In the battle to own control of my thoughts, ruminating about cancer is the strongman. It muscles its was into my consciousness past everything else. As my friend Lorena, who is waging her own battle, said last week: “I think about this fucking cancer every day. It’s always in the back of my mind. No matter what I’m doing.”
Last week, though, I got a reprieve. Because now it turns out I also appear to have a heart problem. So instead of chatting with my oncologist, or my helpful oncology nurses, much of last week, I spent time getting to know Brian the cardiologist.
Dr. Brian came into my life because I mentioned to my oncologist that I’d had two recent episodes of exertion the led to extreme shortness of breath and chest discomfort—one while on a moderate hike, the other on my exercise bike. I assumed it was because the chemo was frying my red blood cells, our body’s mighty little oxygen carriers, and I was maybe becoming anemic. But it turns out that my type of cancer, and my chemo drugs, and my chemo port in my chest, all can help create blood clots. So a day after sharing my anecdotes with her, I was having blood work done and getting an EKG, and two days after that, sharing my health history with Dr. Brian.
Dr. Brian is not happy. He has heard my story before, and coupled with my abnormal new EKG, he says it usually leads to the same conclusion: a (perhaps serious) blockage in the heart. But why now? Other, recent EKGs (including two in the last three months), and a stress test two years ago, had turned up nothing unusual. Chemo, Dr. Brian said, is probably the culprit. I probably have years of relatively unremarkable plaque build-up, but the chemo might have inflamed arteries, and led to a rupture and/or blood clot. All in the last few weeks.
Dr. Brian, wanting to convey the seriousness but trying hard not alarm me (do I sound scared or something?), prescribes me heart medicine (to start taking now), works to schedule an angioplasty as soon as possible, even if it means traveling to a different Kaiser facility, and tells me to take it real easy until then.
I like Dr. Brian. He makes time for two lengthy conversations—one after-hours—about this issue, and follows up with a Saturday morning email sympathizing with the fact that my “recent health issues have been very challenging in every way.” He promises to solve my heart issue as soon as possible.
My heart is my motor. Like my real car, it’s running a little rough. I like the idea of fixing it as soon as possible.
In the meantime, cancer, take a number. I don’t have time to think about you right now.
[How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, Al Green version.
Original lyrics by Barry and Robin Gibb, 1971.]