When Chemo is the New Black

Episode 28: On Being a Human Lab Rat

Episode 27: Honesty in Treatment

I discuss ways in which more honesty about treatment can increase hope, decrease the risk of medically induced PTSD, and increase patient trust in treating doctors. I also look at some of the ways to increase honesty in treatment if this is currently lacking.

Episode 26: Dealing with Major Abdominal Surgery

Planning to get a tummy scar that looks like you wrestle with sharks? This episode looks at how to deal with the Mother of All Surgeries, from a practical and emotional standpoint. And for bragging rights afterwards ;)

Episode 25: Bad News Survival Plan

If you are dealing with cancer, the chances are that you already know how to survive bad news. This episode talks through the phases of possible reactions that can come from getting bad news, and some of the ways to make this process easier, faster, and hopefully have less of a difficult longer term impact. 

Episode 24: Safety in Changing Relationships

Cancer will shake up your relationships, some will get stronger, others may be weaker or disappear, it's a good idea to take none of the shenanigans that can occur personally. This episode looks at some of the ways your relationships can change, warning signs for exploitative or unhelpful relationships, and how to protect yourself from toxicity and strengthen positive influences while maintaining yourself as a social being.

Episode 23: About food and weight

How to eat for your current gut functioning, and still enjoy yourself. Also what to do when something goes wrong digestively speaking...(as well as contacting a dr and cancer-specialised nutritionist asap). 

Episode 22: I'll wear what I want! (and this includes hair...)

This episode is at the request of a lovely friend, who said, basically, if we feel like shit why shouldn't we be allowed to look like shit? Why is there so much pressure from everyone to keep looking 'normal'? 
If ever there was a time to relax the beauty standards for women, I would have thought that chemo and cancer treatment was probably it. 
It does seem like a lot of the well-meant messaging about 'taking care of yourself during chemo' seems to be about how to keep looking normal (despite undergoing some pretty intensive treatment).  There's also, hopefully, some emphasis on maintaining the functionality of skin and nails. The grief people feel when their visual selves change drastically during cancer treatment could be dealt with more constructively. By this I mean, why not take it as an opportunity to reinvent our sense of selves, to invest in a sense of self that isn't about our visual selves, and to become stronger from this. Plus, it's the ideal moment to thoughtfully think about how much energy you want to invest in your appearances, in which ways, and under what circumstances. 
Continuing to try and look 'normal' works for a minority of cancer patients, (and more power to these people, keep it up!), but for a lot of other people it sets them up for angst, shame, failure, a massive waste of energy and time, and at the extreme end, social isolation and maybe some deeply unconvincingly drawn on eyebrows.
Why don't we make eyebrow-less moments more socially acceptable in the public space? This is the ideal time to challenge the beauty myth and reclaim our power and worth as human beings, rather than just our surface appearances. 
This episode looks at how to position yourself psychologically with regards to all of this in a way that suits you, to let yourself feel the grief linked to visual changes when it comes, but then to take the opportunity to reinvent, to find any tiny positive point in any of the weird body fluctuations that you are going through, and to try and have fun with that, rather than just trying to look 'normal' and how you used to. 
It also seeks to normalise why I can't wear a wig and have a reasonable conversation at the same time, and the perspective that maybe not looking 'normal' is a useful social intervention that might address the underlying issue of too strongly identifying with a body subject to constant physical change, a body which everyone else seems to think they have the right to comment on, still, at my age and with a hypothetically incurable cancer and sometimes green skin tone. 
At the very least, please take this as your invitation to just relax a bit more while dealing with all of the weird and wonderful changes that come with cancer shenanigans and to make other peoples' reactions about them, and not your problem to have to manage away. Unless it suits you to 'pass', and then thinking about when and why, and getting the right dress up gear is useful for you. My perspective is that it's useful for it to be a conscious choice to do this when it suits, and in a way that suits you, rather than an implicitly assumed and socially policed obligation to try and look 'normal'. 

Episode 21: Scanxiety

As a way of convincingly distracting myself from my own scanxiety, this episode talks through some ideas about what to do about the anxiety that can happen leading into a follow-up scan after finishing front line treatment. 
 

Episode 20: What to look for in a good doctor

This episode talks through what the major researchers, patients, and myself think are signs of a good doctor. 
I also talk through some practical advice (with my psychologist's hat on) on how to try and make appointments more effective for communication if, like me, you have difficulty thinking straight or having a reasonable discussion with a doctor when you are seriously ill, very stressed, or on heavy painkillers.

Episode 18 : Insomnia

Insomnia can be a massive challenge for anyone, but is a particularly difficult and common aspect of dealing with cancer and going through treatment. There are many things that can cause this, for example,  strong emotions, worry, and the cancer itself can cause difficulties sleeping due to pain, being uncomfortable, and changes in body functions that make sleep harder. 'Dexamethazoning', the sleepless high after chemo plus steroids, is so much of a thing that it has it's own term :)
This episode talks about what to do about all of this if you find yourself regularly awake at the wrong time, using common psychology techniques for insomnia (including sleep hygiene), also a rundown on some potentially useful herbs,  some short term medication if its absolutely necessary (and how to use this wisely instead of getting addicted).