Damage to Heart Muscle

The CT scan of the chest and CT cardiac calcium scoring and the ECG did not show anything wrong with my heart even though the blood enzyme proved otherwise.

The cardiac side decided to send me for an echocardiogram (a test that uses sound waves to create a moving picture of the heart and is more detailed than an x-ray image).

The echocardiogram confirmed that there was mild damage to the heart muscle. According to Dr F, fortunately none of the structural muscles was affected. He mentioned that I was lucky that the damage was mild this time, but we cannot be sure where it will hit the next time. A cardiologist also confirmed the heart muscle damage. I understand that once a heart muscle is damage, it would be permanent as the heart cannot repair itself.

Opinions were divided as to what actually caused the damage. The cardiac people believed that the chemo drugs was the cause, while my onco disagreed. She said I was already very weak when I was admitted and my heart and chest area were stressed out from all that coughing.

I understood that herceptin was the one that could cause damage to the heart. I told Dr Wong that I wanted to drop herceptin and she gave me an ultimatum, continue as usual or stop all treatment. Initially, she said she would not be making any changes to the drugs, however, after the cardiologist confirmed the damage, she said she was making some changes, but I never ask and was not told what the changes were. The drugs they gave me were still the same.