Hi Everybody,
I`m 6 months past Chemo and a year after a Colon Cancer Op. My CT Scan was good , didn`t show any Cancer which was a relief.
I`m still really tired , have the Neuropathy and find conversation hard to focus , look for the words. I just need reassurance that this is normal, i`m impatient and its frustrating . Is it going to get better ??? I want to get back to work and am loosing confidence . .
My best regards to you all,
Micky.
Hi Micky , simple reply from me is a big fat yes.
I had a rather different treatment journey (see my profile) and the final treatment was so bad I ended up in ICU and in bed for a number of weeks. The nerve damage and muscle wastage was so bad I was in a wheelchair for 3-4 months, physiotherapy to get me up and walking then it took a further 12+ months to say I was actually on the correct road that was leading to recovery.
We do forget that our bodies and minds go through hell during treatment and it takes far longer than we would imagine or like to get back to some type of normality - what ever that is!
.......... now 3 3/4 years in remission and have never felt better.
Hi Micky, if you do have some other underlying health issues then yes, this all adds up to be a perfect storm.
Take each day as it comes, celebrate the success and when challenges come along, work through each one looking for positive solutions to be found.
I do sound very positive..... back in late 2013 I was given 2 1/2 years on the clock so my treatment had to work..... I am now about 3 1/2 years past that date so yes I tend to be positive - All the best.
Hi Janeejanjan “The washing machine is now the microwave”....... oh been their and got a great big ‘T‘ shirt.
As my main treatment journey lasted two years and the long post treatment recovery a further two years.
I went from an articulate decisive person to at times, a dithering idiot !!! It was at times so sad..... but at the same time so funny. Granddaughters would say “Grandad is being silly again grandma”
The high toxicity of the treatments used did indeed effect my thinking patterns and it was so frustrating - what did I/we do?
First we did understand and accepted that this was temporary - this is important.
Second, chemo brain it is a medical condition that will improve...... but it can be much longer than we think.
Third, all the treatment makes the mind weak, just like the muscles needs to recover the brain is the same. My wife made me do memory games. Not something I don’t normally do but I did simple Sudoku puzzles a lot. Simple but effective slowly getting harder.
We kept notes as to what I was saying wrong, when and where and looked for similarities...... we often found this happen when my mind/body was tired.
We had to work with a dietitian as I lots 27kgs during treatment and was not eating. She told us the brain requires 20-30% of our daily (normal diet) fuel intake to function normally.
Add any stress then this goes up to 40-50%...... then add Cancer the brain requires a 70-80% of our fuel intake just to keep going....... then the body gets weak as it is starved of fuel and it means that we tend to get tired and forgetful.
So our aim was to get back to heathy balanced diet and this helped a lot.
The other thing we came to realise was that at times, it’s as if I closed down my brain during some of the treatments - I had no recollection of some of the things that went on during treatment so was left with blanks and I used to dwell on these spaces in my life, often dwelling on them during the night and this resulted in a lack of sleep....... which then compounded the memory problems.
So once we understood this we sat and unpacked all the journey...... the notes we have could be a book but it was so helpful in putting life and the mind back together.
The important thing is keep pushing forward, laugh when you make the mistakes and over time you will eventually notice that things had improved and you did not notice it. Near the end of this recovery stage I was so tempted to play on the chemo brain to get off with things.....lol
