Today is the official end of Cycle 2 - and the official half way point of the chemo.
I had the heart echo this morning at 8:30am (well more like 8:45). The specialist who saw me is Dr. V - he even has his own website at http://www.cardiology-specialist.co.uk !
His website says this about him - which i just read now:
In addition to his general training in Cardiology he has a special interest in Cardiac Imaging and in particular echocardiography, both trans-thoracic and trans-oesophageal
Seeing as i was having an echocardiography scan with him this is good to hear!
So yes, he's a cardiology specialist and we had a chat this morning first. I told him my symptoms and how currently i had no discomfort. He said that chemotherapy can affect the heart. Then he did the heart echo which takes about 10 minutes. During this time electrodes are placed on the chest and a handheld device is pressed on to the chest and moved around along with some jellly - similar to an ultra sound. During the echo at times you get to hear the heart beating and overall i think it gives you detailed information about the heart's operation.
At the end he said that the heart was fine and he could see nothing to worry about. He then said that the best thing to do would be that next time i had any pains / tightness to come in then for an echo and see if we could spot something then. He speculated that the chemo drugs could be causing some temporary swelling / inflamation of one part of the heart and this could be why it comes and goes.
I told him that i had a chest x-ray with him the very next day at the New Victoria Hospital and that is this needed - he told me to cancel it and its better that we try and have an echo / scan when the discomfort is there.
He said he would write a full report to Dr A and that he's advise him that i can continue as planned with the chemotherapy tomorrow. Also Dr V said he'd be keen to see me before my next chemo dose - i think he meant even if i had no further chest pain.
Overall i am happy i went to see him and happy that he said things are fine - thats good to know.
One question is that if i was to develop chest pains - say this weekend - and i told them, when would they be able to arrange a scan by? Would it be in time or would my symptoms have gone by then?
Comments