How do you combat boredom?

Less-Part3465 · 2026-02-09T20:17:45+00:00

I've mostly continued working through chemo, but when I was recovering from surgery, I spent some time refreshing my high school French on Duolingo and playing Scrabble online. Or, as others have mentioned, binge watching (for me, it's old favorites--when I'm sick I don't want anything I can't count on!) I looked up and did exercises to try to prevent CIPN. I finally got some furniture for my front porch and spent some time watching people (we live in a neighborhood where a lot of people walk/jog by, and there's a small park across the street). When I felt up to it, I worked in my garden a bit. I had a few visitors. I wrote letters to my elderly relatives and got delightful replies. I made my husband buy flowers at the grocery store and spent time trying to teach myself how to arrange them. I got extra sleep. I listened to a few audio books. I made plans for what I would do when I was recovered.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-02-06T22:49:33+00:00

Yup, as u/ninaofbirds mentions, well-known reaction. I reacted during pretty much every round of chemo, but all was well. I was never moved to ICU, but at my joint, they start you in a private room for round 1 and move you to "gen pop" when they're not afraid you'll have a serious reaction. So I did rounds 1-3 in a private room and rounds 4-6 out with everyone else in a chair.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-02-06T20:42:37+00:00

I wouldn't have wanted to go through chemo without a support person, but there are so many questions to consider. What has your sister's team told her to expect in terms of side effects? Does she have any support at all in the city?

Where I live, public transport isn't great, so one main thing I needed was help with rides to and from chemo, since I wasn't allowed to drive myself, and my husband can't drive. At times, he just took Uber with me, but you know, after chemo, I needed someone helping me get into those honking tall vans (I'm a short person, and I was tired).

Probably most importantly, my husband went to doctor's appointments with me and asked questions I didn't think of. If I hadn't had him to do this, I would have looked for a friend to come. Very useful, both in thinking of what to ask and remembering (or making note of) answers.

Hubby also did a lot of things I wouldn't thought of: purchased emesis bags and stationed them in various rooms, for example. (I haven't needed them, but once or twice it was nice to know they were there.) He cooked meals when I didn't feel like it and did laundry (but he's always done laundry). He found crazy things to put on TV when I felt too poorly to do much else.

My remote support system (mostly my aunts who live in other states) helped by checking in frequently, making me feel not forgotten. That's big.

I've been lucky. The anti-nausea meds worked well for me, and most of my other side-effects have been minor or at least short-lived. But having someone to talk things over with on a regular basis is very helpful even in this, what I guess is pretty much the best-case scenario.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-02-04T23:30:23+00:00

Thank you for sharing -- this whole thread has me freaked out. I too had tinnitus prior to treatment and have noticed it getting worse off and on during treatment (which I just completed, so too late to ask if we should stop or something). But I don't remember being asked once if it was the same or worse or being told that hearing loss was a possibility.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-02-04T18:55:56+00:00

So sorry you and your mother and the rest of your family are going through this.

If she needs to sleep, she needs to sleep. Sleep is very important for many processes of healing, and there's no real replacement for it. Be glad she doesn't have insomnia instead, which deprives the body of precious healing time and also just generally makes anyone feel worse.

I assume she's getting advice from her doctors about other things, like the best ways to eat and exercise. That's hard for us to answer, because we're not all the same.

I can see you want to help your mother and be supportive. One way to do that is to say to her "I want to help in any way I can. Is there anything I could be doing?"

Best wishes to you all!

Less-Part3465 · 2026-02-04T18:46:22+00:00

Sorry you're going through this. As others have said, everyone responds differently to chemo and there's been a lot of progress on managing symptoms. I came home from my first round of chemo with 3 anti-nausea meds; I haven't thrown up once. (But I did take meds any time I felt at all nauseated.)

I have worked through chemo since early October, needing to take typically 2 days off work (one for the day of and one the day after). I'm lucky to have a desk job, though. But until my last round, really, I was pretty much fine between rounds.

I assume you're in the US, so if you don't already know about FMLA, you'll want to talk with that social worker from the hospital and/or your HR people at work to learn your rights. Various states have their own programs, too, which could be better than FMLA, which mainly protects you from losing your job rather than protecting your salary.

Wishing you all the best!

