Cancer Pulse

I covered yet one more wing of the PAMF clinic on Friday because I went in to get an EKG. EKG stands for electrocardiogram, yes, ECG would normally be the abreviation (and sometimes is), but somehow we call it EKG because that is how the Germans say it. EKG does sound a lot better, so I give props to the Germans, but nevertheless, I hate it when things don't line up. Like when I used to play legos and I needed both sides of whatever spaceship I was building to have symmetry both in structure and in color. I was exasperated every time one of my friends would build something that would have one piece on the right gray and the other yellow, compromising its bilateral symmetry. I have become less nerdy about things like that though, which would explain why my room looks like the same carnage that is going on within my acetabulum.

To get an EKG, they have you take your shirt off and then they stick on about 10 different wires. They would have shaved my chest, but we took care of that last week. While the nurse was hooking all the wires up to me, I asked if it was going to hurt, because my imagination was being very creative with what those wires would do. She said, "oh, I forgot to tell you, yeah, this won't hurt". It didn't hurt, and the test showed normal results. I had the EKG because I have had an elevated heart rate for a few days, with some chest discomfort. My pulse is comfortable at about 70 beats per minute, but for a few days it was at about 100 bpm. I had another chest x-ray which was negative (which means good). I had another blood draw...this time I watched the needle go into my vein and was not bothered by it at all...I am becoming an expert cancer patient. My CBC (blood count) was actually really good, my white blood cell count was in the normal range, which means my Neulasta worked. There were a few counts that were a little low (neutrophils and platelets), but nothing extreme or unexpected. My metabolic panel showed the rest was pretty good, which is great, because now I don't have to try to swallow those potassium pills any more.

The elevated pulse could be the result of anything. Same with the chest discomfort. In fact, the chest discomfort could cause the elevated pulse, or vice-versa. Plus, inside your chest is more than your heart. There are all kinds of guts: stomachs and lungs and gall bladders and esophagusses and ribs and muscles. I could also psychologically be causing my own stupid pulse to increase, which I am really trying not to do, which is probably counter-productive. This anxiety is a possibility, though I do not feel anxious, but we have to consider it since I do have a busy schedule of stuff to do and I do have cancer. I also have a slew of new drugs coarsing through my veins that may affect any number of the guts in my chest. I am also getting fatter and more out of shape (and therefore more annoyed (note: getting fatter is better than losing weight which hurts the prognosis)). It could be any of these things and it could be a combination of all of these things. I just finished Lance Armstrong's book, and he also thought a couple times that his body was freaking out on him when it really was just being a normal fickle body, so I figure I just need to be calm. I am just trying to be really picky with my body now, because I was trying to tough it out and not go to the doctors for weeks back when I had a hip fracture and a huge tumor gnawing at my bone. I was still going to work and walking around coaching and everything back then, so that is my own self-confirmation that I am not a huge wimp.

My pulse is at 70 this morning, and I have literally been having sighs of relief.