Her cultures and tests all came back negative. She didn't have a runny nose or cough or sore throat, so it didn't seem like whatever virus is going around. It took until about 11:00 Sunday night before the fever was completely gone. Monday morning she was a new girl with new energy. By 9:30 she was "skateboarding" on her I.V. pole and by 10:00 she was playing with the bed controls, raising and lowering and finding all the possible positions.
I took home a healthy kid. Why was she sick, though? Why did she have elevated white counts? Why did she have a spooky fever that didn't want to go away? What was this all about?
I don't know. The doctors don't know. I have a theory, though. I am not a doctor. I am not a nurse. I haven't had a biology class since sometime in the last century, and the last good biology teacher I had taught seventh grade. With that understanding, here is my theory.
Every body is different, which is why some people are allergic to dogs and some people need meds to function in society and some people get laryngitis every January and some people get leukemia. Each different body responds a bit differently. Some things work pretty much the same, so amoxicillin is used on almost everybody with a bacterial infection. Some things take a little guess work, like ADD medications, or like getting the right balance with blood pressure meds.
Emma is responding well to almost every drug and protocol they give her, so much so that Dr. Engle says she's reading a textbook and responding like it says she should. That isn't always the case. Most kids will have some different reactions to various things; and "normal" would be a collection of the most common responses to each and every drug, dose and protocol.
Emma's amazing body is a unique and marvelous thing, though, and it is responding individually. A fever and white blood cells on the march indicate that the body is fighting something. I think Emma is fighting the poisons in her chemotherapy rather than a virus or bacteria.
Unexplained fevers are not uncommon in cancer patients. That's my explanation of this one. True? Not true? I don't know.
I am happy to have her home and healthy, though.
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