The tiredness, the overwhelming sense of tiredness. Now this is something I was warned about after my treatment but my god I was not ready for how severe it was and still is. Only last week I had a little breakdown to Jonny again over this. I had been feeling so so so exhausted (even more so than my new tired normality!) for a few weeks and I was trying to do a test to see what I could do to help it even more. So one week I had been super busy, work Mon – Wed and then met some of my friends for coffee, went out one night at the weekend and I was pooped by the time Sunday came around. So the next week I cancelled everything. I did nothing except work Mon – Wed and then bed early and total chill. But by the time Sunday came around I was still so exhausted and had cabin fever! I thought to myself, NO, this is not fair. I cannot accept that this is going to be the way it is forever! I went on some FB pages, reached out to a new friend for a bit of help with this. To see if there was anything I was missing – any magic fix that I had forgotten about. Of course I knew there wasn’t but I needed to see how other people were coping because I was starting to feel like I wasn’t again. Everyone I spoke to said the same thing:
- Good diet – check
- Exercise – check
- Meditation / Mindfulness / Relaxation time – check (as much as I can anyway. I’m not very good at meditating but even just taking 2 mins to myself when I am feeling overwhelmed is a great feeling!)
Just hearing that I was doing what I should be doing and just needed to allow myself this time and that I was not alone in how I felt and how I was struggling. For me it feels like on a daily basis I am running into a brick wall and trying to push your way through it to get through the day. It’s like a wave when it hits. One minute you are feeling grand, and then all of a sudden you are overcome with the need to lie down. The need to just stop. I didn’t take time and allow myself to recover after my treatment and I wonder sometimes is that why I still feel this bad when it comes to the fatigue but who knows. There is no point in looking back and wondering what if but I will look forward and think when! When I learn to manage it better or hopefully someday, when I don’t feel like this! This to me is one of the hardest things to come to terms with, it has had the biggest impact on me and my life as I knew it but I am getting there – day by day.