It won't come as any surprise that during chemotherapy I experienced fatigue. The levels of fatigue varied according to which drugs I was on and where in my chemo cycle I was. Good days felt amazing, in comparison to the bad days that preceded them. Surgery too, had a recovery period that involved fatigue and radiotherapy had an even longer one. I've finished all that treatment now and since then my energy levels have edged closer and closer to normal. "Normal" feels like its in within touching distance, but I'm not there yet, normal is still just out of reach. I don't struggle with everyday tasks any more but everyday tasks tire me out faster than they used to. I feel like an old Smart Phone that's been deliberately slowed down; not enough to be dysfunctional, but enough to irritate the user and to make them hanker after a newer model. I feel like my energy levels deplete faster than those around me and take longer to recharge.
Being tantalisingly close to normal, I find myself constantly comparing myself to where I want to be, to where I was before all this. I forget that I'm still receiving cancer treatment, a biological therapy which causes tiredness and muscle aches. I compare myself to the daily achievements of my spouse and my peers and I find myself falling short. I wonder if people are judging me as harshly as I'm judging myself. I worry that skipping the late meetings at work is drawing attention and resentment from my exhausted colleagues. I worry that asking my husband to put the kids to bed when we're both tired, especially if he has been at work and I have been at home, is perceived as selfish. I am acutely aware that I'm not the only tired person in the world; most of the people around me are good people, exhausted from juggling kids, homes and careers. I worry that I'm not tired enough to justify special treatment, I feel guilty for resting. Yet when I forget to schedule in real rest, after a few days, I find myself falling asleep when its not convenient, snapping at the children and bursting into tears for no reason. Today I slept for half of Saturday, missing out on precious family time and I'm kicking myself that I didn't make time to do that earlier in the week instead.
When I started cancer treatment, I was absolutely determined to keep as fit as possible and to use diet and exercise to optimise my health. Once treatment finished and I was able to run a continuous 5km again, I set my sights on becoming fitter than I had ever been before. I signed up to a half marathon to help me achieve this. 20km is double the longest distance I've ever ran before and the race was sufficiently far away to be an achievable goal. I had so many reasons to train, but mostly I wanted to be fitter and stronger, to give myself the best chance of good health in the future. The biological therapy treatment that I'm still receiving, is known to cause heart damage, so strengthening my cardiovascular system is particularly important to me. The date of the race is significant too, being the same month that my biological therapy ends so I can feel that I'm marking the end of treatment in a really positive way.
I had a vague training schedule in mind, milestones that I wanted to reach, so I knew I was on track. I fell behind schedule over Christmas, due to some minor set backs (a cold and then an injured pinkie toe!) and when I re-started, my fitness had dropped; I'm not currently on track. I've been really hard on myself during the last few runs, they've been hard work and slow and I've berated myself for not being fitter by now. After my initial steep improvement in fitness, my progress has now slowed. Today I slept through my alarm, stayed in bed and missed my scheduled parkrun. I felt guilty, but I couldn't muster the motivation to move. My husband had to kick me out of the house to get me running! I hated it, my legs were heavy, it felt slow and I wanted to stop; to be honest I hated myself a bit too. It was at this point, when I was hating myself, that I made a conscious effort to re-frame my thoughts. I tried hard to stop comparing myself with where I "should" be at this point and instead think about how far I have come. I took a moment to remember what it had felt like when I first put on my trainers after chemotherapy, when I struggled to run for 90 seconds. I reminded myself of the reason I was running in the first place; that the prize for pushing on was not a shiny medal but a stronger heart and lungs. I reminded myself that the half marathon is just a moment in time, a goal but not an end point, if I run the whole thing that will be awesome, but if I walk some that's fine too. I will keep going, I will keep progressing, I can get to 20k in my own time.
The funny thing is, once I started focussing on my achievements instead of my failures, I felt stronger. I settled into a rhythm and I ran for a whole hour. When I focussed on my strengths, I started to enjoy the run and almost doubled my stamina. Yet when I got home and saw that I'd ran 8.6km, I felt disappointed that it wasn't further. Once again, I was comparing myself to what I had achieved pre-cancer and to what I expected of myself. I want to reframe my thoughts more permanently. I want to stop focussing on the small gap between where I am and where I want to be and instead focus on the huge distance I have travelled to get to where I am. But I'm struggling to do this. I'm repeatedly falling back into torturous negative thinking and persistent low moods. Despite timely and reassuring support from my husband, I need help. So I've asked for help, I'm going to go back to counselling. That's as positive as I can muster up for an ending to this post. Sometimes recognising when you need help and asking for it is the hardest part of maintaining good mental health and so I do feel proud, for taking this first step.
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