My MUGA scan - I do have a heart after all

Yesterday, I had another MUGA scan - my third and fourth. As usual, it was an ordeal because of my oh so uncooperative veins. It wasn't as bad as the last one with blood all over the place, plugged IVs and bruising. This one wasn't a horror show. Just took time. The technician tried and successfully accessed a vein but, alas, the vein was too weak to give a good supply of blood and had to be abandoned. No other veins even looked like candidates so I made a trip down to the infusion room to have one of the nurses access my port. Then, with tubes hanging, I traipsed back to the hospital and up to the 8th floor to have my blood drawn, radioactivized, processed and re-injected. Finally, I lay down and the MUGA scan was done on the old machine. Then, it was done again on the brand new machine for comparison. Once more, I traipsed, with tubes hanging, back over to infusion and they flushed and removed the access tubing. All-in-all, took 4 hours. It normally takes about 2. Bet you wish you could spend your day like that, don't you?

And now for the good news! My baseline ejection fraction for my heart was at 65% and after review, raised to 72%. What does this mean? The MUGA scan measures how well your ventrical is pumping the blood out of your heart. The ejection fraction measures the strength of that pump. Average or acceptable is at 50% (or so I am told). So, initially, my heart was doing really well (the doctors also told me this).

After Adriamycin (Chemotherapy), my heart muscle was damaged and the ejection fraction dropped to 50% (a 15% or 22% drop depending on how you look at it). This was very scary for me especially since Herceptin was expected to do even further damage. To continue Herceptin treatments, the EF needs to remain above 50%. 49% and your treatment is discontinued. My Oncologist didn't seem to be alarmed or worried about the drop but did make sure that I got scheduled for my next scan at 3 months. That was yesterday.

With much trepidation, I lay quietly for the 10 minutes of the scan, hoping the technician would give me the preliminary results. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. This time he did and the results were..............59.8%. Yeah! I do have a heart after all and it is increasing in strength! I had recovered almost half of what I lost even while taking Herceptin. The technician then asked if I would mind testing out the new machine so that they could compare the results. I agreed and, after another 10 minutes, the results were.......58.5%. He informed me that this was not statistically significant so I guess that overall, I am at about 59%. Wonderful news!

I was so excited and up that I went right home and closed the books for ATW - something that was way overdue but that I had been too exhausted to do over the last week.

Then, I went to my painting class where, I am pleased to say, I have learned to paint more than mud. I finished my second painting, a still life with beautiful purple and yellow hydrangeas in a glass. I took the wet painting and went right to Michael's for a frame. The painting was a 6x8 and I soon discovered that there are very few frames in that size and even fewer mats. I finally found one mat with a 6x8 opening that fit a 9x11 frame. Couldn't find a frame that size so bought an 8x10 and then cut the mat down to fit it. Overall, it turned out well and now, the painting is beautifully framed. Can't wait to paint the next one!

So, what am I doing today? Still in my pajamas and catching my breath after all of the excitement yesterday! :) Gotta get going.