Ellen Updates

As I sit down to eat a balanced meal with my plate divided into one quarter protein, one quarter starch, and half full veggies . . . 🤣🤣🤣 jk. I ate microwaved Kraft mac and cheese in bed at 8:15 (this may be a.m. or p.m. on any given day because, you know chemo is a trip).

The best response when people ask how I am doing continues to be “it depends.” Physically: Day of chemo is usually okay. Two to three days after not so great. Four to five days flip a coin. Day six is pretty good, and then the cycle starts over. Mentally: somewhat dependent on the physical, issues with treatment, or general stress.

One of my friends is my “chronic illness guide.” She provides support in so many ways, from fun treats to take to chemo, to phone calls and texts, to articles and advice on managing life with a chronic illness. They (medical professionals) don’t tell you at the cancer diagnosis appointment that you will be seeing them for several years. Or maybe they do and you are in shock and digesting a lot of information from lots of different doctors in a condensed time frame? For now, I consider my cancer diagnosis to be a chronic illness.

An extremely helpful article my “guide” shared is about spoon theory. In the simplest of terms, we have a limited number of spoons that represent energy. Some days getting up and getting ready takes two spoons, other days six spoons. This helps me to frame my day on the not so great days.

Spoon theory has led to my half-assing tasks. Because half-assing may not get something done to my normal standards, but it gets the job done (see microwave mac and cheese).

For those interested in more information on spoon theory, this is a helpful link – https://health.clevelandclinic.org/spoon-theory-chronic-illness/amp/ – it focuses on pain impacting someone from the ability to complete tasks, but IMHO a chronic illness comes with a lot of baggage that requires deliberate thoughts on how someone allocates their energy.

And on those low energy days, it’s time to half-ass certain tasks to get them done. And give myself a break. Because at the end of the day, we are all doing our best, whether or not anyone is struggling with a chronic illness. So, I hope this weekend you all give yourself time to take a deep breath and half-ass a task that has been bothering you. 😘

Treatment update: if all goes well, I am down to four more chemo sessions. The switch from Taxol to Taxotere has been a bit more of a challenge than expected – more time off with than I would hope due to fatigue. Thankful for zofran and anti-nausea meds. Hoping my nails don’t fall off. 😬. But, at the end of the day, all worth it to kick cancer’s ass.

Finally, if you have been putting off getting a mammogram, now’s the time to schedule it and take care of yourself. 😘😘