Well, here I am.

Been checked out for a while. I guess it's just been more of the same, more of the same.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving at my sister's house with both sides of the family. The kids hung out and played. The food was fantastic, and so was the company.

I'm through my last chemo treatment now. Got the drip on Friday, so things are hell at the moment. I got lots of rest over the weekend, which seemed to help, and Dave stayed home to help for a couple of days, but it's one step forward, two steps back, as usual. It was really, really hard to get Sam off to school this morning. Sometimes it's all I can do to be as patient as I want to be with him.

The last time I saw my oncologist, he surprised me by saying, "This is the last time I'll see you until after surgery!" That was a pretty exciting moment - to know that I was really nearly through this chemo crap and that I could move on to the next thing. Later on, I told Jenn (my chemo nurse), "You know, when you're in the middle of something like this, you never really allow yourself to think about what life is going to be like when it's over. But now I'm starting to think about that."

Well, I'm revising a little bit, because what was previously just the big blotch known as MASTECTOMY is starting to become a little more defined around the edges, and frankly it's kind of scary. Now that I'm done with chemo, things are coming into focus and I'm finding there's a whole new set of things to be anxious about.

Nothing to do for now. I'm having a mammogram and ultrasound on January 7, then my surgery consult on January 14. Probably the surgeon will say, "Let's go on Monday!" or something crazy like that, because obviously I don't have anything to get organized before major surgery. I'll just have to try to be flexible and go with the flow.

I'm getting a lot of practice at that lately.