LilyMir Posted August 19, 2022 Share Posted August 19, 2022 Hi everyone, today was my last chemo infusion. I was hoping to have a little celebration of this milestone while I await CT imaging in a few weeks as the oncologist ordered. It so happened that today too I had a followup with my GP as I wanted to ask him about changes I saw on my echocardiogram from the one I had last year (a 50% increase in "interventricular septum thickness in diastole"). My GP was on long vacation so I booked another GP in his office. She turned out to be very careful physician with cancer care experience and just by hearing me talk about tachycardia while on chemo, she immediately sent me to the ER for investigating if I have a pulmonary embolism! I obliged and after a gruelling day of blood work, chemo, ER with multiple blood works, an X-ray and a contrast CT, I barely got home so very exhausted well after sun down (so much for the celebration!). The good news is that my CT was clear of embolism and the radiologist noted no new findings, so that's good. However, my D-dimer blood test is high (1246 ug/L FEU, where normal is below 500)! ER discharged me with more blood work to do like cholesterol, as well as a stress test for the heart since they have no explanation still for my tachycardia. Did anyone have D-dimer elevated following lung surgery? It seems non-specific but it ruined what otherwise would have been a good day for me. Googling things, as usual, raised my anxiety so much since of course one explanation I found is this is associated with lung cancer, recurrence, worse outcome etc. though inflammation and surgery does raise this too... Izzy, Justin1970 and Tom Galli 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LouT Posted August 19, 2022 Share Posted August 19, 2022 LilyMir, I can't speak directly to the tachycardia, but I surely understand the anxiety that so many of our symptoms creates. I'd love to say "stay calm until you have more information", but that wouldn't help you. What I can tell you is that every time I've had anxiety about this damned disease the reality turned out to be much less than my fear. I pray the same for you. I've read some studies on d-dimer and it seems that the most probable people who experience difficulties are quite high In one study they tracked folks with readings between 5,000 up to 239,000 with a mean of 17,598. These are very high values. It doesn't mean your doctor shouldn't determine what is going on with you, but my hope is that your situation corrects now that you have completed your chemo regimen. Please keep us updated. Lou Justin1970, Tom Galli, BridgetO and 1 other 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin1970 Posted August 22, 2022 Share Posted August 22, 2022 Hi lily I'm really sorry your still going through this I hope everything settles down soon for you, try and stay positive and strong, I'm glad the chemotherapy has now finished, please take care Justin x Izzy, LilyMir and LouT 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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