On the upside...

This chemotherapy round was, as I expected, harder than the two before. I read somewhere the expression "chemo-tired" to describe the surprisingly intense fatigue. I often feel like I have weights attached to me and I'm slogging through mud. Between that and the swelling of the nerve-damaged foot, I've been fairly sedentary. It's a good thing I like to read! At the beginning of the year I had set myself my usual Goodreads challenge of 52 books. Following my mastectomy in the beginning of June, I spent more time than I care to think about lying on the couch. Watching movies, sure, but also reading. I hit my goal in early July.

And have not slowed down. I have read, for instance, 11 books on breast cancer. And another half dozen on nutrition and health. But I am careful about sources, and so I have read a few books on the scams in medical care. One quote stayed with me was from a former editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, who said, "Of all the ghouls who feed on the bodies of the dead and dying, the cancer quacks are the most vicious and the most unprincipled."

I've been taking advantage of the library's willingness to send books I request from any branch in the system to my home library, and have gone off on tangents exploring cults, politics, autobiographies, evolution, and minimalism. I love walking into the library and walking out with the latest stack they are holding for me behind the counter.

But it's not all serious non-fiction, I've also read novel after novel after novel. Some silly, some gripping, all helping me pass the time. Most all, anyway - once in a while I get a chapter in and decide I'm not enjoying the book enough to continue. No matter, there's always another in the queue. So here we are at the end of October, and I just finished my 94th book for the year. I have another week of time off work for my next chemo round and later, ten days off following my scheduled ankle surgery - I think I will easily be able to hit double my original goal by year's end.