Herceptin, my saviour!

It’s a good news / bad news situation. Bad news is that my bloodwork wasn’t good (anemia, moderately high neutropenia, low platelets and signs of dehydration) mean that chemo is cancelled on Friday. I still get my immunotherapy (Herceptin) drip though.

The good news is that I didn’t actually realize I had chemo scheduled (confusion in my protocol since I’m on a drug rarely used for my stage of cancer but had to go on it because of an allergy to the previous “chemo cocktail”. With that, I can at least not feel like crap for my only long weekend I have not had chemo on. Every single long weekend since March I had chemo.

But, because my bloodwork was pretty bad, I’ll have to be extra careful around people and making sure my body temperature doesn’t drop over the course of the long weekend. Last week, my basal temperature was bordering hypothermia and if I drop back down to 35.3 or so, I need to go to ER.

Oh chemo, we continue on this love-hate relationship, but at least I’ll get to relax in Radium for a few days and hopefully feel better. I will still get my immunotherapy treatment (Herceptin).

This will treatment #3 of 17 total Herceptin treatments over a one year period (i.e. it’s every 3 weeks). It looks like my body has adapted to it and I am not exhibiting any of the allergic side effects I had my first two rounds. Yay! And, as of this treatment, my Herceptin drip is only 30 minutes. Today, finding a vein actually took longer than the time the drip will take. 🙄

The nice thing about Herceptin is that I’ll be able to return to work once I’m done my chemo, surgery and radiation even though I’ll still be on Herceptin. The side effects are minimal, thank goodness!

Did you like this post? If so, feel free to buy me a coffee or contribute towards some of my uninsured medical expenses.