Chronicles from Chemo-Land: A Guest Post by Val

Tomorrow (Thursday) will mark two weeks from my third treatment. Last week, I felt good enough to go to the Cancer Class to help out, give the odd instruction and do a pose or two myself. I love working in a team context with the other teachers and volunteers. We calmly go about the work of helping people and solving problems and we are rewarded by seeing them respond positively to yoga. Being there gave me a real boost and feeling of normalcy. I’ll have the pleasure of being there again tomorrow.

I didn’t have much fatigue after my first two treatments and I was surprised when it hit me so hard and so suddenly after the third. I guess I expected it to build gradually but it didn’t. Everyone talks about the fatigue in general terms or they say things like “you will have the worst fatigue you can imagine” and “you can’t give in to it” or “you have to give in to it and rest”!

As for the last two seemingly contradictory comments, I have found that both are true. I have gone for walks when I didn’t think I could even get up off the bed or sofa and felt the fatigue lift like magic. At other times, lying over a bolster seemed to be the only option. The trick is finding out when to give in and when not to give in!

As for the first comment about the worst possible fatigue, well I do know something about that from many of my adventurous experiences in the past. On canoe trips, backpacking trips and skiing trips, I have come to the “brink of exhaustion” many times. Times when all I could do was sit down and hold my head in my hands until the sheer physical inertia of it passed and I could do what needed doing—making camp, cooking food, swatting a mosquito…

So, I know something of that deep, physical, “stop you in your tracks” fatigue. What chemo fatigue has in addition to that, at least for me, is a bleakness, an emotional darkness and irritability. In fact, I’ve come to recognize that fatigue is setting in when I begin to feel bleak.

It isn’t simply fatigue. I think that the toll the chemo takes results in much less strength and stamina. Because I have no stamina, the fatigue can set in quickly, seemingly out of the blue. This may seem obvious, but I had to learn about it. I am learning to recognize when ordinary daily stimulation could precipitate it; e.g., a conversation with more than two people! A fragile mental state accompanies the fatigue and it is better for me to do mindless, repetitive tasks such as washing the dishes than trying to cook something edible.

My restorative yoga practice is a great help. From just lying over the bolster, I’ve built up to 4 to 6 poses in an hour to hour and a half. But, like any other physical activity, I’ve had to be careful to not over do it. What a concept, eh? Life seems to be just one long lesson in how to not overdo it or under-do it! OK, there are other lessons! This just seems to be a difficult one for me.