Hello, hopefully just a quick question. Pam has been flying through the chemo treatments without many side effects. Her last round was 12/30 with Taxotere which she has had about six times.

Today she has experienced a lot of swelling in her face and her armpit. The armpit is the one closest to her port and is where they had biopsied 8 months ago and found a lymph node positive for cancer. She has been having pain in the armpit the last day or so.

Wondering how concerned should we be? Do you think there could be a problem with the port? Seems to have swelled up too fast to be tumor related, we hadn't noticed it until today. From what they explained on how the lymph system works, they have her massage her face and neck, working fluid over the ear which would then make its way to the armpit. Could this be a sign of the lymph node in that area getting clogged leaving the fluid no where to go?

Intersted to hear if any others have experienced or have any thoughts.

Thanks, Tom

Tom,

not being a physician or seeing the situation I'm probably not going to be any help...however if the areas do not look infected (red, irritated, oozing, tender, hot to touch etc..) and it happened so quickly then I would think lymph or allergic reaction of some sort. Either way I would have it checked out depending on how bad the swelling is just to be safe.

Good luck

Eric

Thanks, her fever went down and she decided she could wait until Monday to talk to her normal doctors.

Tom

Went into the clinic today and surprised the doctor with Pam's third "booby", that is actually how the nurse described it to another nurse. They ended up drawing blood from her arm because the nurse was concerned about an infection close to the port. The doctor was expecting to see an infection similar to a boil or pimple. The three most likely suspects were given to us as a blood clot, an infection of nodes or a sist, or tumor related. They decided to do an ultrasound and were able to rule out a blood clot. I watched as they were doing it and they were going to stop without looking at the area with the swelling. With my questions, she did take a look at it but said that they really wouldn't be able to tell what it was from an ultrasound. I really wanted to try to find out how large the mass is. On the last PET, the tumor under the arm was just a little over 1cm and I can't believe it could change that much in a month. It looked like a dark mass in the area but with Pam there I didn't want to ask the size. When they checked her blood, her hemoglobin was low (7.6) and her WBC were up but they thought that was due to the Nuelasta shot. They have started her on Levaquin, scheduled her for a transfusion and chest CT tomorrow.

Third Booby? Jeez. How insensitive. Hope you both got a little chuckle out of it. I guess those nurses see so much they just get totally desensitized. It really adds another layer of frustration having to be on the watch out all the time to make sure the nurses and check out everything. Hoping that the medication helps the swelling and infection and that you get some more answers tommorrow.

Glad you are coming here for support as I know that having to deal with this constant unknown element must be so difficult and stressful.Sometimes just by writing it helps work everything out.

K

tom,
when the doctors leave the room, i often chase them down and ask them the questions that andy doesnt want to know the answers to, but i feel like I need to know everything. so chase em down next time...