Rough Week

Last weekend I was exhausted, slept most of it, and had trouble getting myself motivated all week. I was not looking forward to an appointment I had today to get my radiation treatments set up. I’ll have to have treatments 5 days a week for 7 weeks. They’ll probably take 45 minutes round trip daily and then weekly checkups with the Dr. will be another 30-40 minutes. I still have family duties to attend to, like getting the kids on the bus, and plan to keep working. With the snow situation the way it is, I just don’t see how I’ll get much skiing in when it takes 40-45 minutes drive time to ski. Last year I skied at the U of M golf course a lot which is just minutes from home and work and if I could do that this year it would be no problem. But it doesn’t look like that will be possible. I just don’t see me having the mental fortitude, let alone the time, to put that much effort into skiing while under going treatment. So I’ve been in the dumps about it all week. The thing is that it’s really important for me to keep my exercise up, both physically and mentally. Moderate exercise seems to help stave off radiation induced fatigue and is important for my mental state when under stress. So I need to figure out what I’m going to do if I can’t ski. I can try running, but my knees are out of running shape and I need to be careful with tendonitis. My mom swims regularly at the community center pool, which is just minutes away, so I may try to meet up with her some time. I can keep doing my weekly strength stuff at home as well. So hopefully I’ll be able to figure out enough things to keep me going and in good spirits.

So next week the doctors do all the calculations to figure out exactly how to radiate me the right amount to kill any stray cancer cells without hurting too many healthy cells and only hit the tissues they want while avoiding things like my heart and lungs. Then I start treatments the following week. So I have just over a week to prepare myself mentally for this next phase of treatment. Hopefully once I get into a routine it won’t be so bad.