My Energy Comes in Waves: Learning to Listen to My Body

How I manage my expectations and the power of saying 'no'

The word, ‘fatigue,’ holds such little weight in comparison to what managing this life altering side effect feels like. Prior to my diagnosis I just assumed fatigue was the feeling of being extra tired. Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep the night before or I was overworking myself a bit and needed a few extra hours of rest.

“Ugh, I went too hard last weekend and am feeling a little fatigued so I’m gonna stay in this weekend and rest.”

Girl, bye.

Living with chronic fatigue post-treatment is nothing short of debilitating. I know from the moment I wake up to when I go to sleep, I have about 4 good hours of quality energy in me. That means, I have to get all my work done, answer emails, create content, teach multiple fitness classes, walk my dog 3x, workout, cook food, check in with friends/family, have business meetings, and try to expand my numerous businesses….all within 4 hours? SOS.

Yeah, welcome to survivorship, ladies and gents. It’s a big fat juicy walk in the park!

I’m not saying this to bitch (well, maybe?) but I say this as a real-ass-reality-check for those who assume we’re doing great since we’re cancer free.

Why is no one talking about how hard surviving cancer really is? Why are our doctors packaging this phase of our cancer journey up in pretty bows and butterflies like it’s the gold medal for going through years of hellish treatment? This shit is haaaard. And not in a, “I just have to get to the end of this year,” kinda hard. The kind of hard where day in and day out you feel horrible, you’re confused on who you even are anymore, your relationships have changed (and not all for the better) and every day feels like groundhog’s day all over again. When. will. it. end???

Wow, that got dark.

But in all seriousness — there needs to be more support. The pressure to resume a normal life after treatment needs to be CTRL + ALT + DELETED thank u very much.

So how do you cope? How do I cope with the fatigue and the on-slot of side effects that are still here years after I became a survivor? The answer is one day at a time.

Suki and I doing what we do best (laying on the couch)