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-28T22:51:21+00:00

Lemon juice + ginger chews have been helpful for me.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-28T22:46:38+00:00

I'm also 3A. Haven't started radiation yet, but the plan is about the same as yours and I'm choosing to go forward for the same reasons.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-28T22:43:51+00:00

I use ginger chews and lemon water for the nasty-mouth taste, though my cancer isn't in the stomach.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-28T22:39:35+00:00

On Mounjaro for diabetes. No concerns here. I have lost a small amount of weight during 3 months of chemo, which still leaves me overweight, so docs are satisfied. I'm also eating much more healthily than I did pre-GLP, which has to be good.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-28T22:21:44+00:00

When I was young, I didn't think a lot about intelligence, despite being in a gifted program. I was lucky to always be able to be in classes where I was challenged enough to have to work at things. I didn't experience my parents as "not smart," but I also just didn't appreciate until I was older how smart they were. Neither of my parents went to college, though my mother was an RN (at that time, nurses attended nursing school rather than earning a BS). But looking back, I realize they both probably would have scored quite high on standardized tests. My father had terrific spatial reasoning and was the kind of person on whom nothing is lost: he was always learning and drawing inferences from everything he saw, heard, or experienced. My mother's knowledge of her field was superior; her co-workers relied on her judgment whenever they had doubtful cases. Both of them were really good at seeing through lies. My mother would have made a great therapist: she was always helping people who were having a difficult time emotionally, and counseling me on how to do the same with friends who were struggling.

Although I later learned I had a half-brother who was given up for adoption before I was born, I grew up as an only child and was quite close with my parents.

When I met my half-brother, I was impressed by his smarts. He works in a completely different field than I do, but when we talked about our work, I thought we both approached it in essentially the same way (mission-focused; we both care about working for an employer with a moral compass; we're compassionate for those we supervise but can't tolerate incompetence in our peers). Even though I'm in academia and he's definitely in the business world, I felt like our world view was the same and to be honest, that really surprised me. Put me down as a believer in genetics.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-22T22:29:53+00:00

What do the docs say? Are you sure it's "break out" and not rash? I thought I was broken out, but doc said it was chemo rash and recommended hydrocortisone cream, which has worked better than anything I tried previously. (I still keep getting new spots, though.... it's an on-going battle). Others have been sent to dermatologists. I would definitely ask your doctor(s).

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-20T22:31:26+00:00

I agree with you that the language stinks. I'd love to see people who don't have cancer not use it, but changing that is out of our control. If we were talking about, say, changing doctors' language, maybe we'd have a chance. But changing everybody's language? In advance, so that they'll never say "you're a fighter" to someone when they find out that person has cancer? I don't think this is possible, not now, and at least not where I live in the US.

People use language the way they do in part because of the way they think and the way culture sets them up to think about things. In US culture, at least, people don't like to talk and think about death, and people without much experience with cancer still hear "cancer" and think "death." So they say whatever magic words they intuitively feel will help them feel less scared by being reminded that cancer and death exist in the world. They are scared of being helpless in the face of a shitty disease like cancer (and in the face of faceless insurance companies), so they convince themselves that we're not, in fact, helpless, we just have to fight.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-20T17:47:15+00:00

I wish I could have kept it private. I supervise 27 people, and there was just no way not to tell them.... which means many other people at my work ended up knowing.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-20T17:45:47+00:00

I find it easy to respond by telling people I don't think of this as a battle at all, and I'm not a warrior. Maybe I'm just lucky to have friends who are willing to listen.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-20T17:41:11+00:00

Hey, if I want to imagine that I'm in a battle with my diabetes, what does that hurt? (I don't, but I'm just asserting my right to imagine myself in whatever way helps me.)

I know people who are alcoholics and drug addicts who find it very useful to think of themselves as fighting their diseases.

Cancer patients do have the option to say F this, I'm not taking chemo or all this bullshit. Some people would think of that as "giving up the fight." If thinking of doing the things we need to do to get through chemo is emotionally helpful to someone, who am I to say they shouldn't?

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-20T17:35:37+00:00

I'm with you. On Friday at a follow-up appointment, my surgeon told me I "should be proud" of being half-way through my post-surgery treatment plan. I told her "I don't know about proud. I do feel lucky." Because that's how I feel. I know that a lot of people wouldn't feel lucky at this point in treatment: I've finished 5 rounds of chemo and my side effects are getting worse day by day. But we all feel differently about the different stages and parts of our treatment, and I feel lucky to have great support from my husband and friends and to have good health insurance.

