Skip to main content

Taking a break

Living with cancer is not easy, and that coming from someone who, on a scale of 1-10, probably only had a difficulty of 4 or 5. It is the afterwards, the afterwards that also poses a challenge.

Why am I feeling tired?
I didn't feel that pain before, I wonder what it is?
Should I call my doctor?
I missed my spinach smoothie this week, I hope I am not endangering my life.
I wonder if I am exercising enough?
I'd really love to have some bread pudding, will that doom me?
It's time for a checkup, I wonder what they'll find...?


The endless stress of trying to manage, well, everything sometimes gets a bit too much so I've decided to take a break. So what does that look like? For me, it means I haven't been taking my gazillion supplements (vitamin D, calcium, curcumin amongst other things), I've not been making my spinach smoothies, AND I've just decided to watch only shows I've seen before. So right now that means I am binging on Smallville.  I haven't totally lost my mind, I am still trying to eat relatively well, and continuing with physical exercise. But I am doing my best not to exercise my brain - so not reading anything too strenuous or challenging. I've been reading some mysteries - I just started the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny; a few Agatha Christie books and other light reading, ahem in fact, I have just read my first Debbie Macomber novel!

Tomorrow my treat will be to go to the second hand bookstore, browse, maybe go to a cafe and relax a bit and maybe build back up my reserves to start back on track.

Every now and again, a break is essential.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Food as Medicine & Vitiligo Update

Before I talk about food, a quick: Vitiligo Update It still pisses me off that the hyperactive immune system that attacks my own pigment cells just let cancer sail right on through. Enough rant. Since my cancer diagnosis, my vitiligo has just exploded. It's spread from knees and elbows to legs, face and neck. It bothers me more now. Picture from 2009 Hands now  2016           The growing spread of vitiligo Treatments Topical steroids weren't working and while Latisse (the eyelash drug) worked on one spot above one eye, it does not seem to be helping with the other spot above the other eye. There is a pulsed light treatment I have yet to try, but before I go that route, I want to try the food route. Food as Medicine I've blogged previously as viewing Food as Fuel , the next step is to view food as medicine with the potential to heal some ailments. I've read a couple of books, It Starts with Food and The Paleo Appr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Weeks 15, 16; Cycles 6 & 7

Another two-in-one post. I think this may be considered my "challenge" post.  The good news is that I have now completed 7 of 12 cycles, so I am looking at the end of chemotherapy. As I look back on my initial post , I realise that I had neglected a key piece of information about the kind of cancer I have.  Some women have cancers that are responsive to hormones, (quite simply, it appears that hormones make the cancer grow) and some women don't. I fall into the latter category - I am what is called triple negative. This is not a good thing. On my most recent visit with my oncologist we talked through "the numbers" that is, the survival rates and we assessed again how well my tumour is responding to chemotherapy (not as well as we'd hoped).  So these last two weeks have been quite a challenge mentally. It doesn't help that one of the side effects of all of this is a decline in disciplinary standards at our house.  Over the course of the summer I w...
6 comments
Read more

Talking with Lucas on climate change

This is my post for Blog Action Day . This is an annual event where bloggers everywhere in the world post about the same issue on the same day to spark discussion around an issue of global importance. This is part of a conversation I had with my 8-year old. Mama : Do you know what climate change means? Lucas : I think it means when it is like 90F and it is hot.   And the change? It's when in the daytime it might be 90F and sunny and hot, and then you go inside for dinner and then right after dinner and it might have dropped to 70F Well, yes it is that in a way.  That describes what is happening in your area, but when people use the term "climate change" they really mean something more global, like affecting climate around the world Have you heard of the team "global warming"? What global warming is that it is made up of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and when they burn stuff the smoke releases CO2 and it's like a blanket covering the earth and if it k...
9 comments
Read more