Not just another day-of-thanks post

I have finally turned the corner on the fatigue, and yes it took longer this time.  I asked Dr. Oncologist about that today, about the nearly infinite fatigue, and she said that it's not uncommon for the fatigue to last a bit longer with each treatment.  Argh.  I find it so frustrating to be knocked over by the fatigue, probably because there is so much that I want to be doing.  But it is truly impossible to overcome the fatigue, and believe me, I try to overcome.  It's like someone put lead in my bones.  Nothing to do but lay down and wait (and wait, and wait) for it to pass.  And it is passing.  I'm a third of the way through the hard chemos, huzzah!    

I am aware that I am slouching on my graphs.  This is because my white blood cells are uninteresting.  Apparently I have Wonder Woman white blood cells that are unaffected by chemotherapy, or the weekly analysis is too infrequent to capture their periodic demise.  I will continue to think the former, although the later is certainly closer to the truth.  My platelets, however, are doing something interesting, so let's graph those now.  I plotted "chemotherapy" arbitrarily, giving the hard weeks a value of 100 and the easy weeks 0, because it's easier to do that than give the graph a second y-axis.  You can see that my platelets hate the hard chemo as much as I do, if not more.  Dr. Oncologist says not to worry, I'm not going to bleed to death, but don't take any ibuprofen or other platelet-killer drugs.    

I think I would fail as a blogger if I didn't wax somewhat sentimental on Thanksgiving Eve.  I do indeed have tons to be thankful for, first of all that the cancer was caught in the act and not after the crime.  I have a fantastic husband and the absolute best daughters in the world.  And have you met my parents?  Or my brother or sisters?  Or the rest of my family?  Not to mention my friends, who bring talents and laughter from around the globe right into my life.  I have an enviable collection of loved ones, and I am thankful for all of you.  I am sending you electronic, germ-free hugs right now.  I love you.  

Speaking of loved ones, my siblings are converging on my living room tonight to eat pizza and watch Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.  Might be the first night in a week that I stay up past 9:30, so look out!

Long overdue Poke tally:

"port"  4

left arm  4

right arm 3

tummy  2

left breast  1

superior vena cava 1