Now that my chemotherapy and mastectomy are complete, the next chapter in my breast cancer journey is targeted immunotherapy infusions.
You might think by the name, that these infusions are to bolster my immune system, but that's not actually what my particular infusions do. My targeted immunotherapy infusions will consist of the drug Kadcyla. My breast cancer is triple positive, meaning it has estrogen, progesterone, and HER2 receptors. Many cells in the body, both healthy and cancerous, have HER2 receptors, but HER2+ breast cancer cells have too many HER2 receptors, which make them grow and divide faster than other types of cells. This usually causes tumors to form. And in my case, it did. Kadcyla is thought to bring chemotherapy inside HER2 cells and kill them. Kadcyla finds HER2 cells and attaches to them. It tells the cells to stop growing and tells the immune system to destroy them. Kadcyla is designed to cause less damage to normal cells, though that can still happen, and focus on the HER2 cells.
Common side effects include joint and muscle pain, fatigue, headaches, low platelet count, bruising easily, inability for blood to clot, and neuropathy type pain in hands and feet. More serious side effects include liver and heart issues.
I don't know what to expect for myself, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Right now I just feel a bit tired.
I will have 14 rounds of Kadcyla, going every 3 weeks. I feel quiet depressed about the length of this next chapter. I wont be done with infusions until June 2024. I want so badly to be done with this whole cancer journey. I want so badly for life to go back to normal.
It was incredibly hard walking back into the infusion suite. I hope I have the resolve to do this all 14 times.
wa
With love,
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