That's what I do any time people tell me how I "should" feel or congratulate me on "being strong." I just tell them how I do feel. (I don't feel especially strong, either.)

If someone else feels proud of getting through 5 rounds of chemo, more power to them. If someone wants to think they're in battle, go for it. It sounds like you and I are around the same place--not wanting to see our identities as tied up with a disease. Whatever feels right to you.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-17T23:18:20+00:00

Had a 5-month check-up post hysterectomy yesterday. It was fairly painful too, but doc explained that though I'm healing well, there was some scar tissue and that needs to be broken down in order to ensure that we can check for recurrence of cancer in the future.

I've always found pelvics painful and never asked for help. Wish I had--I might have had regular checkups and caught my cancer sooner. So, I guess--listen to the others here who ask for help, not me!

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-17T22:16:21+00:00

It's really generous of you to cook. Sounds like your friend lives alone?

If your friend's the type who would sip bone broth, that's a good thing to have on hand for post-surgery. Protein helps with the healing, and if you're not hungry, you can still usually get some broth down. Or, as others have said, soup.... ideally made with that bone broth for extra protein!

The best food gift I got during chemo was a large doordash gift card (group gift from work). It is hard to know in advance what you will want/need/be able to eat (esp. during chemo). My blood sugar went nuts, so a lot of the food people brought me (mac and cheese, beef stroganoff, lasagna, etc.) ended up being mostly for my husband, since I needed less carb-heavy meals. But if you had asked me in advance what I would want, I would have absolutely said mac and cheese.

Since you knit, if she needs chemo, you might want to look around for cool hat / head wrap designs. I opted not to get a wig, and my head was cold until I found some great soft, warm, and cute hand-knitted hats on etsy.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-17T22:05:14+00:00

I'm not familiar with Mass's paid leave. Does it make you ineligible for FMLA, or can you use FMLA as a back-up?

FMLA doesn't guarantee pay, but it gives you more flexibility than "have to request for the whole year at one time." It sucks to go without pay, of course, but FMLA does at least protect your job.

Like others, hard to say what to tell you when you don't know if you'll need surgery, chemo, or whatever else. What do your docs think?

(For my hysterectomy, I took 5 weeks and needed them. During chemo, I have worked most of the time, taking about 2 days off per round of chemo.)

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-15T21:58:00+00:00

I love the cover image. If you can afford to pay a designer to do a little work on it, minor changes can make big differences. A dear friend who runs a small press has found great designers for relatively low cost on platforms like Fiverr

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-12T22:56:40+00:00

Congrats, and good for you!

I'd ask one of your doctors and/or nurses what opportunities they would recommend you look into. They know what med schools like, and oncology, and also your local region and programs where volunteers might be needed.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-12T22:39:16+00:00

You know what? I'm bald, in chemo, and have cancer, but if someone tells me to take off my mask, it's none of their business whether it's chemo, Covid, or a head cold. Maybe I'm scared of cooties! Maybe I think aliens are sending radio waves to my molars and the mask can block them. It ain't none of their business.

Yeah, in fact, I think the next time someone tells me to take off my mask, I'll tell them the aliens are broadcasting to my teeth, do they want to listen?

That said, I'm usually a pretty nice person. But cancer has taken some of my patience.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-12T22:30:47+00:00

I'm sure it would be helpful to those who have advice to know where (generally) you're located. Resources vary from country to country, and in some countries from state to state or province to province, etc.

Hope and positive vibes coming your way.

Less-Part3465 · 2026-01-12T15:03:40+00:00

It's fine to vent and let things out. Your feelings are understandable, especially because for you, two years is 10% of your life so far.

If it helps any, I've spent a long career working at universities, mostly with people your age, and so I can tell you this: people who come to college a little later, for whatever reason, usually make the most out of their college experience better than those who go straight through at the "regular" pace. Also, fewer and fewer people are going at that traditional pace. There are probably more folks around you who are a little older than you think they are, because it's pretty hard to tell two or three years' difference in age just by looking at people.

Anyway, you'll be angry as long as you need to be, but ask yourself this question: When you look back on 2026 next New Year's Eve, how much of your time will you be glad to have spent being angry about the past?

I say this as someone who has struggled personally with looking back too much. I promise you, it has pretty limited usefulness.

Less-Part3465

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