Frustration & Infection

This past week, I've battled a fever that would come and go, primarily flaring up at night.  On Tuesday night, I had an earache so it was assumed that it was the cause.  It seems during chemo my body shows the fever, and then 24 hours or so after, I finally get some clue as to what may have caused it.  The oncologist had given me antibiotics on Monday when the fever first began so we thought I was in pretty good shape.  Though my temperature had gone high the night before,  my temperature was controlled on Thanksgiving Day so I was able to still enjoy the day with family, even though it got worse again that night.

I got about a 36 hour reprieve with no fever, and then it came back again last night.  This afternoon, I realized that I again was showing signs of a skin infection and having some problems at one of the surgery sites.  The plastic surgeon changed my antibiotic, and hopefully, we can get this under control in the next 48 hours.  If not, he is concerned that we may need to do surgery to remove the reconstruction as the concern is that the infection has gotten into that.
 
Besides the worry about a more serious problem, I am frustrated because it pushes back chemo for another week. That puts chemo going into the new year, and I had really hoped to be done with this part by then.  I know that it is not safe to have chemo when things like this are going on, and so it is for the best, but I just really need that light at the end of the tunnel.

I have my PETscan tomorrow, and since it is at one of the offices of my oncologists, they will also be doing blood counts and a blood culture to ensure that the infection isn't in the blood.  I know that infection is a normal part of the whole chemo process, and I won't be the first or last to go through all of this.  I'd just really appreciate thoughts & prayers that the antibiotics work and the infection stops before we have to resort to surgery or anything like that.  If you could also pray that the PETscan results would show that it has stopped growing and/or shrunk, I'd really appreciate it.