[mood| Mellow ]

First of all, I honestly can't believe how quickly this month is going by! I'm now full-swing into second semester and with my class load along with trying to prepare rather frantically for my junior recital two weeks from Sunday, I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed in general. I will feel much better once my recital is over, but even then I know I will be swamped with course work. Oh well, the life of a music major, I suppose. But anyway, I've been wanting to post an update about my band tour, so there are more details about that following the cut. Otherwise, things are moving along! I probably won't post again until my recital is over...so, wish me luck...I'll be working really hard the next couple of weeks to put on my best possible performance in front of esteemed faculty, friends, and family. Ahhhh! Like I said, I just want it to be over already!



So, the tour overall was really fun! The Northwest coast is just gorgeous and we definitely had some nice scenic bus rides from location to location. And the concerts just got better and better with each night, of course.

Everything was going well for me until the last weekend of tour. On Saturday, the day before we were to leave to head back home, I came down with something rather suddenly. I developed a really high fever around 103 degrees that wouldn't go down all afternoon. I was also feeling really weak and had a terrible cough. Since that was the case, and given that my low white blood cell condition requires me to get checked out pretty much whenever I'm not feeling well (especially with a fever involved), I decided it would be best to go into the hospital to get checked out. Turns out my white blood count was lower than ever (.9!! Should be between 4 and 10) and they decided to admit me to stay overnight at the hospital. They were running all these blood tests and all sorts of other things but they couldn't figure out right away what was wrong with me. And since my WBC was so low, they felt the need to keep an eye on me overnight because I was overly susceptible to infection and really at risk. So I was really distraught and disappointed over this at first. I was missing a band concert that night, I was really far from home, and was also worried that I wouldn't be feeling well enough to play our biggest concert of tour the following night (Sunday). And the doctors even told me that if they couldn't pinpoint what was wrong that they would want me to stay for a few extra days (!!!), which I was freaking out about because the plane to head back home was leaving later on Sunday night (the next night) and I knew I needed to be on that plane with the rest of the band to get home or I'd be left all alone at that hospital for days and would have to make other plans to get back home that would really complicate things. It was just horrible. I don't know what I would have done if my best friend Maranda hadn't been there. She was along with us on tour as an admissions representative for our college and was able to stay with me because she wasn't in the band and didn't have to perform. She even stayed the night with me in the hospital, which made things a whole lot easier. I was able to call my mom and keep her posted, but she felt a lot better too knowing that Maranda was there to look out for me. So, that was the only upside to this incredibly stressful situation. It's truly amazing to have such a supportive, loyal friend who's always there for you and with you, no matter what. And this time was no different. She wouldn't leave my side and it was my greatest comfort. Although, if it turned out that I had to stay a few extra days in the hospital, she would have been required legally to return home with the band, so that was no good. We were both just praying like crazy that I'd make it out of there in time and be OK health-wise.

But anyway, they took me up to my overnight room and hooked me up to an IV that kept me hydrated with fluids, and they also had me on a general antibiotic to prevent infection just to be safe, and in case it was something bacterial. My room was also quarantined and no other patient was allowed in there (normally there are two patients per room). I was lucky they let Maranda stay in the room with me; she slept in the other empty patient bed. If she had been sick or showed any signs of being sick, they wouldn't have let her because it could have been a risk to me. Kind of intense stuff. But then later on that night (oh yes, doctors/nurses were in there every two hours or so to wake me up, check my vitals, run more blood tests, whatever they had to do - it was just grand), after they ran a nose-swap test (which was ridiculously unpleasant), they found out that I had influenza A and put me on pills for that right away. But I was still hooked up to the IV all night and into the next morning to keep fluids in me. Since they figured it out though, I was really quite relieved, because I knew they could take care of it with medication and it wasn't something that would keep me in the hospital for days. They did want me to stay another night, but once I pressed them about the importance of heading home with the band later that night, they released me in the early afternoon with the medicine, and cautioned me to be extra careful with my health and to lie low. They didn't like the idea of me getting onto a germy airplane and staying up all night (because our flight was a red-eye that didn't get back home until 6:00 AM), but I wore a mask on the plane and it was all good. They also felt better about it because apparently my blood count did go up a little bit from the previous night and I was no longer in quite as much danger.

I did get home OK, even though I was extremely exhausted, weak, and still feeling pretty sick. I took the whole next day (Monday) to just lay around and sleep. I had to miss the first day of classes, but it was definitely worth it for the sake of my health to get enough rest. Earlier Sunday evening when we met up with the band at the concert hall (which luckily was only an hour away; Maranda and I were able to catch a "limo" ride from the hospital to the hall after I was released), I had tried to play my saxophone but I just didn't have any energy whatsoever, and it takes so much energy to play a concert. I was also really short on breath and coughing quite a bit, which is no good when you're trying to play an instrument. So I did end up having to sit out of that one. But my section was able to cover for me pretty well, so it wasn't the end of the world. But I was still pretty darn disappointed, that's for sure. It was a big deal for our band to be playing in this concert hall (Benaroya in Seattle, home of the Seattle Symphony), and I didn't get to be a part of it. But playing in our home concert just last Thursday definitely made it up to me. Nothing beats that!

Ok, well that's my story. *phew* Thankfully, I'm feeling much better now. I guess I should feel pretty lucky that I went in when I did because apparently a lot of people have been dying from the flu this year. And given that my immune system is so weak, I figure I could have been pretty vulnerable compared to some. While I was at the hospital I also got a vaccination so I shouldn't be getting it again this year, which is good. Anyway, now that I'm home we're going to get to the bottom of this WBC mystery. I'm now seeing a doctor (a hematology specialist) at the University of Minnesota and we're going to get this figured out. I will keep this journal posted on that as well. Hopefully the medical mystery will be solved. I'll keep my fingers crossed!