Caring for myself during treatment

Hi Glenys,

Sorry you find yourself here.

Don't panic, it's well doable. The trick is knowing how to cheat at looking after yourself: do it like a bloke.

Shopping: do it online, and mention you have cancer in the delivery instructions. Often as not the delivery person will help put it all away, or at least get it as far as the kitchen - nice people.

Cooking: analysis - the real problem there is the washing up after. Use a slow cooker if you can - soak it overnight with a dollop of dishwasher detergent (NOT washing up liquid) and it has almost washed itself up come next morning and soon good to go again. The microwave meal is your friend IF you watch the ingredients list like a hawk, and the microwave is great for porridge too (Oat So Simple regularly goes on offer for the 20-pack, NEVER pay full price.)

It's too soon on the path for you to know yet what you don't know, it's all Unknown Unknowns as Donald Rumsfeld would have said. Even so, write down a list of questions for Thursday and take something with you for notes because there will be too much to remember otherwise.

kind regards
Steve

There's quite a lot of us here seem to be either in this situation or know we soon will be. As Steve says, live like a bloke and you can't go wrong :O) Tinned soup is a pretty good standby for being ill alone in any case and frozen meals are a no-brainer. There's some not-that-bad-for-you options these days - Food Gym and Wicked meals are both chilled and frozen from Tesco and come up a treat in the microwave. To try and avoid anything that's seriously bad for you (and a lot is) I use an app called Yuka which reads the bar code on a product and gives you a nice summary of how bad the additives etc. are - it's free.

I've been vaguely in touch with a few local home care providers. I don;t know dates yet and haven't asked about cost (scarier than the surgery) but it seems you can get a one hour a day visit from some sort of care provider if you are prepared to go a month at a time. You're right about the sympathetic noises, you might not be able to take them to the bank; I've only recently moved here and, while I know people, wouldn't say I've established friendships so I'm quite keen on having some sort of guaranteed backup like that.