From no posts to two in one morning…I really never will be balanced and measured….

In short, I feel like I need to get back in control of my life (with cancer) and my treatment. It was crystal clear to me when I saw Dr Aloof on Tuesday that I did not feel safe with him, nor his judgement and therefore not my treatment. That may of course change and I hope it does, but for now I need to feel a lot more empowered than I do currently. To do this means I need to research a lot of different things, at the same time as managing information flow. I have been very careful with the latter – stringently filtering what I read and research as it can become overwhelming very quickly. And can lead me to feel completely inadequate in my cancer journey – not eating the right things, not resting enough, doing all the wrong things etc etc. Obviously I want to avoid that at all costs.

I do need help though. Obviously, all choices I make regarding my life and treatment, conventional or otherwise, are mine to make, but to make these choices I need to be well informed. Which is very challenging with chemo brain and exhaustion. So I wanted to ask any of you who may have some spare time, a commodity I recognise is valuable for us all, to look into one or more of the things I am going to list. Bearing in mind that I cannot deal with an overload of information, so sound bites are great and if it resonates, then I can ask for more. Again, just in case it may sound like it, I am not asking for anyone else to make choices for me but rather just information that can help me to decide.

1. Chemotherapy and depression. There is apparently a physical link –  by that I mean the chemo drugs cause depression themselves biologically rather than ‘just’ the side effects and all that goes with those. Is this the case? If so, what has proven effective to deal with it – both natural and traditional anti depressants?
2. This one may be just for me – but putting it out there – I have finished 4 rounds of EC chemo, then moving to Taxol 12 weeks, weekly dose. Then surgery. Then radiation. On a gut level, this feels like swatting a fly with an Uzi (back to mixed metaphors..). There is a lot around this that I can’t get into now – but basically want to know what other people have done if they haven’t necessarily followed the standard protocols. As I say – this could well be for me alone to figure out,  but if anyone has any links or interest in looking into this, happy to chat or mail separately
3. Meditations that are healing, but not of the knit your own tofu variety…I have caved…I need to meditate…but cannot do the airy fairy shit as that just irritates the hell out of me. Do humorous meditations exist???
4. Cures for insomnia. The insomnia as I mentioned in another post is clearly linked to anxiety, lack of time/space in the day to process and possibly depression. There are some great sleep apps apparently – I found one at 2am this morning, but the end of a lovely relaxing 30 mins told me to wake up. Sigh. I am well aware of ‘sleep hygiene’ so not looking for that – rather things like apps and something creative..how to not get stressed about not sleeping, how to heal when not sleeping etc. I need to sleep to heal, then get stressed because I am not sleeping therefore not healing and so the circle goes…Apart from the fact I am a raving sleep deprived lunatic a lot of the time
5. Good books on breast cancer/healing. I have avoided these like the plague, for the reasons listed above, but ready to start looking possibly at a couple. Again, humour goes a long way, practical, grounded, non judgemental advice in a book welcome….

I read somewhere that people who have a community of support are 61% more likely to heal from cancer. That made me feel so good. Because I have that in you all and I have it around the children. I need to hear more about things like that.

So if any of you can help with any of the 5 things above, or think of things related that may help, please do. Happy for suggestions to be posted here on the blog – probably the easiest for now as I can filter best that way – e-mails get overwhelming as I seem to have endless ones from work and everywhere else. Let me know if that works for any of you that can help out in this. xxxx