Anti-pd1 Dose 16, Trial Week 56 (I wrote this on the way home from my appointment last week, but didn’t get it posted. I’m much too lazy to go back and change the tenses, so pretend you are reading this last week!)

Great appointment today at the cancer center. Started with requesting my favorite nurse to check my port placement. It had caused some issues at my last appointment, but it was confirmed as caused by an inexperienced nurse, not port issues! Phew!

My labs looked good. My LDH (a tumor marker in blood) has officially been in the normal range for two months now! It continues to steadily go down which feels incredibly victorious!

I saw my nurse practitioner and discussed upping my SSRI (Lexapro) as expected (the dose usually needs upping after 4-6 weeks.) This fits my normal pattern. I’ve been on SSRIs for post partum depression, again for interferon (my first melanoma treatment) side effects, after I was diagnosed stage 4 and now again. It probably now something I will stay on forever. I am very comfortable that I need this due to brain chemistry issues and not some moral or spiritual failing on my part. {Soapbox} I feel it is important to bring mental illness discussion into the light and out of a place of fear and condemnation. {/Soapbox}

I also was having some left flank pain which worried me because it felt so similar to flank pain I’d had with subq (under the skin) tumors on my right side. No worries though, it’s just a muscle spasm. I am scheduled for massage next week if I can’t get in before that.

Infusion went fine. Got to catch up with a friend and his caregiver I’d met in our local support group. Requested IV fluids since they seem to help with my fatigue. I just can’t seem to drink enough ever to keep myself hydrated.

My only other anti-pd1 side effects are a slight rash around my neck and on the back of my hands.

Not a bad morning at the cancer center! Now to go celebrate my new 3rd and 4th graders since today was their last day of school! Yippee!!!