Another Bump in the Road

One Direction, On The Road Again Tour SG

I went for the One Direction concert on Wednesday!! It was my first time at the new National Stadium, and it was huge?! There were 33,000 people but there were still many empty seats behind the stage. Pretty impressed with the good crowd control — I could even find seats on the MRT on the way back. Aaaand... it was my first time taking public transport in 6 months haha I was pretty nervous and apprehensive but I think taking the MRT back would be even faster than finding a cab at the stadium.

Yesterday (13th March 2015) marks the 6th month mark since I got diagnosed. Happy 6th monthsary? Hahaha. Has it been half a year already?!

I had an appointment with my heart doctor, Dr Eric, yesterday as well. Not so good news. The recent echo scan that I went for showed that there's a fall in my LVEF. I have done 3 echo scans — it went from 50%, to 48%, and most recently, 36%. Here's more info, from here:

With each heartbeat, the heart contracts (or squeezes) and relaxes. Every contraction pushes blood out of the two pumping chambers (ventricles). When when heart relaxes, the ventricles refill with blood. The ejection fraction (EF) refers to the amount, or percentage, of blood that is pumped (or ejected) out of the ventricles with each contraction. This percentage, or EF number, helps your health care provider determine if you have heart failure or other types of heart disease. 

A normal heart pumps just over half the heart's volume of blood with each beat – a normal EF is 50 to 75 percent. 

A low EF number is an early sign of heart failure. This is a condition where the heart does not pump enough blood to the rest of the body. With treatment, many people live well with heart failure. 

So I've been put on two medications — Enalapril (5mg bd), and Bisoprolol (2.5mg bd). He says that with early treatment, there's a high chance of recovery. These two will decrease my blood pressure, and I have already felt some side effects last night. When I got up from watching tv, I got a bit dizzy and then my heart went into crazy racing mode (150 beats/min) for 5 minutes. 

Dr Eric says that the decreased function of my heart is due to the combination of chemotherapy and radiation. He even tried to call my cancer doctors to see if my radiation can be stopped as it's evidently weakening my heart. But... they didn't answer their calls sigh. Hopefully my body will be able to tolerate the medications! Will be doing another scan in the middle of April to see if they work.

I'm left with the last 5 sessions of radiotherapy! Lezzgo!