Oncology Visit For Referral

 Mary Jo had a consultation visit with her new oncologist, Dr. Sandeep Jain, MBBS yesterday at Minnesota Oncology to dicuss getting a referral to see a pulmonary doctor after the chest X-Ray from the E.R. visit revealed bulky bilateral lymphadenopathy.  Prior to Mary Jo starting her cancer treatment back in 2009, a P.E.T. scan lead to a simular discovery which lead to a biopsy preceedure being ordered to confirm that the suspicious scan was not malignant.  The 2009 biopsy lab result was non necrotising granuloma but "not malignant" so our concerns were shelved and Mary Jo's cancer treatment moved forward at full speed but we never got to the bottom of the bilateral lymphadenopathy issue.  Dr. Jain does not feel that the recent bilateral lymphadenopathy scan is consistant with cancer so that is good news but he referred us to a pulmonary specialist as the nest step.  Dr. Jain suggested that they would likely redo the the proceedure to get a new biopsy sample.  Mary Jo says she is feeling normal and is not to concerned.  We are both looking forward to scheduling the meeting and getting more information.

Dr. Jain explaining proceedure scan results.

E.R doctor explaining x-ray from 2023

Back to the E.R.

                                                                                 

                 

I stopped writting blog posts here several years back thinking we were long past all the cancer stuff and it was time to move on.  I had always found it helpful for me to record medical visits and events as a good referance for me to come back to later to clarify what I may later forget so here I go again.  I did not make an entry last fall when Mary Jo was admitted to the hospital for a "heart event" so I am going to start writting and recording again starting now because I used this very blog to look back on a July 2009 post to review what exactly took place with the PET scan and her surgeon's diagnosis.  Here we go.

Last November 1st, 2022, Mary Jo drove herself into the E.R. thinking that she may be having a heart attack.  Chest pain, pounding chest, pain shooting up her arm, very high BP readings.  Multiple tests and specialist exams during her hospital stay diagnosed she had Takobuso Cardiomyopathy.  MJ did cardio rehab and tried various medications for a few months before her injection fraction of her left ventrical returned to normal function.  We were told by the cardiologists that this was a stress induced condition that typically goes away on its own, which we beleived it did.  I still question the "stress induced" theory but that was their diagnosis.  Jump forward to Monday August 21st 2023, Mary Jo said she was feeling chest pain and uneasiness.  She took her BP and it was dangerously elevated.  This time she told me as I was leaving the house that she was concerned about her BP so we immediately jumped in the car and sped off to the ER at Burnsville Ridges hospital.  Triage immediately brought her in, sent her blood in for testing/exams because her BP was reading 205/110.  They did a Tropomin biomarker (Blood test) to check to see if MJ was having a heart attack.  Did an EKG (came back normal).

They also did a D-Dimer test to test for blood clots.  Tropomin was negitive but the D-Dimer was positive.  A chest X-ray showed no clots (pulmonary embolism) so it appears she was not currently in a life threatening condition but the x-ray revealed stable indeterminate bulky bilateral lymphadenopathy with scattered mild mediastinal lymphadenopthy so follow up visits are scheduled and Mary Jo was releaved of work for her trip the next day and we were sent on our way after 5 hours in the ER.  

I am hoping that testing will diagonoisis this is just a benign symptom of Sarcoidosis on the lungs and not also inclusive of the heart and please not cancer.  More updates to come as we learn more.