Coping Strategies

My daughter attends Solomon Schechter Day School here in Connecticut. The community of parents, teachers and Rabbis at the school really rallied around us. I liken it to circling the wagons with my family in the center. They arranged for meals to be sent home with Sarah 3 days a week. People who had never met me cooked meals. They didn't cook enough for 3 people they cooked enough for 20 people. The meals were well balanced with protein, vegetables and starch.

The one thing you hear over and over again during Chemo is complaints about your weight loss from your doctors. You will most likely have no appetite and eating will be a chore. For me cooking was very difficult. If I had the energy I couldn't stand the smell of the food. Honestly I had 3 days each cycle I could barely get out of bed. I was losing 7 to 10 lbs a week. I finally came up with an eating strategy.

• Drink Boost twice a day outside of meal times. It tastes yucky but is loaded with things you need and the chocolate wasn't horrible.
• Cut your entire meal up before eating anything. My husband would do this for me.
• Eat as much protein on your plate as fast as you can. Don't talk don't stop don't drink. Remember eating fast gets more food into you before you are full.
• Only eat foods that are high in things you need. So junk food is out.

It doesn't sound like a big deal, but once I started eating this way I stopped losing weight and boosted my immune response.

Parents of kids in Sarah's class drove her home when I couldn't get there. They had her sleep over on school nights if I had early doctor's appointments. In general they treated her like she was their own child. You certainly don't expect this and I would bet you can't depend on the support, but it made everything easier for us. In earlier posts I talk about accepting help from people. This is a great example of this point. My daughter's school is a 40 minute drive from my house. As much as I still wanted to pick her up everyday, I just couldn't. I needed people to pick her up from school till my husband could get her.

This was the hardest coping strategy for me. I threw all thoughts of Self Sufficiency away. I needed help and asked for it. I made keeping things sort of normal for Sarah my priority, my ego be damned. I never forgot to say thank you when people helped me and did so publicly in the school bulletin when Chemo was over.

I found at the beginning of treatment, I was having the same conversation 10 times a day. It was also the same conversation every day. This was taxing for many reasons.

• All that time on the phone was exhausting.
• I felt like people had nothing to say to me that didn't pertain to Cancer and Treatment
• It was really boring. You know you have a problem when you bore yourself.

We set up contact points. These where people who could call and ask about treatment or how I was feeling. We had five of them and each had a different day. Everyone else was told that they could call if they didn't talk about my health. Each was given a contact point who filled them in on the details. I suppose this sounds harsh or maybe selfish, but is there a better time in your life to be selfish? I think not. In the end, I got more rest, had conversations that were more interesting and enjoyed my time with my friends and family. All of these things improve your outlook and therefore your outcome.

I want to speak a little about depression. While I never really felt sorry for myself, I did have a very bleak period when I had an infection and was very sick where all I wanted to do was run away from home. I was aware enough to realize I was depressed and sought the help of a social worker who pointed me to a Therapist who specializes in Cancer patients. I ended up on Cymbalta, an Antidepressant that works well on Cancer patients and has the extra added side effect of increasing your appetite (also good while you are on Chemo). I continued seeing my Therapist even after Chemo was done and stayed on the antidepressants for almost a year. Really needing some help with depression is not a big deal. Chemo causes physiological changes that can lead to depression and it can take a year or more for the effects of the Chemo to leave your system.