Feeling worse, feeling better, doing well

Remember when I said I was slightly neutropenic and I needed to be very cautious? As a recap, my white blood cell count and my neutrophils are low, so my immune system isn't where it should be to protect me from normal things. This means that right now I am masking all the time, even outdoors, I am not riding my bike (because a fall would be bad), I am washing raw fruits and vegetables very thoroughly, I'm not going to salad buffets (this is a joke but I am not actually supposed to do those right now), I am just trying to be careful so I'm not exposing myself to germs. 

Well, I went to the Renaissance Festival on Saturday and it was awesome. My partner and I masked up (we are masking even outdoors around other people now for my safety), we met a couple of friends, we walked around, and I got a turkey leg. It was awesome. I had a great time. I am never excited about food these days, on account of never being hungry, and I had been looking forward to the Ren Fest turkey leg all year. That night, we went to GloWild and walked around the zoo. (GloWild is a thing where the zoo has partnered with a lantern company from China and they put up these very cool lanterns along a path around about half of the zoo and you go after hours to see them.) 

Sunday, we were going to go to an apple fest in a nearby town, but in the morning, I woke up feeling a little off, so my partner went out to get doughnuts and we had a quiet morning on the couch. Over the course of the day, my temperature hovered around 100 degrees (but crucially not 100.3, which is when I have to go to the hospital no matter what!) and I was very tired. More than that, my entire body ached, and even my skin hurt. You know when you have the flu and everywhere your clothes touch you, it hurts? It was like that. I took a nap in the afternoon and I went to bed at 8 pm after checking my temperature every couple of hours (to confirm that I still did not, in fact, need to go to the hospital at this time). 

In retrospect, a turkey leg at a fair may have not been the most safety-conscious food choice I could have made. I would do it again. I'm not sure it was worth it (they aren't even that delicious), but I'd do it again. 

Monday morning I woke up to a normal temperature. I took it easy. Took a 90 minute walk. Didn't really do anything else other than a little bit of email.

Today, I had physical and occupational therapy, and I was worried about how I'd do since I had spent Sunday feeling so bad and Monday resting. I've been going long enough that they needed to basically test to see how I was doing and whether I was making progress or declining. I actually did incredibly well. I performed better in every test than I had when I started (which is amazing when you consider how much chemo I have had since the beginning), I'm stronger than I was when I started, I'm more flexible, and both of my therapists were really happy with my progress.

So it's been a real wild ride these past few days! I'm going to take it easy for the rest of the week and give my body time to hopefully recover. I'm really hoping my bloodwork is good on Friday, and I can continue receiving chemo without any delays, but there isn't much I can do about it. I have to keep eating well, I need to rest this week, and the we'll see.