How well do we take care of ourselves?

Kathryn_in_MN said:

Great thread
Very hard for me to answer right now.

I ate healthier than almost everyone I know all of my life. But right now I'm struggling so hard with just getting anything in that I am not eating healthy. I'm not eating crap, but not balanced or what I would normally eat. Cream of Wheat, oatmeal and potatoes are my mainstays. This is so hard on me mentally.

The same for exercise. I am so wiped out. When I can I get out and walk, 3-5 miles. But days like today, getting up and down the stairs are the most I can do. And with blizzard conditions outside, even if I felt well enough to go out and walk, I couldn't do it with the neuropathy. I would say I am way beyond sluggish. And I am usually very active.

When I can tolerate them, I take D3, calcium and ALA. I haven't been able to take them since last Thursday - chemo hook-up day. Sometimes I only get a few days on them before chemo again.

I haven't cried much for the last 11 years - when my ex moved out, my crying stopped. I've been much more at peace in life since then. It was a long time after cancer dx that I finally cried. I sure feel like crying today, but I haven't. I have felt like crying since last Friday. Every chemo cycle brings new challenges with it. This one has been no different. For a while I woke up crying at night - pain, exhaustion and nerves all played a part, I think. I had nightmares and would wake crying. Now I might cry twice in the same week, or not at all for 3 weeks straight.

I don't think about cancer all day, but right now I do think about how **** I feel most of the day - no way to escape it. I do think about how scarey all the meds I am on are. More scarey than the cancer some times. How can you not think about it when you feel like you are going to vomit all day long? Or when you have thrush throughout your entire body that you can't shake? Or you have pain in your chest from a blood clot in your lung? Or when your hands cramp and you can't use them? Or when your jaw spasms each time you try to eat? Or when you are hooked up to poison for 2 days, or when you take more poison each day by shots and pills?

My spouse is normally very supportive. But he has his moments too, as we all do. The stress cancer causes affects more than just us.

By next summer I see myself not having to struggle to get through each day - with my life as close to "normal" as it can be (I've never been normal - haha). I'll be back to eating healthy and getting plenty of exercise.

Unfortunately with all the troubles I have right now, cancer does consume my life. I get through it by knowing that this is just temporary, and I will have better days again.