Navigating the Messy First Steps of Post-Cancer Recovery

Chapters

• 1:00 The Pancake Principle and Cancer
• 2:37 Asking Better Questions of Doctors
• 4:48 Speaking Up When Something Feels Wrong
• 5:49 Exercise Mistakes After Cancer Treatment
• 7:40 Career Challenges During Recovery
• 10:51 Learning to Balance Energy and Activity
• 12:32 Self-Care Success During Recovery
• 13:50 Building Community After Cancer

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:30

Lately. My kids are obsessed with pancakes for breakfast. I make them chocolate chip pancakes every morning and then they slap Nutella all over them and they love it. It's probably not the healthiest breakfast for them, but I just love that they're eating breakfast before they go to school and I feel like that's a big win in my book as a mom.

Speaker 0: 0:48

As I was making pancakes this morning, I was thinking about the pancake principle. I don't know if you're familiar with the pancake principle. Basically, it's this idea that we always mess up the first pancake of the batch. That's the one where the pan's not hot enough or the one that we flip over too early. That just makes a big mess. So I was thinking about the pancake principle this morning as it relates to cancer and that's what I want to talk about today, because this is the place where I talk about life after cancer.

Speaker 0: 1:20

When I finished cancer treatment, there were five things that I feel like were really messy, like that first pancake, and five things that I wish I would have done better. Today I'm going to share those five things that I think were would have done better Today. I'm gonna share those five things that I think were messier than they need to be. And then I'm gonna share two things that I did really well, and my goal with sharing this is not to shame anyone, but rather, if you're at the tail end of your cancer treatment or if you're starting cancer treatment, I just want you to use it as food for thought with maybe I made these mistakes or these are things I could have done better, and maybe it's just something to tuck away back in your mind just in case you start to feel this way as you come out of treatment. The first thing that didn't have to be so messy was that I wish I would have asked my oncologist better questions. Coming out of treatment, you know I have a pretty small cancer center and I feel like my care there has been pretty good for the most part.

Speaker 0: 2:25

But I do feel like at times I was just on this roller coaster and this treatment pipeline for the type of breast cancer that I had and this treatment pipeline for the type of breast cancer that I had, and I was just kind of expected to follow this prescribed roadmap and I think that's great. But I wish I would have just asked more questions about how is my body going to feel after chemotherapy ends. How is my body going to feel during and after radiation? How is my body going to feel when I go on these estrogen blockers, aromatase inhibitors? If something doesn't feel good, what can I do? How can I feel better without taking another drug, for instance, taking another drug, for instance, tamoxifen, really impacted my sleep. I was not able to sleep well at all when I was on tamoxifen and because I wasn't getting good sleep, I was gaining a lot of weight and instead of kind of looking at what was going on in my life with stress, diet, exercise, my doctor just gave me a sleeping pill, which really made my sleep even worse, and I wish that I would have just asked more questions about alternative ways to feel better, given the prescribed treatment plan that I was on. I don't know why I didn't ask questions, because I certainly felt comfortable with those doctors, but in hindsight I wish I would ask more questions and going forward. Whenever I have appointments with either my primary care doctor or my oncology team, I just start making a list and I ask all the questions because I'm not afraid to ask those questions and, frankly, because I want to know answers Next up.

Speaker 0: 4:18

I wish that I would have spoken up sooner when something wasn't working or something didn't feel good. I think I was feeling pretty healthy and pretty good about my body before I was diagnosed with cancer and then, the moment I found a lump, everything just kind of went to shit. And then, as soon as I finished treatment, I just expected to be able to bounce back really quickly. I expected to have the same energy level. I expected to feel the same way mentally. I just thought my body would be super resilient and I had these really high expectations. But I wasn't okay. And those moments when I didn't feel okay physically or mentally, I just wish I would have spoken up and I wish I would have talked to someone about how I was feeling and what I could do to feel better. The next thing I wish I would have done, the next thing that was like that messy first pancake, was during chemotherapy. I just was really sick, really weak, really exhausted.

