Pace's secondary effects continue to be dominated by chemotherapy induced neuropathy that seems to have localized in her cheeks and lips. Last week it manifested itself as numb lips that adds to the other symptom of a constantly runny nose. She thinks it's a cold she can't shake, I'm of another school of thought.
Other side effects are the off taste that food has now. It manifests itself as both an unwillingness to eat at times and nausea at others.
She's been having dizzy spells again, the doctors are not sure if it is, or is not related to the TIA episode we had back in October. So the neurosurgeons are recommending more tests, (here we go again...) to eliminate possibilities of underlying conditions. The recommendations are:
A transesophageal echocardiogram to determine if there are any congenital defects of the heart. Specifically defects in the heart walls allowing abnormal mixing of oxygenated and unoxygenated blood between the right and left sides of the heart.
Then there's an MRI of the Brain Stem to look for potential brain tumors, I thought they would have done that with the other Brain MRI that she had in October.
There's also the "Bubble Test," where an ultrasound is done in combination with an injection of saline solution into the circulatory system to look for places were arteries may be pumping blood directly into veins. By all accounts it's painful.
Lastly the doctors are ordering a genetic blood test for coagulation disorder. This is a test that the good doctors at Mount Sinai were about to perform before the breast cancer diagnosis.
Pace is being so brave and all I can do is observe.
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