Lance

No, this is not an update on the Tour.
Some of you may know that when they put in my central line (Hickman Catheter) in March, I named it Lance, to figuratively place the great bicyclist and cancer survivor on my "team".
Well, I spiked another fever last evening, to 38.7C, and now they are growing a skin candida ("yeast") in blood cultures from two of the three ports of my central line. Once a "foreign body", s.a. a catheter, becomes infected, the only way to stop the infection, especially in someone with very low white cells, is to remove the catheter. Interestingly, the NIH Infectious Disease Specialist who rounds with my doctor's team, says they have not had a central line yeast infection in about five years. So this falls into the category of "if anything weird can happen it usually happens when the patient is a physician"
So later this morning, once they get my platelet count up to a reasonable level with a platelet transfusion, they're going to remove "Lance", and then send me down to their Interventional Radiology Dept. for a new, "temporary" central line, which will probably stay in until it is replaced with a new Hickman when my white cells get back up to normal.
Otherwise things are generally going well. I'm feeling a little weak and washed out, from both the low Hct and the fever spikes. But my appetite is doing slightly better. I still have an aversion to the Hospital food, so MC is going to bring in some kind of take out food for my lunch. She's appalled though at some of the things I seem to crave, like Kentucky Fried Chicken!?

Phil