Then there are the bad reasons. When we got the call from our fertility doctor after our first IVF attempt and he said, "I am sorry, but the transfer didn't take." The phone call telling me that one of my best friends was killed in a car accident. Hearing the words "It is cancer". There have been many times in my life that my heart has skipped a beat because of bad news and then caught up by beating an extra beat.
On Easter Eve of this year, I don't know why my heart was beating extra. All I know is that my chest hurt and it scared me. The drug that I will continue for a full year is Herceptin. I have to get an ECHO every 4 months because one of the side effects of this drug is heart problems. So Jason and I are in bed and it is 10 PM and my heart just felt weird. I don't want to say chest pains and I don't want to say chest heaviness because that doesn't quite describe it. It just didn't feel right. So at midnight when Jason turned to me and asked if it was time to go to the ER, I couldn't say yes, but more importantly, I couldn't say no. We called our doctor's office and the NP advised us to go to the ER. Really?!?
So we called my mother-in-law and asked her to come over. We dressed. Made sure we had our insurance cards. I kissed the boys and off we went. On the drive there, my heart really started jumping because now I was scared. All I could think was, "Really? After everything that has happened in the last 9 months, I know am heading to the ER because of my heart!?!"
We get there and as soon as they found out I was doing chemo, I was whisked back to a room where they do an EKG. The extra heartbeats were there on the machine. I go back to a room and we start the tests. And the whole time I am hooked up to a machine that is monitoring my heart. Jason is freaking out and I am just mad.
Any time I am wheeled off for a test, they give me a mask. I understand that this is for my protection and because my immune system is still compromised, this is the smart thing to do.......but it makes me feel like a patient. I have been feeling so good lately. The mask is just another reminder that I have cancer and it makes me even angrier.
All the tests come back in a positive manner and they only thing left is a stress test. They suggest I check in the hospital and get it done. Now comes the tears. It is officially Easter now and I want to be home with my boys. The baskets are out, our Easter outfits are pressed, and I want to go home! After calming down, we realize that we are lucky in that they don't know what Easter is yet. We can give them their baskets later in the day and they won't know the difference. I don't like it, but decide to stay.
Jason heads home and I get wheeled up to my own room. Long story short, they suggest I get a stress test later in the week, but want to draw my blood two more times to check the enzymes ( I thing that is right) and if it comes back negative (which is good), then I can go home. So at 12 noon on Easter day, I am finally driving home.
I had my stress test on Friday and nothing showed up. The doctor said that my extra heartbeats are benign and I should only be concerned if they happen and I feel faint. All this worry for a week and that is what I get as an explanation. Of course, I realize this a good news, but uggghhh!!!
I guess this is just a reminder that my life of being a patient is not going to end just because the main part of my treatment is over. I will always be a patient and cancer will always be in my vocabulary. I don't like it and I am still fighting it. Hopefully I will accept that soon. It will only make things easier. I am not the same person I was before my May 30th diagnosis. I hate that, but it is true. I sure hope this gets easier.
In case you were wondering, we put out the Easter baskets about 7 PM that night. Jack walked in and his eyes got big when he saw the cars and school bus in his basket. He got very excited and yelled, "School bus!" And my eyes watered and my heart skipped a beat and, this time, those extra heartbeats were welcomed.
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