I Still Have a Heart

Now, I just need to remember where I put my brain.

To celebrate that I am half way through chemo and thus saying goodbye to the toxic red drug, I got to trek to VGH on Tuesday for another Muga scan a.k.a. nuclear angiogram.  This being my first trip outside in just over a week I did not have a ton of energy but I still managed to make it the 5 uphill blocks in about 15 minutes.  Not bad at chemo speed.
The red drug I had been on has a 1% change of causing heart damage and possible heart failure thus the  need to check the current state of my heart function.  Hopefully there is no change since my last Muga scan that was done just before I started chemo.
The process for this scan was a little different than the first one which just involved two injections with little itty bitty needles.  Chemo drugs can interfere with the radioactive tracer so this time I needed to have an IV inserted so the nuclear medicine tech could remove some blood from me, separate out the chemo drugs, add the tracer, then return the red cells back to me before doing the scan. Ok.
Now I am waiting for the results which I will get when I see my oncologist in a couple of weeks.  In the mean time it doesn't feel like my heart is about to stop suddenly.

Since the Muga scan I have gained enough energy to putter around the apartment and reorganize the kitchen cupboards.  Exciting stuff.  Next I might tackle the linen closet.  And as long as I don't spend more than 15 minutes at a time doing anything I don't feel like I might pass out or throw up.  I think that is progress.

And now the rainy season has started in Vancouver.  We apparently just went through one of the driest periods in something like the last 100 or 150 years so I know we need the rain,  but couldn't it stay away just until my chemo is finished?

Here is a pic of where I wish I was right now courtesy of Suzetta in Italia (I hope you don't mind my borrowing it!)

This is a vineyard in Tuscany.  Wouldn't it be lovely to be there?

Tomorrow I am planning to go hat shopping.  I still have a little bit of hair on my head, and there are even a few random hairs that are still growing, but I would say that I am at least 70% bald now and it is worse at the front.  I still have most of my eyebrows and eyelashes though.  Apparently those are very slow growing hairs so they are also slower to fall out.