Heart, Mouth, and Migraines

This week brought both my heart appointment and more side effects!

Tuesday, October 18th:

Today was my Echo (as the doctors called it) heart appointment. I have to have a diagnostic test of both my heart and lungs (a previous lung test revealed 50% working capacity of my lungs because of the mass in my chest) due to the fact that chemotherapy can have negative implications on either, thus my doctor needing a baseline to compare future assessments of my functionality to.

The heart function test mirrored the process of a sonogram. The nurse squeezed out the cold green/blue gel and gently let the probe slide across my body. It is a little unnerving to hear your own heartbeat, especially if you do not know what the sound or the picture on the screen means (Is this a normal heart? Does my heart look okay? What is that space moving on the screen?) All the questions came to mind. I never did get answers to my internal questions, and the nurse did not have anything negative to report, so I am going to assume no news is good news and assume that the dancing white jelly bean-looking image on the screen was a healthy heart!

Side effects:

Let me tell you though, the side effects did not wait. Last Thursday was my first treatment and Friday began day 1 of 4 of constant nausea. Thankfully I was prescribed not one, but two anti-nausea medications to make the discomfort bearable but still not enjoyable. As nausea left, it welcomed right behind its painful mouth sores. Essentially my tongue felt like it was burnt from eating something too hot mixed with the pain of eating something too spicy all the time. The burning made drinking and eating almost unbearable to the point that even water burned my tongue to drink. But Orajel, baking soda/salt water rinse, Vince mouthwash, oncology mouth rinse, and "Magic Mouthwash" for the win! (Yes, I did try them all. Desperate times call for desperate measures). What a blessing it was that almost instantaneously after developing what I later learned to be called, "Chemo mouth," (who knew?!) I had not one but two ladies who have experienced this already mailing me mouthwash and oral remedies. True blessings!

Nausea faded after day 4, and the mouth sores became tolerable as I learned which rinses worked best, but the migraines have not halted. I am not used to headaches and sinus pressure in this way which has made understanding how to deal with them all the more challenging. Multiple nights and mornings have led to waking up feeling as if my ears are bleeding and a large throbbing occurring behind my temples, keeping me from being able to do much of anything except lay still in a dark room. This unfortunately has kept me out of work longer than I anticipated. Shout out to the 24/7 nurse(s) on call at the Pearson Cancer Center for helping me diagnose and treat the conditions with additional prescriptions. (The dizziness and unsteady body movements have not gone away and I will be monitoring this as the week finishes before seeking other medical counsel.)

PRAISE REPORT! I did go to work today for the 1st time in 9 days post-chemo and made it through! The real MVPs are my coworkers who not only checked up on me multiple times during the day but allowed me to step out when needed.

Humor Story: Thankfully I never got sick during the days of constant nausea, and the prescriptions did help some, or else the first few days would have been unbearable. Shout out to learning the drowsy side effects of anti-nausea medication though. I thought on Sunday I was going to be ahead of the game by taking a pill right before church in order to make it through service with minimal uncomfortably. (Joke is on me!) Instead, I felt L-OOPY as could be and fought my eyelids the whole service while internally debating if it would be socially appropriate to get up and head to the truck to take a nap. Instead, I just stayed seated through worship and all of the service, unfortunately having not a clue as to what the pastor said😆.