Speaker 0: 5:23

After I finished chemotherapy, when I started radiation, I knew that I needed to get strong and healthy again and I knew that the best way for me to do that was just to go on a walk every day. So I started walking around the block and then I started walking around the park, and then I started walking around the neighborhood and then I started walking a mile and then two miles and then three miles and at one point I was going to just walk to radiation radiation treatment and my husband was like maybe you should drive. So I started to walk a lot, but I wish I would have gotten a trainer, because I wish I would have realized that I needed to do more than just walking in zone one. I wish I would have realized that what my body had been through and then what my body was going through while I was on these aromatase inhibitors. I wish I would have known that I needed to be doing things to improve my bone density. I wish I would have known that I needed to be in the gym lifting weights. I wish I would have known that I needed to throw in some high intensity activities. I wish I would have known that I needed to lift heavy weights, not lots of repetition with light weights. I wish I would have known that I needed to lift heavy weights, not lots of repetition with light weights. I wish I would have become a student of bone density, because while I jumped back into exercise, I didn't jump back into the right kind of exercise and now I have significant bone density issues and osteopenia that could potentially develop into osteoporosis. And I'm only 45 years old and I have the bones of like a brittle, fragile 75-year-old woman. I wish I would have tailored my workouts specific to what my body was going through, with early onset menopause caused by the medications that I was taking.

Speaker 0: 7:10

The other thing that was really messy in my life was a career change that I made during cancer treatment. I was diagnosed with cancer. I had two shops. I had a very busy and very successful retail store where I sold things like tents and backpacks and hiking boots and outdoor clothing and outdoor gear, and then I had a ski shop, which was a seasonal ski shop, where I rented skis, I tuned skis and snowboards, I sold skis and snowboards and ski accessories. When I was in the middle of chemotherapy and sicker than a dog, someone approached me about buying my outdoor retail store. I was doing payroll from the chemo chair. It was just like so much to think about when you're a small business owner and you can't really take a leave of absence. I wasn't going into the shop every day, but I was still managing the schedule and the payroll and the inventory and it just was. It was just too much. So when I was approached by this person about buying the shop from me, I was like, yes, please. So we negotiated the terms of that sale. I wanted to keep the winter, the seasonal ski shop, I wanted to keep the skis and the rentals and the ski tuning. And then we negotiated a non-compete agreement.

Speaker 0: 8:32

I finished treatment in July and then I needed to open up my shop to get things ready for the winter to get. I had like 800 rental skis that needed to be waxed and tuned and I didn't have any employees over the summer and then I only had just a handful of employees when I opened in the winter. And I wish that I wouldn't have rushed back into work so quickly and the way that I could have done that would have been to hire more employees to help me and given myself some more time to ease back into work rather than just hitting it and going 100 miles an hour through the winter. Because that April when I closed the shop for the winter, I was just exhausted, I was just smoked because I went right from treatment not giving myself a break into working 40, 50, 60 hours a week at my ski shop with just a handful of employees. So if you are a small business owner and you're coming out of cancer treatment, that's really difficult because if you're not working you're not making money. It's just hard. If you are working a nine to five and you have an employer, I would say to work really hard with your employer to ease back into work. Maybe start going to work 10 hours a week, 20 hours a week, 30 hours a week and then 40 hours a week, but build it up slowly, especially if you've taken time off for treatment, if you're financially able to do so. I just made the decision to just go full in and it wasn't good and it actually led to me selling that shop after that winter season because I realized that it was just too much for me to handle, even with employees.

