As we’ve entered 2024 and passed the midpoint of January, hope fills the air. While we don’t have any grand plans of large hikes scheduled in 2024, we do however, want to get back into the swing of walking and hiking more manageable distances this year. My husband’s chemotherapy maintenance schedule has begun and doesn’t seem to largely affect his day-to-day life. His world seems to be resetting back to a comfortable normal. Hair is returning. Fatigue and general fogginess is fading. He’s able to start doing things around the home that he couldn’t before. With that, comes the muscle aches with rebuilding that strength.
This maintenance schedule, which will last three years, is meant to be much easier than what he’s already encountered. So far, after nearly a month, it’s much lighter than our fears. It’s a monthly chemo infusion along with weekly and daily chemo pills.
The one side effect that has continued a bit and now has escalated is neuropathy in fingers and toes. From what we’ve read and heard from others is that it mostly will subside once chemo is complete. He did recall that the time between the last intensive phase and maintenance, it subsided quickly. That’s our hope, meanwhile, will keep his team in the loop on that side effect.
Getting Comfortable with the New Schedule
Hopefully, we can start with slowly easing in a walking schedule here in the next few weeks. We have had a brutal weather pattern here in the Midwest with record-breaking temperatures! We’re mainly more thankful to manage shoveling the driveway instead of clocking in a couple miles. We haven’t pushed for anything more because we want to see how he responds to this modified treatment before we go 100%. But our plan is to start off slow, adding walks when it’s reasonable outside. When he feels ready, we’ll add yoga and strength training as well.
Adjusting Back to the Old, but Good Diet
We also have implemented a diet change. Now that he’s no longer immunosuppressed, he’s back to normal eating habits. (We have followed these immunosuppressed diet guidelines for the past year.) So, we have pivoted back to Keto, which worked very well for both of us previously. We’re enjoying it and have noticed that the lack of carbs make us less hungry and more comfortable.
As for me, it’s been very difficult to maintain any schedule outside of the chemo schedule we’ve had in 2023. So, I know we can rely on each other to keep each other motivated, more so with me, as I need to get my fitness goals going again. With all of this, it is a nice starting point to document how well we progress this year.
I’m starting to share these details and steps to recovery in order to help someone else, whether a patient or caregiver, to feel more at ease and provide hope with their situation. While I understand that each diagnosis is unique, I wanted to share my experience in the hope that it might help at least one person – a small victory that would mean a lot.
