Update chemo therapy: 3 months of recovery
Three months now. More than three actually. Without chemotherapy. My last chemo pill was on December 21st 2015. It feels like a long time ago. I have hair again, I lost most of the weight. I look normal. But I don't feel normal. My biggest complaint is the tiredness. My energy is like the battery of my phone. It works fine until it's empty, then it goes off. Before the chemo I would feel my energy level going down slowly. The moment that that energy is gone I can hardly predict. I know it's earlier when I had a late night or a bad night. It varies from around 13:00 to around 18:00. I had a very busy week last week and I still have to regain my energy.
It's costing me effort to write about this period. I want to be normal again. But I am not. I am sliding back into my 'normal' life and this causes friction with the way I am now. I've changed. Personally and musically. One of my fellow patients who is one year ahead of me told me that is effect wore off after half a year with him. But I don't want it to wear off. Besides all the shit this chemo and the cancer gave me, it also gave me an opportunity. A chance to stop, to look around, to contemplate at an age where I should be running around. I've had a sort of sabbatical. Let me stress this 'a sort off'! Because if I could choose, well, you know. I had the chance to reevaluate everything. And it seems that so far my life is ok. I have a wonderful family, great friends, who take care of me, I have enough fun work (playing the sax)... But what I need to learn is how to focus: what do I really want? And how can I get there? When I was younger, at the conservatory I had an attitude that covered up my insecurity. Now I am insecure and full of (self) doubt, and I feel this covers up yet another layer. The layer that is real, that is me. The layer that wants something very clear and has a passion.
I keep a journal nowadays to write down what I feel, want, experience, etc. I try to stop myself several times a day to feel how I feel, what is going on. I chose a small number of projects that I want to work on the coming year and I try to stick with those. I need to do things that give me energy, instead of only take energy. Things that stimulate me and keep me going. Otherwise I will be too tired to work. A good way to get myself to limit myself and to do things that are worth my while.
Yeah, that chemo has some upsides.
Photographed today at Sloterdijk Station