Cancer Fatigue

The Good News - Absolutely not a trace of cancer in my body.

It's normal to have a loss of stamina and energy after radiation and chemo. It's almost 18 months since my treatments ended and I'm still experiencing fatigue. I asked my oncologist if still being fatigued was normal at this stage and if I should expect improvements past this point.

The answers were resounding yes's to both questions.

This is another of the areas where every individual's experience will vary. My day-to-day situation is that I'm barely able to work a 40-hour week. If I work 40 hours and leave the house one night a week, that uses up all the energy I've got for the week. A second night out during the week requires an extra hour or two of sleep a couple of nights during the week. That gets a little tricky since I can only sleep about 6 hours straight before I wake up. I have to take a nap when I get off work and then try to still get at least 6 hours of sleep overnight.

I've pretty much lost one day of every weekend. I try to get at least 16 hours of sleep one day of every weekend. A year ago, I was only able to work about 4 hours without needing some sleep, so I'm making progress. It's just very slow progress and I'm having some trouble adapting to the loss of leisure time.

A complicating factor is the difficulty with eating. I probably spend 2 to 2-1/2 hours every day eating. I don't mean taking an hour for lunch. I mean requiring an hour to physically eat a small meal.

This situation has a name. It's called Cancer Fatigue. Probably everyone who has chemo and radiation will have it to some extent. Cancer Fatigue was never mentioned as one of the side effects I should expect. It's a serious complication. In severe cases, people are unable to work, which means they lose their insurance coverage.

I've been approved for a trial by the Mayo Clinic for a potential remedy to the fatigue problem. I'm getting either ginseng or a placebo. I don't have a lot of confidence in ginseng as a "cure". The trial is being done because so many cancer survivors are self-medicating with ginseng, that a trial is needed.