Exercise.
Most clinicians and patients will tell you that exercise is an effective and important way to manage chemotherapy side effects. The question always is: how much? After five rounds of trial and error, I feel like Goldilocks. I think I've got the amount of exercise just right.
Instead of limiting my post treatment days to a short walk, this go round I managed a slow, short run -- maybe 1.5-2 miles -- on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. As a result, my usual miserable Monday was much more manageable. Even more so than last month's round. And my Tuesday was all but normal. I'm not sure if that's a direct result of the more active exercise on the weekend, but it's the only variable I've changed so I'm going with it.
I'll take that information into next month's final round -- hoping it's the last time I'll need that knowledge for a long time.
--michael
Michael my friend was diagnosed with stage 4 appendiceal cancer last May. She has had several major surgeries and is more than half way through her second round of chemo, You are right when you say there is no good cancer and just watching her deal with the treatment and burden of her diagnosis has made me live each day simple grateful. The most amazing thing about my friend is that she is a single mother of three teenagers and owns a fitness gym. Because fitness has been her life, she is still teaching 5 - 7 classes a day. She days with her chemo bag attached to her hip. She believe the exercise has kept her alive. She inspires each one of her members in an unbelievable way and offers free memberships to anyone on chemo. So when they say exercise helps with chemo, I have seen it first hand. Maybe it's a temporary distraction, maybe it helps the chemo surge through the bodynto attack the crazy cancer. I don't know for she, but if you are ever in Dudley MA, check out The Fitness Studio and ask to speak to Kerri Murphy. She is the fit girl with the pippy longstocking oig tals
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