Question: my mother was diagnosed with beast in her left breast 15yrs ago she underwent a lumpectomy followed by 36 treatments of radiation the following year she had to have stents put in due to a blockage in her heart caused by the radiation i think, her skin was burnt so bad they had to stop the treatments for a short time. thru the years she has had, to numerous to count petscans, mri's, mammograms,stress test, xrays etc...in the past few yrs she occasionally has an episode where she spikes a fever and goes thru a very shocking episode then recovers and goes on she has had a low rbc count low hemoglobin low hematocrit elevated wbc elevated BUN and creatnine off and on . i have lupus and my cousions also do and i suspect my mom does also beings it runs in her family. she has had a tkr replacement and also a hip she has pain in her knees that never goes away. a couple months ago she had a yearly stress test afterwards she felt under the weather a few weeks later she still wasnt feeling sowell but her oncologist had her take she another catscan followed by a petscan to look for cancer which has yet to be found. her cancer antigen test is elevated along with her LDH . at this point six days later and barely able to breathe she was hospitalized with blood clots in both legs dr says they could have been there for awhile and could be the reason for her painful knees, her hemoglobin and hematocrit where drastcically low, once again she had an elevated BUN and creatnine, she was given 2 units of blood and had a upper gi performed she had two large peptic ulcers they were biopsied and it came back positive for helobacter. i brought her home after being at the hospital 8 days. her mind is somewhat foggy and her short memory is not there im thinking she had a stroke also. she has good days and bad days shes 82 yrs old shes not able to walk without assistance now both knees no longer ache but now her legs are swollen and fluid is leaking out of them. she was taken off plavix and put onto coumadin. her wbc is now normal but the rbcs, hemoglobin and hematocrit are low but not critically . could this all be due to the fact that she has had to much radiation into her body. is it possible that she could have lupus and has continued to been given radioactive drugs for 15 years and now her body cant take anymore. her cardiologist wants her to have a stress test next week and i say no because once again shell be given radioavctive drugs, i think it would kill her, which might be whats going on now?shes had a allergic reaction to longterm radiation exposure?