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August 5,
2006 - Day 4 - Week 18 - Heart Attack Imminent
I had never worn a heart
monitor for 24 hours, and in so doing, it was
determined that I have two abnormalities. One is
not too serious; the other raises the eyebrows of my
cardiologist Dr. Bill Cabeen. When he looked at me
as only a doctor can I knew that something about
tachycardia was concerning him. I have always had
an erratic rhythm but never, up until now, had this
really gotten anyone’s serious attention. Now with
fainting, shortness of breath, heart palpitations
and a general over-all exhaustion setting in the
alarms are too loud to ignore.
Does chemo therapy compromise
the integrity of the heart muscle, not necessarily,
I am told. Perhaps there is some correlation but I
can not directly attribute my new symptoms to this 5
month regimen. Thus, I am forced to go through a
bunch of tests and procedures, including an
angiogram on Tuesday.
I felt I had figured out how to
cope with the side effects of chemo and really felt
terrific the past few weeks up until the last couple
of days of vacation, but now a whole new dimension
to my life has been added and I am back at square
one.
My body is becoming a medical
dictionary and slowly evolving into a laboratory for
experimentation. When someone asks me now how I am
feeling I just say great except for the fact that I
have diabetes, an enlarged prostate, a fibrillating
heart and cancer, just to name the big ones; other
than that I am great. As I write this I start
laughing. How can one person get saddled with all
of this at once when one of the above is enough to
cope with? It has gotten to the point that I need
an assistant to just help me organize the
medications and when to take what and how much.
I went to the gym, under the
counsel of the doctor to avoid over-doing, and yet
only a few minutes walking on the treadmill made me
tired and disoriented. It seems like all I wanted
to do was go home and go to sleep. Thank goodness
for Katy for she reminded me that this was the
normal pattern during chemo. Apparently I had
forgotten that trying to work out, even minimally,
was an effort during the chemo treatments and that I
should not be alarmed.
Once again I am anxious to get
back to normal routines, but this time it has become
impossible. More on this tomorrow.
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