Wedding Bells on a Bus

Hi Sarah, Thanks for your kind comments,

I am sorry to hear you are feeling so yuk, and sikc of feeling yuk.What was measuring too high that made your oncologist take you off the steroids? 

For me the first round seemed less fatiguing because I had so much heartburn for the first half and also panic in the last week about going back in for more. This second round, I was on Somac for the heartburn, Movicol for constipation, and was faster to identify irritability, laziness, emotional exhaustion and lethagy as fatigue, and made myself walk every day at least around the block because there is a weird feedback loop in the metabolism that makes exercise a very effective treatment for fatigue.

I just found an online talk about fatigue and cancer which explains that fatigue can be caused by several mechanisms.

One cause is the lack of physical exercse, which lowers the metabolism and becomes part of a vicious cycle of reducing muscle-mass, fatigue, not wanting to exercise because of the growing weakness, and thus more fatigue.

One is from anemia from low levels of Red Blood Cells from the damage done by Chemo, which can be helped by interval training where you pedal an exercycle at top speed for 3 minute-bursts between lower level pedalling. 

It can be caused by low iron count anemia due to not eating enough iron for the Red Blood Cells you have which can  be helped by ensuring you eat enough  iron-rich foods like eggyolk, liver, and meat. Spinach, parsley  and kale are also good but have a compound that makes this iron often bind up so become unavailable to the body. 

One is depression, which can best be helped by psychotherapy plus regular walking at least 15 minutes, plus at home selfcare using  deep breathing, and visualisation, and meditation.

One is from endocrine ie menopausal changes. Another may be from the damage done to the CNS by chemotherapy. Another may be from damage done to the immune system by chemotherapy. 

Personally, I have a feeling that another cause is the loss of the main activities I like to do, and I have just bought some pottery clay with plans to make little figurines to get me through. Not sure I will manage to do it mind you, but it gives me hope. Did you manage to get into your sewing, or was that too hard with Chemobrain?

Best wishes, hope all goes much better than you are experting tomorrow. Let us know how it pans out