Hospital trip …
Well yesterday (12/29/2003) I spent the majority of the day in the Emergency Room at Strong Hospital.
I have been having severe pain in my right and left arms and infrequent chest pain as well for about 11 days. The pain was so intense Sunday night that I ended up taking some Vicodin just so I could fall asleep since I did not sleep at all Saturday night.
So Monday morning I called the symptoms line at the Wilmot Cancer Center and the Triage Nurse said I should go to the emergency room at Strong.
I was like - Really? - and she said yes .. I don’t want to alarm you, but you could be having heart problems and we would like to check you out to make sure.
So I made the drive to Strong from work …
Well after 6 hours, 2 CT Scans, and a EKG later it turns out I am just fine. The tumor (scar tissue) is even smaller than what it was on 11/20/2003 (my last set of scans). The lymphoma did not spread anywhere and I have even less fluid around my heart than I did at my final checkup.
Also, my heart seems fine and strong as can be. So now we’re thinking that maybe one of the Chemo drugs caused some nerve damage and that may be causing my pain .. or more than likely I have pinched nerves in BOTH my elbows … we’re not really sure.
I am going to see a Neurologist sometime next week (hopefully) and get zapped. 
I saw my Oncologist today (12/30/2003) and just went over all the results from the tests the Emergency Room took the day before. He was very pleased with everything.
I ran into one of my nurses from my Chemo treatments (Shari). It was nice to see her again .. she had to be one of my favorite nurses there. She was surprised to see how much my hair had actually grown back already.
I am hoping to be able to volunteer one day a month in the chemotherapy treatment center and asked how I would go about doing this. I thought maybe it might help other patients to talk to someone that has been through the chemo treatment that they are going through now or at least see that cancer is beatable.
So we shall see ….
