I was recently been diagnosed with a grade 4 brain tumour and had emergency surgery at the beginning of October.
I'm recovering really, really well and am home alone now to recover.
I have just had my 1st course of oral chemotherepy and will be starting radiotherapy on 18th Nov.
It's Monday morning and everyone has gone back to work.
I was a full-time worker and I'm feeling that I'm missing that structure to my day. I could just stay in bed and snooze the day away...but I don't want to.
I do have a list of phone calls and online research to do, lots of reading and tv catchup viewing.
Any advice on how I can organise my recovery days??
Welcome and congratulations you sound like you are doing really well.
I've not had brain surgery just a fall. But fatigue has been a major issue, and recovery has been slow - frustratingly so. But when I did get to see a neurologist that was his main advice - accept recovery will be slow. I would say be gentle and realistic, maybe a loose structure - regular time to get up, some physical activity, mental activity, relaxation and let your body guide you. If it is a bad day and you need to rest, then give your body what it needs. Your main job is to recover physically and in every way.
There is some amazing research evidence that being out in nature or even looking at nature helps the body heal so if you can have a little walk every day that might be beneficial, or gentle pottering if you have a garden. And make sure you find things to laugh too - that is good medicine too (as the Bible said). Look forward to hearing advice from others.
It can be difficult if you are used to the external structure and feedback that a job gives you to be without that especially as you live on your own. Perhaps you can pop in here - usually someone posting and you may be able to support them.
Good luck with a successful recovery to full health.
You are welcome Nicola look forward to hearing how you go.
Hi there and welcome.
Glad you are doing so well, and well done for being so positive and wanting to organise your days. One thing I would stress is make sure you do get enough rest - I often don't realise how tired I am until I have hit over tired and then can't sleep.
I am struggling a lot with motivating myself and I am trying to write things in my diary to get me to do something. Alternating between tasks can be helpful to avoid boredom too.
Good luck
• in reply to
Thank you for your reply. Being overtired and not being able to sleep is definitely something that I want to work on this week. I am definitely doing too much as I feel so much better than I did before the operation.
I try to structure things and have a big diary with things to do listed ie. iron shirts, pay credit card bills and appointments listed.. Also a note of when I've got to send a birthday card out etc., as the others have said a trip out even if it's only around the block is good.
Make sure that you leave gaps so if you are feeling a bit flat one day you can have an afternoon nap or quiet time with some music to recharge the batteries.
I used to take a photograph of something nice every day, I have a nice album of flowers and cute pets and things I wouldn't have looked at twice 'before'.
To be honest I didn't organise my days when recoveing, I most slept or dozed on the sofa.
What's your hobbies? I like bikes so I started going for gentle rides, moving on to more ambitious ones. And this gave the week a structure, I was also lucky in that my work let me come back as a phased return I started back on 4hrs a week and slowly ramped it up.
very good advice about resting and sleeping. I do need to do more and not worry so much about feeling lazy or getting depressed with the inactivity.
I like painting and arty stuff, reading, Internet research, woodland or city walking, driving, visiting heritage sites, photography, watching hill climbing and going to vintage car shows.
Going out on a bike sounds good, I like that kind of structure to the day.
I used to go jogging at the park (more like fast walking) on my way home from work before all this brain tumour stuff kicked off. I won't be planning on doing that again this side of Christmas.
Best of luck returning to work. Don't forget to be kind to yourself and rest when you can ok.
Beware of being tempted to take on too much as you're feeling better now.
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