Saturday, February 9, 2013

Graph This

I'm beginning to feel that my rituximab-induced energy is on the wane.

Drat.

But I shouldn't be too surprised, because it appears that my energy levels are following roughly the same pattern that they did after my first cycle of mousie drugs. I was thinking about that today after settling in for an afternoon nap. I haven't had to take a nap in ages.

This made me cranky.

But after I thought about it and counted the months on my fingers...hm....October, November, December, January, February.....  Ah. Ok, I thought. THAT's why. I'm running out of mousie drugs. I was still cranky because I was tired but at least could make some sense of it all.

So I drifted off to sleep, and when I awakened, decided that I should make some kind of visual aid for myself. One that reminded me of my energy timeline.

I'm a visual learner. Also, I like do weirdo projects instead of clean my house or do the dishes.

I grabbed a pencil and some paper, and this is what I came up with:

X axis = elapsed time from completion of infusion cycle, measured in months.
Y axis = energy levels. Unknown measurement unit.

I tried to plot my energy/time points based on my recollections. With only two complete cycles under my belt, who knows how accurate this is? But I feel as though both treatment cycles have followed the same pattern.


I'm approximately at the four month point, and can without doubt tell that I'm on the downward side of the curve. Last go-around, it felt as though I experienced a sharp decrease in energy from month 4 through month 5, after which my energy bottomed out.

After I had finished the graph, I sat back and just stared at it. I've never been able to diagram any aspect of my life before, and this struck me as being very strange. As I kept looking at the page, it occurred to me that I had seen that......that.....SHAPE before. Hm. Looks awfully familiar, I thought....

Good grief.

I grabbed a pencil and a highlighter and added a few details. Do YOU see what I saw?


Yes. Even my energy levels are mouse-shaped. This visual aid turned out to be even more instructive than I had thought.

4 comments:

Amy Junod said...

Love it! I see it! I see it!

ShEiLa said...

Hahahahaha love the visuals... in the mousey pattern.

ToOdLeS.

I could use some energy.

Anonymous said...

Hahaha! That's brilliant, Julia =). I especially like the part where you do stuff to get out of housework and dishes. Me too =D.

Laura Strom

Anonymous said...

ROTFLMAO...Thanks! Only you could clearly show the mouse in the trend- brilliant!

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