AFTER CANCER: TROUBLE TOLERATING FATIGUE, WHY IS THIS -I
Feeling drained all the time can impair your quality of life in a major way. After having tolerated other, more dramatic symptoms or problems, you might expect fatigue to be a minor nuisance. However, it is challenging because of its effect on all aspects of your life. Lack of energy and all its repercussions represent ongoing loss.
After cancer the rhythm of routine and the feeling of satisfaction that comes from completing tasks helps you feel that your life is getting back to normal. Unfortunately, you may neglect some tasks, or do them poorly, if you are straining just to fulfill daily responsibilities. A sense of routine may seem elusive if you lack adequate emotional or physical reserves to deal with everyday interruptions and problems (such as spilled milk, misunderstandings with friends, or news of a friend’s heart attack). Without the satisfaction of completing tasks or the comfort of a routine you may experience a lingering sense of being sick and out of control.
The stress of knowing that you cannot do as much as before is augmented by the stress caused by the consequences of this incapacity. For example, added to the inconvenience of your child’s not having clean clothes because you were too exhausted to do the laundry is the tension caused by your child’s disappointment or anger that her favorite shirt is dirty (still). At work you have to deal not only with the nagging discomfort that accompanies being behind schedule with assignments but also with the stress that accompanies your sense that you should be functioning better than you are.
The stress level is further raised by the negative effect of chronic fatigue on your mood, outlook, appetite, ability to think clearly, and memory. Perspective can be lost; the little bumps of normal daily life seem like mountains. You may forget to buy milk and then, because you are so tired, perceive your error as a catastrophe. And, since life goes on whether you are ready or not, you may find yourself, for the first time ever, unable to cope with serious issues or problems such as the loss of a loved one.
You may wish for a magic fairy to help you with your jobs and yet decline offers from willing friends, family, and co-workers. Why? Perhaps the accepting of help diminishes your sense of renewed control, freedom, and self-esteem. You feel stuck between what you want (independence, self-affirmation) and what you need (assistance, delayed gratification).
Unfairly, low energy carries the connotation of laziness for some people. You may decline help and push yourself beyond what common sense dictates in order to meet your own standards of performance. You may feel that you should be doing more and that you are lazy if you do not. Or you may worry that other people will interpret your complaints as malingering despite their show of understanding and support.
The problem is compounded by the common misconception that cancer brings a death sentence. Even though you are in remission, you sense that others perceive you as a doomed individual. You avoid anything that suggests illness, such as a needed nap, because of concern, justified or not, that others will see your napping as a sign of deterioration instead of as part of a normal recovery.
*66/32/5*
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