Echocardiogram #1 Done!

Well, life is somewhat getting back to normal! We managed to eek out 2.5 inches of snow over night. The neighborhood streets are slick and icy…very hard to stop…but it will be 60 degrees by next weekend, so it won’t last long. It is pretty cold so I think my flowering plants are done for at this point…just when they got some moisture in our drought-laden area.

Joe and Michelle stopped by on their way home to Kansas City from their honeymoon in Colorado. It sounds like they had a great time together getting lost in the mountains. They were only here about an hour…just long enough for dinner and to pick up a few things. Please keep Joe in your prayers as he is still searching for that elusive spot on a local fire department. He would really like to get a regular paying job and is trying to get hired on….but it is hard without any experience.

My icky week has started, but I have a lot of things to do to catch up on so I am trying to keep my mind off of the nausea that wants to take over at times. I managed to get to Bergan Mercy cardiology lab and have my echocardiogram done today. It only took 30 minutes rather than an hour, so that was a pleasant surprise. I will be getting these echocardiograms done every three months now to monitor my heart. Doxil’s base drug, Doxirubicin, is heart toxic and normally patients can only tolerate 6 rounds in their lifetime. Doxil is wrapped in a liposome – so a fatty base that protects my heart more. It is so much kinder on my body…allows me to keep my hair…and have other more harsh side effects. I should hopefully hear something from my online patient chart in the next few days as to what the results were. I just had my 8th round of Doxil and my local oncologist was not on board with getting the echocardiogram up until I asked my sarcoma specialist at the Mayo Clinic to mention it to him. I had been mentioning it since I started this chemo regimen. Hopefully all is well.

Still promise to get some wedding weekend photos up as soon as I can catch up a bit. Special thanks to Michele Nagel for the wonderful candle….for Lois & Jim Doyle for their weekly spiritual cards that make my day…..and for Erika Campbell for an uplifting note that I received today on a day I was nervous about my heart health and just needed a pick-me-up. I realize that I am so very blessed to be doing as well as I think I am doing right now with this disease. I have a zoom friend in my LMS group that I also thought was doing well and it was posted yesterday by her husband that she only has a few days left here on earth right now. I was really heartbroken to hear that because even though I only knew her through zoom meetings, she was a beacon of light and so helpful for others. The fact that she is preparing to leave this world is hard for me to fathom….knowing that things can change so quickly with this disease. Please keep Jennifer and her family in your prayers as she prepares to move from this world to the next.