This week has been a bit rough, (the week after my 4th of 6 chemo infusion.) It’s taken me longer to recover after my morning bike ride, in fact some days it doesn’t even feel like I have recovered, and have generally felt off and lethargic and meh. The effects of chemo are cumulative, I suspect I knew this but just didn’t want to know. So I went off to to do some research. With all credit to webmd*, I found this article which just lays it out plain and simple.

Urghhhhhh…….. p.s. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for the elderly, the less fit, the young… the scared…F$%&*#K cancer!

“The effects of chemo are cumulative. They get worse with each cycle.
My doctors warned me: Each infusion will get harder. Each cycle, expect to feel weaker.

I heard them say it, but I guess I didn’t quite believe it. (Seems this guy and I know each other.)

Determined to keep moving my body as I went through treatment. I was in the habit of taking a daily hike up a small mountain across from my daughter’s school. For the first three cycles, I could make it to the top. But by the last cycle, it took me an hour just to get one-third of the way to the top.

And little did I realize that the exhaustion didn’t end with the last infusion — the month after chemo was the hardest of all. I felt like I’d been run over by a truck. This is normal. Plan for it.

You may learn different lessons as you go through chemo — after all, your journey will be uniquely yours. But hopefully the lessons I learned will be of some help, if only just to remind you that you can’t have all the answers at the beginning of the journey. You’ll learn as you go, and someday you’ll have lessons of your own to share.”

*https://www.webmd.com/cancer/features/blog-chemo-lessons-learned