Muscle Marathon

My first chemo treatment was a holiday weekend, so with an extra day of rest under my belt, I was surprised my first day back at work was so difficult. I barely made it the whole day, leaving an hour or so early to run a work related errand. My way down the stairs I felt all my muscles were sore as if I'd been on a full-body bicycle the entire day. My skin felt sunburned anywhere that had received any pressure throughout the day: from sitting, my seatbelt, crossing my legs. I was both frightened and amazed, like a scientist trapped and watching the experiment unfold from the inside.

I thought to myself, 'how am I going to do this every day for the next six months?... and this is supposed to get worse?' I honestly thought it was as good as it was going to get at that moment, and wondered how anyone could possibly walk around with cancer. "Three days... tops," was all I thought. And luckily, that was about all it lasted.

Once home, my muscles seemed to beg for rest, but when I tried to lay down the tension just continued to build. So irritable and frustrated, I finally had to give up trying to rest in order to ease the pressure. Practically crying from annoyance, I bent down on my hands and knees and tried a crude "dog pose" from pictures I'd seen of people doing yoga. The stretching helped. I moved to a different position and stretched again, not feeling the expected relief from the soreness in my body, but the act of doing something about my discomfort made all the difference in my mind.

That night I went with my dad to the air-conditioned mall to walk out as much nervous energy as I could. The next day my muscles felt better, but I fell out of sorts even faster. Within the first four hours on the job, the computer screen began to trigger a kind of amnesia, and to stay alert I had to get up and walk around. After a few minutes I realized my day at work was done and made a mental note of my new capacities. I definitely was not the super cancer patient I wanted to be and didn't really know what this meant for me. If I couldn't work, how would I pay for the chemotherapy treatments plus more surgery and radiation?

Well, I'm happy to report that all my days are not spent huddled and shivering in a corner, and for the most part, this level of the muscle marathon has not returned in my three treatments since. "Normal" brain functioning starts to return about 5 days after treatment, varying w/ sleep and further complications (see '...When Blood Levels Drop"), and the muscles relax, for me, at precisely the same speed. But I have LOTS of other terrible tales of disturbing and perplexing symptoms and side effects, so don't wimp out on me now! We haven't even gotten to the hot flashes!

Do your stretches.
http://www.yogacards.com/yoga-pose-cards.html