I’d been feeling very tired lately, especially since I returned to work. People kept saying that was understandable. But it wasn’t to me. Because it’s not been physical tiredness as I can easily walk to and from work now. And it’s not been that awful mental fatigue I had with the chemo. What it seemed to be was a problem with my eyes. They felt constantly sore and I wanted to shut them all the time.
So I went to the Optician a couple of weeks ago and he immediately knew what the matter was. The chemo has weakened my eye muscles. Checking back on my paperwork I see that “vision problems” is there on the long list of potential side effects. However I had never asked for clarification of what this actually meant, I’d just assumed it would be something obvious like blurry vision.
With the benefit of hindsight I now wish I’d asked more about all this, as it turns out it’s a common side effect and I should have been exercising my eye muscles. Fortunately it’s not too late to start now and no damage has been done. So for the past fortnight I’ve been doing my eye exercises every day and there is a definite improvement. My eyes are a lot less sore and I don’t feel so tired. I’ve also been managing to stay up a bit later in the evenings.
I’ve also been told off for not resting my eyes enough. Before my cancer I didn’t spend much time at home. When I did I’d be exercising or doing something dreary like housework. Everything changed with the cancer and I started spending hours doing things like reading, watching TV and spending time on the computer. So now I have cut back on all these activities and I’m spending more time listening to music and the radio. I’ve taken the advice to get a proper reading lamp instead of a general bedside light which seems to have helped too.
I know I’m not supposed to be reading so much but I’ve got another batch of self-help books. There’s a section in one of them that definitely struck a chord, all about concentrating on what I’ve got and what I can do, instead of what I haven’t got and what I can’t do. I like the idea of that very much. There’s also one all about dark corridors, opening locked doors and new opportunities. That sounds like my sort of book too.
Another interesting one is all about visualisation meditation. I don’t think I have quite got the hang of it yet but it’s an interesting concept. You have to imagine your body doing a particular activity, and this apparently helps the muscles prepare themselves so that eventually you can manage to do what you are thinking about. My immediate thought was that perhaps I could visualise myself winning the lottery. But sadly it needs to be something that I used to be able to do and is achievable. So I’m visualising myself doing things like going for a long walk or doing some gardening. I have no idea if the technique will work or not but it can’t do any harm and importantly it’s making me rest my eyes.
