Keepin' It Simple

Things like cancer have a way of breaking down your life to the simplest of things. Once you've been diagnosed, and enter treatments, you find yourself quickly focusing on accomplishing the simple things well, and just not worrying about everything else.

But the simplest things, when you have cancer, can be the most complex or most challenging.

There is after all only so much energy to go around during any given day. The fatique effects from radiation can go on for months and months. And the fatique effects from chemotherapy are always ready to call a surprise nap.

There is timing between when medication is taken and how that fits into other simple tasks like eating or exercise. It's a dance each day between trying to read what you're body is telling you and mixing it with the other simple regiments of the day.

Our alarm goes off every morning at 5 a.m. so I can take my chemo. I'm not allowed to eat for two hours before chemo or at least one hour after. My second chemo session of the day is at 5 p.m.

So I have to try to time when I'm going to be hungry, or at least plan to eat whether I'm ready or not, at very specific times. (hang on, I need another handful of Fruit Loops - this is one of those eating times) The simple task of eating can be challenging, managing it at allowed times only, and balancing it with prescriptions that turn my digestive system into an amusement park.

For many eating is a very taken for granted task of all of our days. For me, eating is the main focus of the day because of my nutritional challanges and my recent weight loss. (another handful of Fruit Loops)

Just over an hour ago I meticuously planned to start with a fresh peach, hours after the chemo cleared the belly. The fresh peach was chased back with 2-ounces of protein drink. I still think it's funny they say it's "Wild Cherry" flavored. lol How about cough syrup flavored?

Now I'm munching on the Fruit Loops. It's not very nutritious, but it does provide me with some fiber, and fills my belly.

I will try to round it out with a small banana nut muffin and a small piece of carrot cake.

I know. I know. Not the healthiest foods, although I have been eating tons of fruit. But it's what I can get my belly to take right now. The savory tastes are still slowly coming back.

But when you're a cancer patient, recovering from severe treatments, life has to be kept simple.

To most of us we'd never consider the potential reality of any of our lives suddenly slowing to this simplistic form. But it is, of course, a reality that plays out in so many lives all around us, and around the world.

The most challenging and important action of my day is just to eat and try to save any further weight loss.