The Flu - 6 weeks of Recovery?!

I woke up one Saturday in September and knew something was off. My body ached and my throat was raw and sore. It wasn’t long before I started to run a fever and got the chills. I had the flu. I was not sure where I got it as none of my family members were sick, nor had any symptoms.

I put in a call to the on-call hematologist to find out what I needed to do. She felt my symptoms were indicative of the flu. I was months post CAR T cell therapy and my white blood cell counts were on the rise so I was given permission to stay home and monitor my progress. Should I start to feel worse, I was instructed to call her back and she would likely advise me to come to the hospital.

I spent the next 4 days sleeping in bed. My youngest son came in every few hours to check on me as he was worried about me. My family later explained that they felt the flu caused me to stay in bed longer than my recovery from chemotherapy treatments. Imagine the flu being worse than a dose of chemotherapy!!!

The following week, my symptoms disappeared and I tried to live life as I had been. But I was exhausted. The constant fatigue had me curled under the covers and I spent days lying in bed looking out the window. I had no desire to do anything. All I wanted to do was rest. I began to worry that I was sinking into a depression. I had zero desire to do anything. This realization scared me. That’s when I reached out to my oncology team for help.

I had always heard about cancer patients having a weakened immune system. I knew that I was more likely to catch a virus due to my compromised state. And sure enough, I caught the flu early on in the season. What I hadn’t banked on was the length of time it would take me to recover. When I explained to my oncology team what was going on, that’s when I learned about the healing time. I learned that not only are individuals with compromised immune systems more likely to catch a virus, but I also learned that the recovery time is much, much longer. What I was experiencing was a normal part of that process. My oncologist informed me that it could take up to six weeks for me to make a complete recovery. Six weeks??? Six weeks!!! Ugh!

I am now five weeks out from the first day I had flu symptoms and only now am I starting to feel like my previous self. I am still fatigued, but there isn’t an all-encompassing need to just lay in bed. I have some energy and am able to live life and complete many of my day-to-day tasks. Here’s to getting stronger each day.