Last Monday, November 20th I woke up with shortness of breath, chest pain, and some numbness in my right arm. I called on my oncologist, as I had these symptoms at the end of my last chemo treatment. I had waited several days last time and I ended up in the hospital for several days with some lung issues. I didn't want that to happen again, so I called for their opinion at the first sign of feeling this way. They told me to immediately go to the ER.  Within in minutes I was at the ER and was taken to a room very quickly. I was hooked up to EKG and immediately the doctor came in and told them to run the test again. After looking at the 2nd test she told me to stay calm (yeah right) and told me that it appeared I was having a heart attack. Two words I definitely wasn't expecting and exactly how am I supposed to stay calm after hearing that?! Needless to say my heart rate severely increased along with my blood pressure. I was given aspirin and some other medicine. After being poked 5 times they finally got an IV started with other meds and fluids. I later had a CT scan done and a heart cath. Luckily all the tests returned showing negative for heart attack. I was admitted for observation over night. 

The next morning my medical oncologist came to the hospital and he believe I experienced all of those symptoms due to being a side effect of the chemo pills I had just started just days before. He stopped the treatment plan and said he wanted to give my heart a rest before starting a new form of treatment. Although we don't know all the details on treatment just yet, we do know that it will be in the form of IV. We are hoping to get treatment started by the end of the week or early next week. 

I am so lucky that I had a great support group rush to be by my side in a moment's notice. It was definitely scary going to the ER alone and receiving that news, but I was comforted very quickly when my entourage arrived. 

I will post updates when given more information on new chemo plan.

DeeDee