However strong you are, your treatment will affect your physical well-being. You may lose weight or suffer nausea or increasing lethargy, as well as experiencing side-effects specific to your treatment. You might wake in the morning feeling strong and well and unwittingly overtax yourself within a few hours. The idea of resting for the remainder of the day can be intensely frustrating. You may not want to sit quietly and watch the television or read the newspapers! Enforced physical inaction is a tangible and constant reminder of your cancer but, however irritating, only you can dictate the right pace of life for you.
For example, many courses of chemotherapy are given on a three-weekly cycle. You may discover with experience that there are points in the cycle when you feel the side-effects of the drugs most keenly, are particularly low, have very little energy and little desire for visitors or activity. At another point in the cycle, you may feel much stronger and want to be more active. Your medical team will advise you if you are likely to have low points in your cycle, but the effects of chemotherapy do vary from person to person. In the first cycle, however much information you are given beforehand, you won’t know from personal experience how you will be affected. Thereafter, your personal experience will be valuable in guiding your day-to-day life. For example, if you know you feel low on days 7 to 10 after your chemotherapy, you can plan ahead and take life very gently on those days. Keeping some form of diary may be useful, even if you just make a brief note each day of how you feel: ‘Day 15 – felt strong, went to work today’ or ‘Day 9 – nausea bad, couldn’t eat, slept badly’.
Judging the level of physical exercise or activity that is right for you may be tricky as your physical energy goes through unpredictable periods of improvement and decline. If you are well enough, it is good to exercise in some form if you can, but as gently as necessary – if a very short walk is enough, then don’t push yourself further. You are not trying to prove anything to anyone!
Ask your doctor’s guidance about your physical limitations and try to respect that advice. Your doctor will not be able to tell you exactly what you can and cannot do, but you may have questions about whether you can, for example, go swimming or play a round of golf or go to the gym. Your doctor should be able to advise you about any activities which should be avoided or approached with caution, or indeed, any which would be especially beneficial.
You might be eager to become more physically active again or you might be surprised by psychological hurdles which have to be crossed first. If an operation has caused some physical change or what you perceive to be a disfigurement, however minor, then this can change your attitude about your body and make you feel uncertain either about your physical capabilities or your willingness to have your body ‘on show’. If the prospect of undressing in the open changing room at the gym or swimming pool leaves you feeling very uncomfortable, then don’t force yourself into that particular activity. It is worth reiterating that there is no ‘right’ way to approach this – you must follow your instincts.
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