Speaker 0: 10:21

Finally, the last messy pancake I was trying to balance my physical activity while still feeling very fragile. Some days I just felt really fragile, really low energy, really exhausted. Some days I felt really strong and unstoppable and I wish that I would have listened to my body better on those days when I was feeling exhausted and tired and also on those days when I was really feeling strong. I wish I would have been able to adjust and go harder with my workouts on the days where I felt strong and capable. I wish I would have been able to show my body that I was still strong and capable. It's really hard. I don't think there is any exhaustion quite like cancer exhaustion. I remember doing treatment being so tired that it was all I could do to just roll off of my bed onto the floor and stand up and put a bathrobe on and get down to the living room to be with my children when they came home from school. There is no exhaustion like cancer exhaustion. I've climbed Kilimanjaro. I've done the Salcante Trail in Peru. I'm a former elite athlete. I've been tired before, but not cancer tired, and learning how to balance those feelings would have helped a little bit.

Speaker 0: 11:51

Coming out of treatment, there were two things that I did really, really well and if you're in cancer treatment right now, I totally recommend doing these things as you start to feel better as your treatment ends. I was really good with self-care. I was really good at getting massages. Really good with self-care, I was really good at getting massages. I started doing acupuncture during chemotherapy to help with nausea and vomiting and acupuncture really helped me feel better during chemotherapy and then afterwards, when I had a lot of neuropathy from Taxol, which is a chemotherapy drug. Acupuncture really was a big help too with my neuropathy. I was good about going back into physical therapy, trying to learn some exercises to help with recovering after surgeries. The thing with all of those is they're expensive. My insurance did not cover massages. There's no way my insurance would cover acupuncture, so those were all out of pocket expenses that we hadn't really worked into our budget. But self-care is super important and if you're able to save a few bucks to do those extra things, it really helped my recovery and helped me feel better.

Speaker 0: 13:06

Finally, the next thing that I did was during cancer treatment. I started to look around at the community and I started to really think about who was taking care of me, who were the friends that were texting me and calling me, who were the friends that were dropping off meals randomly on my porch. And I realized that my friend group was so important and everyone in my friend group has been through hard things or we're going to go through hard things at some point in our lives and we needed to be there for each other. So I started just texting a friend randomly and inviting a friend to go get coffee or lunch every Friday morning, a different friend and I also started inviting friends over to my home and just opening up my doors, having friends over for lunch or having friends over for tea. Or I used to be really good about leading hikes in my community. I'd lead a group hike every single Friday morning but I didn't have the strength and the energy to plan and lead a group hike. But I did have the energy to open the doors to my home and have everybody over for soup and bread or to have everybody over for tea and treats that I'd got at the grocery store.

Speaker 0: 14:29

And I really think if people are your friends, they will be happy to come into your home and not notice right If there's a little dust on your windowsills or if there's a pile of dirty laundry outside your laundry room door. I wanted to develop friendships with women who would come to my home not to judge my home how it looked, but who just wanted to spend time in community together. And our culture, our society right now is not very good at building community. We are not very good at sitting on our front porch and saying hello to our neighbors we are not very good at sitting on our front porch and saying hello to our neighbors. We're not very good at opening our doors to friends. Making a deliberate effort to do that has helped me develop a social network where I feel like, if I go into another cancer diagnosis, I've got friends that are going to step up and come into my home and help take care of me, and it goes both ways. I feel like I can walk into my friends' homes and pick up the vacuum and vacuum for them or cook them a meal if they need it. That sense of community is so important and it's so lost from our society.

Speaker 0: 15:45

I was just in Costa Rica a few weeks ago leading a hike like a woman group trip and after we were done rappelling down a waterfall. One day the guide invited us to his home where his wife had made an amazing lunch for us, and we sat in his backyard in his small home and his wife prepared this meal for us and we talked to his daughter and it felt so good to be welcomed into his home. I just want my friends to feel like they're also welcome into my home, because we all need each other to get through hard things like a cancer diagnosis. So there you go. That's my story of making pancakes. Five things that were kind of messy for me after cancer treatment. Two things that were not messy and just a few thoughts that I would give to you if you're at that stage in life where you're going through cancer, coming out of cancer treatment or just going through something that is difficult. Thanks so much for hanging out with me and I'll see you next week.