29. Chemo FIT Part 7 Hemoglobin detection

As you recall, FIT detects blood in your stool, except that you may not be bleeding at the time you are collecting the sample.  Here is a recount of what happened to me with the FIT test last year, which was positive.

I received the kit in the mail around February 2021, (don't recall exactly because I did not keep a log at the time.)   It sat around for a while, till I finally decided to send it in to the lab in late May.  That, I remember vividly because my husband went on a fishing trip then and I was suffering from a BAD case of sciatica when he was gone. This case of sciatica was really bad.  So I did what I normally do when this strikes;  I take Robaxacet.  Except that supplies were still pretty low last year.   I could not find the usual Robaxacet, but found and bought Robaxisal instead (active ingredients in each caplet: (ASA) 500mg (NSAID) and methocarbamol 400 mg).  I took that medication for at least one week, but no more than the maximum recommended dose.  That was when I sent my stool sample in.  Now you may think I have gone off my rocker and I do not claim this to be gospel, but somehow I can not help but wonder if this medication helped the bleeding of the tumor? And resulted in a positive FIT test. Could there be something to it?  Possible.  Because on the package it says: do not use if you have or had an ulcer, are prone to bleeding; may cause severe bleeding, etc.  Could it just be a co-incidence? Also possible.  Maybe the tumor was close to bleeding anyway.  But so late in the game?  I shudder to think of it that I might have sent it in right away in February when I had no sciatica and possibly no blood might have been detected then.  Yikes!  I have some well meaning people point out to me that it probably was an aggressive tumor, but that is not what the biopsy report stated.  It states a Grade 2 tumor, Grade 1 being least aggressive, Grade 4 the most.  So it may have been hanging around for a (long) while without being detected.  Just unluck of the draw i.o.w. just bad timing?  Who knows?  What I also do remember is that after the sciatica episode, I became progressively more and more anemic as a result of blood loss, without me being aware of it.  But more about that another time.  Enough food for thought here. 

I may be back tomorrow.  I had a great treatment yesterday, which I need to write about.  And hardly any neuropathy!!  I can use my hands!!!  YEAH!!!!!!