I'm normally quite good at Mary Poppins (practically perfect) tension so I start thinking. Yeah, a little late for that missy!!! Back at 40 sts I worked on swatching with the two different needles (SB & the Sigs) and the two different sizes (4mm & 4.5mm). I think know now that I must have either switched needle sizes at some point or loosened up. So it's back to knit 1 - the Kersti is standing up well to all of this use I must say and it's lovely to work with so it's not such a hardship.It's also giving me the opportunity to space out the sleeve increases. To maintain the integrity of the patterning while knitting one below increases need to be done by 2's. So on the sleeve that puts a 4 stitch increases at the seams. Elise & I had talked about this when we did the originals and for ease of writing and knitting the increases are at the same time. I decided to go with staggered increases on my sleeves - which I had forgotten about until I was well into it - just another one of my lovable little OCD quirks.
I'm seeing my family Dr. on Thursday. Since the very first treatment I've had pressure in my chest, like my heart is pounding harder. I mentioned it right away and they did another ECG and it was fine. I bring it up every time I see the oncologist the day before treatment and they've chalked it up to anxiety (especially with the problems I've been having sleeping) even though I assure them that between being a knitter & having a kitty that I'm the most mellow and well-adjusted (okay, maybe that's going too far ;-) ) cancer patient around. So, I mentioned it to Simone again on Friday and she showed me how to find my pulse (I could never reliably find it ... which is also why current CPR training says to not even bother trying to find a victims pulse, it takes too much time that could be spent on actual resuscitation) and told me to monitor how often the episodes were occurring and my pulse rate. I'm compliant and what else do I have to do?? It turns out that it's not so much anxiety & a racing pulse as my heart is actually skipping a beat. Usually about every 25-30 beats but I really feel the pressure when it's skipping every 5-10 beats. It's been going on for the last 10 weeks all day (probably all night) and the oncology nurse that I spoke to on the phone didn't seem overly bothered so hopefully when I speak with Dr. B she'll put me on a Holter monitor and someone can tell me if this is actually bad. I know it's not good but I don't know if it's really bad. It's definitely from the chemo but I don't know if it's going to get worse or if it's really damaging my heart or just giving it a nice work out.
How much caffiene do you get? Coffee, tea, pop, chocolate? Might want to include your diet and your regular meds in your self monitoring...and if it's bothering you don't let them put you off! You know you best and pressure in your chest is never good, unless it's because said Kitty is sleeping on your chest. :-)
ReplyDeleteYou might want to look into meditation and yoga too...I know, I know, but it does help.
I have a coffee in the morning, sometimes a diet coke later in the afternoon. The arrhythmia doesn't seem to be affected by regular stimulants - I can feel it before my coffee and it's not escalated by caffeine (my fave Starbucks Red Eye doesn't make it worse).
ReplyDeleteI'll make sure that the Dr. does something about it on Thursday.
And all this time I thought the "Heart skips a beat" stuff was just romantic poetry. Maybe you're falling in love all over again?
ReplyDelete