Yesterday was my first trip to the ER. Needless to say, this past week did not go as well as I had hoped.
After how good I felt last Wednesday and Thursday, I had started thinking that maybe I was going to get lucky and get through treatment with no real side effects. And then I woke up on Friday with a sore neck, a racing heart, and a tight chest. The neck soreness wasn't unexpected, but I hadn't read about heart palpitations and strained breathing in the main RAI side effets. It took me until the afternoon to decide that my symptoms weren't going away or getting any better, so I called my endo. His initial concern was that based on my symptoms, I might have a blood clot in my lungs, although that was highly unlikely. He wanted me to go to the ER to get a chest xray to make sure. After some discussion, we decided that it was most likely just the result of too much thyroid stimulation in combination with a too high synthroid dose. The plan was to skip a day of my synthroid and then start up again at a lower dose, and to go to the ER if things got worse.
On Saturday, the tightness in my chest went away, although I was still feeling a bit winded, and on Sunday, my heart rate started to come back down a little, but it was still higher than normal. I did some work from home on Monday and decided that I felt well enough to go in to work for part of the day on Tuesday, even though things weren't fully back to normal. By Tuesday evening, I was back to feeling almost as bad as I had the Friday before. After spending Wednesday at home resting, I wasn't feeling any better - I felt winded just sitting on the couch, and I was feeling jittery and anxious. After calling my endo again Thursday morning, I was on my way to the ER to make sure there wasn't something more serious wrong.
All things considered, the whole ER experience went pretty well. We got there around 11 and checked in. I made sure to be clear that my doctor (from the same health network) had sent me over - I don't know if that makes a difference, but I figured a little name dropping never hurt! We sat down in the waiting room and I had barely even started reading my book when they called me back for triage. They did an EKG and then sent us back out to the waiting room. Only a few pages in my book later, I got called back for triage part two, where they took my vitals and I had to sign some papers and answer some questions. (Here's a tip for all health care workers, but for ER workers in particular: "Do you have any medical issues?" is not a very good question. Besides being much too broad, I obviously do if I'm at the ER!) I got braceleted and sent back out to the waiting room. A few minutes later, they were ready for me and took me back to my "room" (aka bed in the hallway because all the rooms were full). I had to have yet another pregnancy test, and then they took some blood (to check my thyroid levels and to test for blood clots) and put in a just-in-case IV port. They took a couple chest xrays and then I talked with the doctor for a little while. He called my endo to make sure that they were on the same page, and after getting the test results back and seeing that everything was fine, they decided that the best course forward would be to put me on beta blockers until we get my hormone levels straightened out. They gave me a dose while I was there and the difference it made was incredible - I started to feel calm very quickly. Once the doctor was satisfied that I was tolerating the new medication, I got my discharge orders and we left around 2.
I feel so much better today. I'm still fairly tired, but I haven't been sleeping well for a while so I've got some catching up to do. But my heart rate is back down to normal, or maybe even a tad lower, I don't have to strain to breathe, and I don't get winded walking from the couch to the kitchen - all major improvements! They can't say for sure why I'm having all of these problems, since my thyroid levels came back fine, but my endo suspects it's just lingering effects from treatment (because you're trying so hard to make sure the thyroid cells are stimulated and ready for the radiation, you can actually overstimulate them and cause yourself to be hyperthyroid).
The news that got lost in the midst of all of this was that I had my follow up scan Wednesday morning, and everything looked good! The scan only lit up in the areas where it should, which means there was no sign that the cancer had spread. If I hadn't been so agitated and stressed by my heart issues, I would have been more excited about this at the time, but I'm very happy about it now. For now, there isn't anything major on the horizon that I have to get through. Sure, we still have to get my medication levels worked out, but I can finally start adjusting to the new normal.
