I Now Have a Cold

Thursday March 26, 1992

I slept well last night thanks to a codeine/Tylenol tablet. Upon waking I believe my body aches have subsided but I still have chest pain and cough. I'm weak and when I take my shower I get so hot and sweaty it takes 45 minutes to cool down enough to put make-up on. The sweat just streams from my hair and face.

At 2:00 I see a doctor in Simi clinic. She orders a chest X-ray, blood test and 2 EKGs one hour apart. She says I'm OK, but my blood (white cells) count is down to 2.5 when 5-10 is normal. She gives me codeine cough medicine and antibiotics as preventative. About 7 p.m. my nose starts to run like a faucet. I now have a cold! I pray for a healing so I can get ready for our trip on Tuesday.

Uncle Ricky isn't doing very well. I pray for his recovery if that be God's will.

Oh no, I imagine it's going to be hard for her body to fight off a cold when her white cell count is so low. I did a little research on the subject, and it turns out that chemotherapy is one of the causes of low white cell count, as is cancer, and as are viral infections. She's dealing with all of these at once. I hope Mom will just take a rest from her busy life.

Sweating for 45 minutes after a shower doesn't sounds normal. After all that sweating she probably wanted to take another shower. It doesn't appear to be a symptom of either cancer or chemotherapy, but could have been a menopausal symptom caused by her hysterectomy.