I can do everything again.
I can walk longish distances, I can work, I can sing, I can cook meals whilst hanging out the washing, I can sit in airports.
I just have to remind myself that I cannot walk and work and cook and wash and sit in airports, oh, and sing, all on the same day. I've tried, and guess what? I get tired.
Now there's a surprise.
The trouble is, how do I know at what point my determination to do at least some of these things in one day turns from a laudable attempt to put last year behind me and build up new strength to pure madness?
I look back at my repeated attempts to go back to work (even for just a few days) during all those gruelling treatments last year. That, I now see, was pure madness. Only now do I understand that friends' and colleagues' repeated exhortations to "concentrate on getting well again" meant exactly what it sounded like: stop trying to be superwoman, there is absolutely no shame in taking all these months off work.
I delight in the ability to walk longish distances, work, sing, etc; but I regularly find myself coming up short.
Usually on a Friday. Each morning, I look at the day ahead in delight. A whole new day! The possibilities! Hurray! Let's start that walk/work/washing/etc in the happy knowledge that I can do this again.
I try to keep Fridays free of obligations (including self-imposed obligations) so I can do all those extra things you never manage to fit into your life. (I usually end up doing just a little bit more work, but hey, let's call that a free choice).
So I anticipate those sort-of-empty days with pleasure... only to find, several weeks in a row now, that I am simply too tired to move or think, and end up lying motionless on the sofa whilst watching mindless stuff on iPlayer.
The "extra things to do on a Friday", clearly, should include "Do Nothing".
My body has not yet recovered. It takes time.
It's three months since the final dose of chemo; a month since the last shot of radiotherapy. My head may be covered with a grey helmet of hair, the skin around my scar may be healing (it's gone from angry red to bizarre mottled grey to just-a-bit-sunburnt), but after half a busy day, I'm like a deflated balloon.
One expert-by-experience told me that she was surprised how long it took to feel truly well again after her cancer treatments. You think you are better, and of course you are much better than you were, but still, it was six months before she suddenly thought: Aha! Now I remember! THIS is what it was like to have energy!
Will I look back at these first post-treatment months and wonder why on earth I tried to do so much all at once?
The trick, I now know, is to build in short periods of physical rest - and not to get frustrated by the need to stop. I went to Switzerland this week for two solid days of work meetings, and the only way to manage eight hours of sitting around tables was to spend some of it not sitting around tables. By 2pm, just after I'd given my half-hour presentation, I found myself in a dizzy cold sweat.
"Are you OK?" said the colleague next to me when I returned to my seat.
"No," I said. "I'm going to have to lie down."
He handed me his coat for a pillow. Just as well these meetings involved friendly colleagues who didn't mind me lying down at the back of the room. It seemed they were just pleased I had made it to Switzerland at all.
"Carry on!" I said from the distant corner. "I'm listening, I just can't hold myself upright for that long."
(Now I know why I am so much better off working from home. I hadn't realised quite what a difference it makes that I can do some of it in an unprofessional, horizontal position. A full day working in the office takes recovery time; a full day working at home is absolutely fine.)
Similarly, I found a lying-down spot during a day-long choral workshop yesterday. Plus, I ignored the conductor's frequent instructions to Stand Up. It's not that I can't stand: it's just that I need to preserve my physical energy if I want to last the day.
(But oh, how lovely to join my choir again. I haven't gone back to weekly rehearsals yet - evening things are still too exhausting - but joining this one-off workshop was wonderful.)
Cancer remains an excellent excuse.
"Of course!" people say, when I apologise for lying down. "Whatever!"
Perhaps we should all simply own up and zone out when things get too much.
I've noticed other people would also benefit from the occasional lie-down, for equally valid reasons, but they don't have my ready-made and easily understood explanation.
"We should all lie down!" one colleague said wistfully, weary after all these hours of meetings in Switzerland with several more hours to go.
So here is my resolution: I shall not only keep lying down (in public places if needs be), but I shall positively enjoy it.
Who knows? It might even set a trend.
