This will be my 4th New Year since my diagnosis and for the first time my resolution is not just to make it to 2025. That’s been my cop out resolution every year since 2020.
For 2024 I will have just one resolution and I’ll tell you what it is at the end of this post but first I wanted to give you some background.
Never Google your symptoms
When I was initially diagnosed I did what I expect anyone would do. I started to search on the internet to find out as much as I could about Renal Cell Carcinoma, Kidney Cancer to you and me and the findings were terrifying. It was September 2020 and I convinced myself I wouldn’t see Christmas 2020.
I read stories of patients very rarely making it to 5 years following diagnosis. 80% don’t make it to 5 years I was reading!
I imagined a very bleak outlook.
Then when I actually spoke to oncology nurses, professors and doctors I was given a very different outlook.
Cancer stories on the internet are out of date
Better treatment, better prognosis. Then I started treatment, and responded well and it was working.
But in the back of my head was that initial 5 years dark cloud. I know it makes no sense but it stayed there and has been there ever since.
Every year my goal was to make it to the end of the year. But this lead to me just waiting for the inevitable.
Side effects are an excuse for self pity
I had regular treatment. Every 4 weeks and regular side effects. Constant chronic fatigue, occasional joint aches, diarrhoea. I found doing anything exhausting. So I stopped doing most things. “Listen to your body” I was told. My body was saying go to bed all the time. So I did.
I spent hours in bed every day for the first few months. Then when I was told the treatment was working better than anyone expected I was still tired all the time. The treatment was keeping me alive so this was my life now.
Everyone still kept telling me listen to your body.
A viscous cycle
I stopped living and instead was just existing. So when each new year came around I really felt that it was all I could do to just survive the year.
I was too tired to exercise so I stopped all exercise. I put on weight. Lots of weight. It took me a long time to acknowledge that I was contributing to the tiredness and fatigue because of the weight gain.
This cycle got worse and worse but I never did anything about it. I have cancer so it’s ok to be tired I told myself.
The year I became a hermit
2023 has been my worst year. I’m winning the cancer battle but losing the “living” battle.
Because I worked from home every day and had no reason to leave the house. I declined social events, when I did go out I was so tired it would take a few days to recover. More and more I made decisions to not go out. That 5 year anniversary was getting close so why bother. I went 10 days once this year without leaving the house at all.
I know what I have to do
I hate it. I hate the cyclical lack of energy whenever I try to go for a walk, or exert myself in any way but I have to change my outlook and way of life.
When you have zero fitness levels any more and are carrying more weight than ever it’s extremely hard to motivate yourself and get started. But this week something changed.
During the Christmas break our dog walker has been on holiday so I had to walk the dogs. Something I still try and do but can never do more than a couple of miles.
The first day I found a flat route and walked the dogs and found as usual I had no energy. One foot in front of the other was hard work. But I kept going and just walked really slowly.
The next day I did the same route. Still hard work but not quite as hard. Then a break for a couple of days as the dogs were walked by someone else.
When I walked them again I found it quite a bit easier. The next day I chose a longer route, still flat and found it very manageable.
So it is literally baby steps. It doesn’t have to be far or fast but I need to get moving. I need to get out.
My resolution for 2024…
Is to stop just existing and to start actually living again.
I’m not setting any wild goals other than I will keep improving. My outlook on life, my fitness, my energy levels, even my social life.
I’ve said it publicly now so will look pretty stupid if I get to the end of 2024 and nothing has changed.
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