Maelleous wrote:Thank you for the responses. My cardiologist is still searching for answers and I am switching chemo doctors as she has been very unhelpful since this has happened. Going to visit some of the bigger centers, Moffett, Florida Cancer Institute, and go back to Cleveland clinic and get an opinion from all of them, then have my local onc follow the plan I think is best. Still a little nervous that my cardio doc says absolutely no chemo until we figure this out, so only 3 treatments in, it could be several weeks before I restart. Hopefully when they removed the tumor with clean margins and took so many lymph nodes (38) that they got it all.
I can't imagine it is anything other than the chemo being young and healthy (minus the cancer of course.) Once I have more info I will post more, as I know this stuff is beneficial to others who may have issues.
Sorry you went through all of that and I'm glad you are doing better!
Just wanted to chime in here real quick as your situation sounds a little similar to mine and maybe hearing my story might help with yours?
For my first chemo treatment I had the pump going for FOLFOX and after the first 48 hours I went back to get disconnected and I was about to have a heart attack. My cancer center called 911 and I was checked into the hospital. They disconncted me and gave me nitroglycerin pills to open up the arteries in my heart and that immediately started to help with the heart-attack like chest pain and other symptoms I was having. I had CT scans of my chest and they could not find anything wrong and no damage to my heart. I started following up with a cardiologist after that just to monitor things and everything was always fine.
For round 2 my Oncologist lowered my dosages of OXI and the 5FU on the pump. I still had the same symptoms, but not as bad as to send me to the ER again. I did have memory black outs, chest pain, no appetite, etc and had to take the nitroglycerin pills a couple of times that they had prescribed to me at that point due to the severe chest pain and abnormal beating of my heart. It was all very scary to go through, and aside from the physical pain it was hurtful to hear other Dr's (especially the ER Dr!) tell me that I was just having "anxiety attacks" due to having cancer and beginning chemo, etc. Uh, no...this definitely was not anxiety attacks and I wasn't faking the pain. I hate it when Dr's just write you off and assume that you are an idiot or something.
Anyway, for round 3 my Oncologist switched me to XELODA (pill form of FOLFOX, but OXI was still administered via pump). The XELODA was a world of difference and I was able to get through 8 rounds of chemo with it. It wasn't perfect, but i didn't have to use the nitroglycerin pills as often as the chest pain/heart rate was more manageable and I didn't have memory black outs anymore.
We are still not sure what my reaction was all about (I have no other medical issues aside from cancer), but we are thinking that it could be some type of DPD deficiency or that I may have inherited a heart defect from my family (nitral-valve prolapse) that we are just not aware of yet...who knows.
I wish you the best in your journey and always advocate for yourself! Don't let anyone make you doubt your symptoms when you are describing them to make them sound not as bad!