AC chemotherapy cycle

So the faithful day has come and I started the next cycle of chemotherapy, what I call the dinosaur of treatment that has been used since the 1960s if not earlier, vs my first chemotherapy cycle that became standard protocol for triple negative breast cancer only in 2020. 

The second chemo cycle is biweekly AC: Adriamycin (Doxorbicin) and Cytoxan (Cyclophosphamide), a total of 4 times and Keytruda (Pembrolizumab) every three weeks

The horror of the description of the actual infusion was not encouraging --- a burning sensation as it is administered, an awful metal taste, nausea and that is just to name a few....

But, as a happy contrarian, I am glad to report that not only I survived it, I avoided most of the above.

The 1st chemo in new cycle ✅

I got home and in addition to my regular fatigue I was nauseated and sleepy, so no movies to save me ☹, but unable to sleep. And that is exhausting.

Treatment regiment

Dana Farber recommends doing TCK chemotherapy EVERY week for 12 cycles, then AC chemotherapy every two weeks for 3 cycles, then 3-6 weeks break to recover before surgery. Then 3-4 weeks after surgery another 4-6 weeks of radiation and immunotherapy IV every 6 weeks for a year.

In one sentence, the fun would last for a while, with the surgery sometimes in May/June 2023.

TCK: Taxol, Carboplatin, and Keytruda (Pembrolizumab)

AC:  Adriamycin (Doxorbicin) and Cytoxan (Cyclophosphamide) and Keytruda (Pembrolizumab)

Interesting, that Lahey has the same drug cocktail, as least for the first 8 cycles (didn't get much details beyond that), but every 3 weeks with much larger dosage, and worse side effects up front.