Does chemo affect your spiritual life!

Hi Brian and welcome to our little corner of the Online Community, as I said in your post in the New to Community, chemotherapy can have a long lasting effect on our cognitive ability and for longer then you would think.

 chemobrain is a real medical condition and for me it took a good 12 - 18 months before we could say I was though this.

I am a prolific reader but during and for a few years after my treatments I just could not read or concentrate, it slowly improved and now, coming up to 4 years post treatments I am back to where I was before.

Don’t beat yourself up, do what you can and you will see improvements in all areas. I discussed chemobrain with one of my Consultants who was a Christian. He said the best time to pray is when you are in bed and going to sleep...... did not do much prayer but I went to sleep well.

He said its all about letting your body recover and it just does take time.

Although I would always tell people to check with your GP to make sure that you have no underlying medical issues. My treatment has left me with a rather dysfunctional immune system so I do catch lots of infections, far more than a healthy person and some of these can pull my ability to concentrate down.

Your body has been through a traumatic journey so be kind to yourself and trust that the Father is in control.

Hi Cogno, welcome from me too. I had some degree of chemo brain during and after treatment.  I found it hard to concentrate during conversations and was worried when I realised that part way through an answer I’d lose the thread if what I was saying. Sometimes I just didn’t know what the next word was meant to be, or I’d get words mixed up. It was worse if I was tired or when I stressed about it. Eventually I told family and friends that if I suddenly struggled for words, I just needed time and space to work it out and they were great at doing that for me. I’m a Lay Reader and was able to continue leading some services during treatment thanks to a very understanding vicar who accepted that I wanted and needed to be treated as normally as possible. I had the service outline written out and could see our PowerPoint presentation so I didn’t have to worry too much if I was leading. 

Please try not to let this get to you. God knows your situation and he knows your heart. Play worship music when you can, send up little arrow prayers, they don’t have to be long and wordy. Read your bible in bite sized chunks when you can. God knows you want to honour Him and He will honour what you do. I’m nearly 21/2 yrs on from the end of treatment and I rarely have chemo brain at all now, just occasionally if I’m very, very tired. I agree with Mike, it takes time but if it persists it’s worth having a word with your GP or medical team just to be sure there are no other causes. 

I hope you start to feel things improving soon. Take care. 

Thank you for your response.  It is really helpful.

I'm interested that you're a lay reader.

I'm a lay preacher in the Methodist church,

which from what I understand is more or less

the same thing, and I'm really missing being

able to do that.  I did take one service about

six months ago but the preparation was such

hard work I've decided not to commit to 

anymore for the time. I sort of feel if I can't

get anything from the Bible for myself,

i don't stand much chance of getting

anything for others.

Thank you too for reminding me I need

to be patient. I've had a number of people

tell me that during my recovery, it sticks

for a while, then the frustration starts to

take over again.