Chemo Delayed

Lately I have been feeling a lot better. I've been feeling more like myself and I'm not having as many headaches as I did before. I think the reason why I'm feeling better is because my chemotherapy treatment has been pushed back. I was suppose to have my last chemotherapy treatment on Thanksgiving, but because of the holiday, we moved it to the following week. So this is the longest I've ever been in between chemo treatments, which of course is not ideal, since I want to fight this cancer and be cured as soon as possible.

However, just today I heard back from my doctor at UCLA, and she says before we can schedule my next chemo treatment, she wants me to meet with a cardiologist. Last week I had another heart echo scan, and I guess the doctor found out the chemo drugs, in particular the Adriamycin, is having a greater negative effect on my heart than what we had thought. At this time she feels my heart is too weak to take another round of chemotherapy. So tomorrow morning I have an appointment to meet with a cardiologist in Santa Monica. I've never been to a cardiologist before, so I'm a little nervous. I guess the doctor wants me to wear workout clothes so they can test my heart while I'm on a treadmill. After I meet with the cardiologist, I'll talk with my oncology doctor to see if we can still continue the chemo treatments or if we need to come up with a new game plan.

I really hope everything goes well tomorrow because the thought of having a weak heart really scares me. Your heart is so important to your overall health that I'm afraid of having any damage from the chemotherapy drugs. Plus, on top of that I really was hoping not to have to delay any of my chemo treatments. The quicker I can fight this cancer, I thought the better. However, at the same time I'm really grateful that we did the heart echo to discover my heart was weaker because that would have been horrible to do the chemo and then later, hurt my heart even greater. It is just so hard when you are fighting cancer to find that fine line of what is hurting or helping your body. These powerful chemo drugs of course are killing the cancer, but at the same time they are destroying my body in so many different ways. I guess it goes back to the point that sometimes to get better you have to fight through those negative side effects. So in my case I just have to be careful to not hurt myself too much in the process.
Wish me good luck tomorrow!
Danielle