I can walk longish distances, I can work, I can sing, I can cook meals whilst hanging out the washing, I can sit in airports.
I just have to remind myself that I cannot walk and work and cook and wash and sit in airports, oh, and sing, all on the same day. I've tried, and guess what? I get tired.
Now there's a surprise.
The trouble is, how do I know at what point my determination to do at least some of these things in one day turns from a laudable attempt to put last year behind me and build up new strength to pure madness?
I look back at my repeated attempts to go back to work (even for just a few days) during all those gruelling treatments last year. That, I now see, was pure madness. Only now do I understand that friends' and colleagues' repeated exhortations to "concentrate on getting well again" meant exactly what it sounded like: stop trying to be superwoman, there is absolutely no shame in taking all these months off work.
I delight in the ability to walk longish distances, work, sing, etc; but I regularly find myself coming up short.
Usually on a Friday. Each morning, I look at the day ahead in delight. A whole new day! The possibilities! Hurray! Let's start that walk/work/washing/etc in the happy knowledge that I can do this again.
I try to keep Fridays free of obligations (including self-imposed obligations) so I can do all those extra things you never manage to fit into your life. (I usually end up doing just a little bit more work, but hey, let's call that a free choice).
So I anticipate those sort-of-empty days with pleasure... only to find, several weeks in a row now, that I am simply too tired to move or think, and end up lying motionless on the sofa whilst watching mindless stuff on iPlayer.
The "extra things to do on a Friday", clearly, should include "Do Nothing".
My body has not yet recovered. It takes time.
It's three months since the final dose of chemo; a month since the last shot of radiotherapy. My head may be covered with a grey helmet of hair, the skin around my scar may be healing (it's gone from angry red to bizarre mottled grey to just-a-bit-sunburnt), but after half a busy day, I'm like a deflated balloon.
One expert-by-experience told me that she was surprised how long it took to feel truly well again after her cancer treatments. You think you are better, and of course you are much better than you were, but still, it was six months before she suddenly thought: Aha! Now I remember! THIS is what it was like to have energy!
Will I look back at these first post-treatment months and wonder why on earth I tried to do so much all at once?
The trick, I now know, is to build in short periods of physical rest - and not to get frustrated by the need to stop. I went to Switzerland this week for two solid days of work meetings, and the only way to manage eight hours of sitting around tables was to spend some of it not sitting around tables. By 2pm, just after I'd given my half-hour presentation, I found myself in a dizzy cold sweat.
"Are you OK?" said the colleague next to me when I returned to my seat.
"No," I said. "I'm going to have to lie down."
He handed me his coat for a pillow. Just as well these meetings involved friendly colleagues who didn't mind me lying down at the back of the room. It seemed they were just pleased I had made it to Switzerland at all.
"Carry on!" I said from the distant corner. "I'm listening, I just can't hold myself upright for that long."
(Now I know why I am so much better off working from home. I hadn't realised quite what a difference it makes that I can do some of it in an unprofessional, horizontal position. A full day working in the office takes recovery time; a full day working at home is absolutely fine.)
Similarly, I found a lying-down spot during a day-long choral workshop yesterday. Plus, I ignored the conductor's frequent instructions to Stand Up. It's not that I can't stand: it's just that I need to preserve my physical energy if I want to last the day.
(But oh, how lovely to join my choir again. I haven't gone back to weekly rehearsals yet - evening things are still too exhausting - but joining this one-off workshop was wonderful.)
Cancer remains an excellent excuse.
"Of course!" people say, when I apologise for lying down. "Whatever!"
Perhaps we should all simply own up and zone out when things get too much.
I've noticed other people would also benefit from the occasional lie-down, for equally valid reasons, but they don't have my ready-made and easily understood explanation.
"We should all lie down!" one colleague said wistfully, weary after all these hours of meetings in Switzerland with several more hours to go.
So here is my resolution: I shall not only keep lying down (in public places if needs be), but I shall positively enjoy it.
Who knows? It might even set a trend.
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| I'm in there somewhere, singing again... but let me just sit down and lie down occasionally |
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