Giving Thanks

It's been a pretty interesting past week and alot has happened. First and foremost, though, I want to talk a bit about Thanksgiving and get a little bit sappy.

Thanksgiving comes and goes annually with family, food, football, friends, and all the rest. Each year, we go through the exercise of listing out that for which we are thankful and appreciating all that we have within our world. This year I have so much to be thankful for that it blows my mind. It is hard for me to put into words how incredibly grateful I am to have such wonderful friends and family who continue to help me through my current situation with laughter, support, tears, and more generosity of spirit than I thought possible.

From the day I found out I had breast cancer, my feet have not touched the ground. I feel that I am floating on the shoulders of all the people who continue to support me and send thoughts and prayers my way. Someday, I hope to be able to convey my deep gratitude and thanks in a manner which is truly felt by everyone. Until then, please know how loved and lucky I feel to have so much love in my world.

Another thing that I am truly grateful for is my health. I have thought a great deal about this and I don't mean it to come across as sarcastic in any way. I am so thankful that what I am working with is treatable and fixable, and that I don't have any underlying complications to work around. I am one of the lucky ones. For this I will be forever grateful and I will work every day to appreciate my body and my health in a new way.

My parents came down for Thanksgiving and I am thrilled they are here. I had my second chemotherapy treatment on Tuesday, so I have been spending most of my time laying on the couch or in bed as this round wiped me out a bit. Still, no nausea or sickness, which is great. However, I am just exhausted.

This treatment schedule added a new twist - a shot called Neulastra (I believe) which is designed to boost my bone marrow production and therefore increase my white blood cell count so that it doesn't get as dangerously low as it did the last time. Hopefully, this will allow me to avoid a hospital stay and not get quite as run down. So, we'll see how it goes and hope for the best!

The most significant change to me is my hair. It's all gone. And I now understand stocking caps on a completely different level - the necessity level.

Last week in the hospital, I felt the soreness, etc, that signaled upcoming hair loss. I was a bit nervous - I wasn't sure how I would handle pulling hair out of my head. I had visions of bursting into tears or completely freaking out and wanting it all off RIGHT NOW!! But what actually happened was different.

I noticed a few random hairs on Friday morning, then reached up and pulled out a good sized hairs out of my head. Instead of crying, I was more interested in the quantity of hair and where they came from. So I started pulling more from different areas and they just kept coming! So I then got dressed and went outside to see how many I could pull out on my own - there was a nice breeze, the sun was shining, and I was hoping that my hair could somehow be recycled into nests for birds. I felt a certain satisfaction when I pulled out a larger clump than a smaller one and would try to match the large chunk again the next time. I soon decided to pull my hair up in a pony tail so as to not have all my fun at once.

Later that night, I ran my hands through my hair and it was noticeably thinner, and that's what bothered me. Not the pulling out of the hair, but rather the feeling of it being gone. That was much more uncomfortable to me and I decided I wanted to take care of it myself.

A quick side note here to my awesome friend KJ who called me on Friday night to tell me she is shaving her head RIGHT NOW because she can! We laughed and I felt so privileged that she would do this for me and it helped me make the decision to shave it all off.

So my friend Erik showed up on Saturday morning with his full clipper set and we went to town on my hair. I only cried once as I put my hand up to my forehead as the hair fell down around my chair. I was proud of myself to be doing this, proud to have Erik helping me with it, and scared of what it would look like. Erik and I quickly agreed that the mohawk look wasn't my thing, so it all came off. Wow. That was crazy.

I will post a pic up when I get them on the computer. So far, I am getting much more used to the look, thanks to everyone's supportive verbiage. Hats, though, are key I believe. My head gets pretty cold pretty quickly.

I hope that everyone reading this had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and took just a few minutes to give thanks for all the love and life around you.

Talk to you soon,
Carrie