When undergoing any intensive experience (like cancer treatment) there’s a decision to be made: are you going to fight the tides, or ride them?

I was reminded of this today. It was a treatment day. They have to give me a whole lot of premeds when I have Herceptin, because I had a reaction during my first infusion, so they pump me up with steroids and Piriton. I don’t feel bad afterwards – but I am pretty groggy and fuzzy for the rest of the day.

Normally, I come home and go to bed, but work time has been so scarce, I really wanted to push against this tendency.

More importantly, I know that when I sleep after treatment, I have a much harder time going to sleep that night.

But what is the cause and what is the effect?

Zach turned this on its head. He said, “you normally have insomnia on treatment days – you should rest up while you can.”

And he was right. Even though at the moment I could barely keep my eyes open, the combination of the medications (probably the steroids) or just the experience itself does tend to mean a lot of difficulty sleeping that night.

It was my tendency to push towards productivity and harsh scheduling.

Zach said ‘listen to your body.’

I took a nap, and I felt wonderfully refreshed afterwards.

I probably will have a hard time sleeping tonight, but that’s okay – the rest during the day helped shore up my reserves.

It’s so hard to remember to be kind to ourselves. We’re lucky if we have people around to remind us, during the times when we can’t locate the gentler path for ourselves.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash