recuperate and cancer recovery
This is part of the In The Pink series P1
This is where I want to start - after the treatment has finished and at the point where you can begin, bit-by-bit, to deal with all that you have been through and all that is to come.
You may have had to endure months of treatment by knife, chemicals or radiation until you are probably sick of the whole business, now is the time to heal, both body and mind. I don’t think we quite realize what impact it has on our lives and those around us too.
This stage is all about dealing with the process of healing both physically and emotionally, as this is such a critical stage in our recovery.
For me this happened in three stages: recuperation, convalescence and rehabilitation. You have to go through all the stages in order to come out at the other side, you will only then are we able to move on and face the next one.
If we look at each stage in turn, then we should start with recuperation, one of the many paradoxes of cancer is that, more often than not, the treatment makes you feel worse. This is not surprising - we cut and possibly mutilate, inject you with poisonous and powerful chemicals, subject you to dangerous rays all in the name of treatment.
The aggressiveness and power of the treatments are a necessary response to the power of the disease, of course, but this very power takes its toll in other ways. These interventions place enormous physical strains on the body. There is often little time to recover from one treatment before you have to begin another.
The treatments themselves may make it difficult for you to sleep and eat properly - two important parts of the body’s defense and recovery system. Some of the treatments drain your energy and resources to such an extent that it’s as much as you can do to put on the kettle.
Add to this the emotional turmoil - the dealing with the impact and implications of the diagnosis, the uncertainty, the upheaval, the additional burden that you feel that you are imposing on family and friends, the loss of so many aspects of your routine.
Emotional stress can be as energy consuming as any physical activity. After all that, is it any wonder that you feel wrung out and exhausted, without resources or reserves? Is it any wonder you just want to get back to doing the things you used to before the diagnosis but find yourself falling at the first hurdle because you simply find the whole thing too much.
I think that, however smoothly your treatment has progressed and however well you have tolerated the various indignities to which you are subjected, you will most definitely need some time simply to recharge and recover - to recuperate - is absolutely essential.
This is the necessary foundation on which to build recovery. There is no one right way or length of time to do this. It may be a few days or a few weeks, months or years, how long will depend on your state of health before your diagnosis, your age, the intensity, frequency and length of your treatment and so on. Take however long you feel you need. Recuperating is the very first step in a process of rebuilding.
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