Blink and You Are Dehydrated

I was moving into what is considered to be the "good" week of each chemotherapy cycle, defined mostly by the fact that one does not get chemotherapy and one can recover somewhat.  Well, in Round 1 that is exactly the opposite of what happened to me.
I was moving along fairly well, eating like a bird and drinking like a parched man, when suddenly I had diarrhea, followed by a skyrocketing white count (unbeknownst to me...I was having trouble keeping up with the bathroom trips to realize I might actually be infected), followed by a profound drop in my blood pressure, and then my kidneys basically said they had had enough and when you don't pee, even the most dense amongst us knows that something is wrong.  So within a very short period of time (days), I went from being pretty good to being in terrible shape, maybe having to go to the ICU if I didn't respond immediately to interventions.   It is so humbling to be ill, and while I most definitely want to do everything that I can to put cancer in my rear view window, I don't want to lose any vital organs in the process, and my kidneys are definitely on my list of things to retain.
Luckily, hydration and antibiotics did the trick, my kidneys bounced back reassuringly quickly, and lessons were learned about how to more accurately interpret warning signs in the future.  I am still on schedule to get chemotherapy next week, but I am really hoping that in the future my good weeks go better than the first one.