We will start with the good.  Merck has approved me for Keytruda for a year! 

Woot!!  Saved me a ton of money, and my mind.  I am still going after my insurance company and my Washington (useless) reps to make my voice heard about how ridiculous it is that they deny investigative meds.

Keytruda is given in a drip bag and will last about 30 minutes.  Pretty sure Merck will be studying me as I'm Triple Negative and BRCA2+, just what they want to prove it works for.  We start this on May 3rd after my doc visit.  Will update again after this.

The bad.  I have had two injections of Halaven chemo to start and my side effects have sucked, to put it plainly.  Days 4 and 5 being the worst.  My continued SE have been stomach pains, body aches, headaches, nausea and extreme fatigue.  My new side effect is mouth sores.  If you have ever had canker sores and strep throat together, you know how it feels.  Eating hurts.  They did subside after about a week.  I also got a "magic mouthwash" for the next round.  I lost a few days to sleep, and pretty much couch potatoed for two weeks.  I actually keep up with The Young and The Restless now, lol. 🙄  I am hoping things get better as we get further into treatments.

The Ugly.  My white cell counts have

tanked.  I went from 6.1 to 2.0 in a week.  Pretty sure its going to continue to drop during all this and will again have to miss some treatments here and there.  My potassium and magnesium levels are also tanking.  My last injection also required 2 bags of magnesium, so my session went from 5 minutes to two hours.  And last but certainly not least, my hair is falling out in large quantities, again.  I left Wisconsin with hair, and will return from Florida with none.  Oh well.  Yeah, eyebrows, eyelashes, and nose hairs too.  So, runny eyes and runny nose.  🤔

Ending on a good, the difference between my two weeks of chemo vs my off week is very dramatic.  I actually feel normal during the off week.  And it is welcomed after two weeks of shitshow.  ;)

On my way to Savannah today with the hubby.  Very much looking forward to seeing some old buildings, old trees, and maybe a ghost or two ;)

Until next time...happy spring....finally!!