Thursday, January 7, 2010

fatigue

Hi, this is Darrell's wife, Pat. The condition you are describing is formally called "Fatigue". It is a very common side effect of chemo and of radiation (and of parents visiting). Fatigue can be absolutely debilitating and there are currently very few treatments for it. Your oncologist or neurologist, or other doctor-person needs to know that you are experiencing severe fatigue. Emotional stress exacerbates fatigue, and may turn it into depression.
Be gentle with yourself, be patient. You need to spend your time resting.

Hi, this is Darrell. Pat and I have dealt with this sort of thing before. Well, not exactly what you're going through, but we saw Pat's sister go through a lot of what you're going through when she had cancer. Pain, chemo, radiation giving her a wicked internal sunburn to the hoo-hoo (luckily you'll get to skip that part), people talking about her as if she wasn't there in the room, more pain... People can be so stupid when it comes to being with loved ones who are sick. They mean well, but they freak out easy and lose what little intelligent part of their brain they may have had at one time.
Pat's right, you need to be patient with yourself. Be yourself. Be a fighter. Give your doctors a hard time. If they think everything is perfect, they won't do anything that helps.

As far as we're concerned, you're doing just fine, typos and misunderstandings included. Rest up and continue to get better-ish.

The McC's.

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