Ernie felt fairly good this weekend with the exception of a high (104 degree) fever that occurred at around 6 PM each night. The fever was scary enough but it was accompanied by confusion and slurred speech. In hindsight, it seems likely that the "overdose" was not an overdose at all but one of these fever/delusion episodes. Each night the fever peaked at about 104 and then dropped to 102 around bedtime. By morning his temp would be normal.
Last night Ernie was particularly bad and I called the emergency hotline (again). The on-call doc said that either the oxycontin or the infection in his mouth could be the cause. Since his temp did not stay at 104 for long, I was to check with the Oncologist this AM, which I did.
The Medical Oncologist still suspects aspiration pneumonia and is afraid that the chest x-rays are not picking up the problems. So she persuaded the insurance company to approve a chest CT for tomorrow morning. We also had to temporarily discontinue the Oxycontin so they can determine if Ernie still has his 6 PM symptoms (he did). He will definitely get his radiation tomorrow but the nurse that called did not say anything about the chemo. Fingers crossed that his chest is clear and he can finish his last two chemos as well as the radiation treatments on schedule.
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