Wednesday

Well, Wednesday ended round three of the chemo treatment and the fanny pack was removed for the last time. The upcoming treatments that will coincide with radiation will consist of one all day intravenous solution and that will be it for three weeks. No more carrying that fanny pack around for five days and then having it removed for two weeks.

Upon removal of the pack I discussed with the nurses my feeling of a racing heart and shortness of breath since the previous Monday. Dr. Sherry came and spoke to me and said I needed to go to the emergency room at Sewickley Hospital to get checked out.

We departed the Cancer Treatment Center and headed straight to Sewickley Valley Hospital and underwent a series of tests in the E.R. consisting of having blood drawn to chest x-rays, a cat scan of my chest and an electrocardiogram. They were suspecting either blood clots in the lungs or pleurisy.

After several hours the test results came back negative on the blood clots but they wanted to get my racing heat back down so the gave me an I.V. of saline solution to see if that would help.
When the heart-rate was lowered I was cleared to go home and we left the hospital around 9:30 p.m. They did say my sodium and creatine in my kidneys were both a little low but didn't seem to be concerned abut either on of those signs.

Thursday we spoke with Dr. Sherry again and he said I probably had pleurisy and to take 400 mg of Ibuprofen four times a day for four days. That seemed to make the pain in my chest subside on that day.