We celebrated Mother’s Day with my mother-in-law a week late. We drove up north and took her out to a fancy dinner. During dinner, while just sitting and eating my food, I passed out. No standing up. No walking. Just steakin’. And it happened twice! One minute I’m getting about three-quarters of the way through my steak, and the next minute it’s gone! (They’d taken it to box it up for me to take home).

It happened again on the ride home, so we went in to Urgent Care to get me checked out. My heart was fine, and my blood counts were A-OK. The doctor on duty decided I ought to start an anti-seizure medication, Keppra, to see if it helps.

Well, since then I’ve noticed a marked decrease in the number of spells that I’ve had. I just had intrathecal chemotherapy again today, so we’ll see if that brings them back or not. I’ve been seeing a neurologist that doesn’t buy into the theory that the anti-seizure medications are the cause of the freedom-from-passing-out.

Also! A few weeks ago I had a fever that got as high as 103.1. Once again, we went into Urgent Care so they could test if I was fighting an infection. All of the cultures they did came back negative, which seemed good! But then we heard from my oncologist’s team that they wanted to run a PET scan to see if the fever was a sign that my lymphoma was back! We’ve got that scheduled for a week or two from now. Fortunately, last week the fever disappeared entirely. Gone. I’m pretty sure if the cancer was back, and was causing the fever, it wouldn’t have gone away on its own. And that makes me feel better.

Right around the time that I was dealing with the fever I was hit with a giant helping of fatigue. I could sleep from midnight until 11am, wake up long enough to eat something and take my pills, and then nap until evening. I didn’t have the energy to do much of anything, and it made me grumpy. And being grumpy made me even grumpier! But that’s all starting to pass, too.

Now, with a short nap, I can be a pretty good citizen of the world for most of the day.

Status report: dizzy spells are just about all gone, fever is toast, and fatigue is improving.

Success!

It did not.

Today I got a massage, and when the masseuse pressed down on my back I could feel something in my abdomen complaining.

I went to the Urgent Care at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle. Lots and lots of tests ensued, including (but not limited to) blood, ultrasound, and x-ray. Five hours later I was discharged with instructions that my spleen is too big and I have an iron deficiency anemia.

On the way out we stop at the pharmacy and pick up some prescribed iron supplements. Also, as per doctor’s orders, I scheduled a CAT scan and an appointment with a Hematology/Oncology specialist for the 17th and the 22nd, respectively.

We arrived not knowing what was causing the pain, and we got answers for that. But we also had new questions; why was my spleen enlarged? Will the iron supplements be enough to shrink it?