[Marlene]

John had to be 30 minutes from Hopkins too. At any time he got a fever of 100.5, we had to call and then they would have you come into the hospital. At Hopkins, you skipped the ER and admitting, and went directly to your room on the BMT ward. You can waste a lot of valuable time in the ER/admitting.

Infections can turn sepis very quickly when you are so immune compromised and they need to do blood cultures and start treatment right away. PICC/Central lines can become infected and also cause an infection in the blood.

You are on a lot of meds prophylactically to prevent infections and spiking a fever means they either need to up the meds to a treatment level or add in a new one.

For John, they also did a chest X-ray. And you can't take tylenol to reduce the fever until they get things under control.

I think we went in twice and by the time we got there, the fever resolved. No trouble found.

But there was a period when he was an inpatient where he would spike a fever every day for a few hours for about a week. Ice packs were needed for a few of them. They never knew why but had to do blood cultures every time. And he was on every meds for just about any type of infection at a treatment level.

We stayed in an apartment in Baltimore. When he was an outpatient, he took his temp quite frequently throughout the night.