Puppies and Chest Pain: The Bar Is Low for Good News

Yesterday was a sad morning: my sister’s week-long visit wrapped up at 4 AM when she caught her flight back. To brighten things up, I asked the AI (Grok) to animate a photo of me, Sheryl, and her with some puppies.

This morning, I called the oncology nurse line to describe the pain on the left side of my chest and back, which had been building up over the past two weeks. The nurse was very kind and meticulous in collecting the information. She would forward it to my oncologist and call back to follow up. She suggested it might well be related to my heart, not my lungs. The possibility of it being "just" the heart was oddly comforting.

A few hours later, the nurse relayed the message from the oncologist. The professional opinion was that it's a musculoskeletal issue. Apparently, because I lacked the dramatic “red flag” symptoms - coughing, fever, nausea, shortness of breath, vomiting, or numbness - my chest pain was dismissed as non-urgent. It's a funny feeling to be genuinely happy about having "just" a miserable muscle ache. The bar is truly low these days.