovering around 99F occasionally slipping over 100F.  I call the Cancer Center and report the symptoms.  I figure yet another urinary tract infection except that this time it now includes body aches and pains.  I eat pain medication in the morning.  The Cancer Center calls back, ask some more specific questions then ask that I “pop in” and give them a lab.  I point out that I had a lab on Monday with the Nephrologist.  They want their own.  I eat more pain medication and head to the Cancer Center.  They do a lab and get a urine sample from me.  The results come back in a few minutes for the lab.  Mostly everything looks fine except that my platelettes have taken a nosedive.  A dip test of my urine indicates blood, white cells and other stuff in my urine.  To me that’s usually meant a urinary tract infection.  Antibiotics are prescribed and I pick them up on the way home.  Temperature shoots up again pushing 102 plus.  Cold showers, cold rags on my head.  Pushing liquids again.  We get the temperature down to the 99-100 mark and call it a day.  Still no news from the Nephrologist regarding Monday’s lab work.

Thursday – I wake up early and check my temperature.  98.6F.  Normal.  I feel like I have a hangover though and start soaking up some liquids.  I remember waking up wet in the middle of the night and figure that the fever broke sometime while I slept.  I recheck my temperature and it’s still normal so I decide to go to work.  Late in the day, as in around 5PM, Marvina calls me to tell me the Nephrologist had called.  My creatinine was up to 1.5mg/DL.  They want me to get a loopagram and, while the radiologist is poking around inside me doing that he’ll do an angioplasty to open up the restriction.  Interesting to note, the Nephrologist says that while the illusive constriction may be the result of my infection or fibrous stuff (scar tissue), he still thinks I should go through with it.  Hmm, guess the sonogram was inconclusive.  Oh, and that creatinine reading of 1.5mg/DL?  That’s in my baseline where it’s almost always been for the past 8 years.  I promise to call the Nephrologist in the morning.  But first bedtime and a quick temperature check.  100F.  Shit.

Friday – Call the Nephrologist right when they open, leave a message for my NP.  He calls and rehashes everything he told my wife the evening before.  Same feelings sensed about the inconclusive results of the sonogram.  I tell him I had another lab on Wednesday along with a urine culture and offer to have them faxed over.  He says okay.  I call the Cancer Center and ask them to do it.  They said they would but I have no idea if they actually did.  Oh, my temperature is normal.  Maybe the antibiotics are working after all.  Marvina calls, Nephrologist called late in afternoon.  Shit gets better.  They don’t just want me to have a loopagram-angioplasty combo, they want me to be admitted to the hospital for it, to be kept overnight.  Fuck fuck fuck.  This is getting out of control.  Marvina spoke with my NP at the Cancer Center.  We’re still on for a 10AM Monday next there.  Labs to kick it off.  They’ll talk to my Oncologist even though he’s on vacation.  Chemo up in the air.  Everything up in the air.  I’m pissed off.  I can see the headlines now:  “Patient’s kidney saved in heroic loopagram-angioplasty-stint overnight fishing expedition.  Patient dies.  Not from cancer but from a staff infection acquired at the hospital.  Technically he survived cancer.”  Fuck.  FUCK!  I’m not just simply pissed off, I’m climb a tower with a high powered rifle next to the hospital pissed off.

All this crap they’re throwing to me is burying Marvina.  I’m loosing her.  I’m trying and I want to weep because I don’t know what to do.  She’s a mess and sinking fast.  A friend of hers took her to lunch today and a solon visit.  That was nice.  Three years I haven’t had the any real time with her.  I haven’t been able to do something like that for her.  I haven’t been there for her.  I’ve let her down.  Anything I say, anything I try to say just fans the flames of despair she’s sinking into.  I’m beginning to hate my job.  I’m…fuck it, I’m done with this post.