Not Taking Things Lying Down

I had an interesting chat yesterday with Emma, who is the lovely lady who comes round to clean our house once a week. She reminded me that it's OK to admit you're having a bad day, and that not doing much is not a sign of failure. This got me thinking a lot.
Yes it is OK for me to have bad days where I do virtually nothing, yesterday was one of those days (where even the act of getting up and dressed was more effort than I could muster without having to lie down again). However, I find these days very frustrating, for 2 reasons.

1. (The psychological one) I'm quite sensitive to accusations of being lazy. My perception when I was growing up (which may or may not be accurate), was that people thought that I was lazy, so I've tried quite deliberately not to be, although I'm not sure I always succeed. I like to be doing things, and I feel guilty doing nothing. I feel bad that in the last few weeks I've not been doing anything "useful", I've not been able to continue working as much as I would have liked, and I've not been doing anything else particularly constructive either. I know that this is a bit silly, given my circumstances, but it's difficult to change your conditioning.

2. (The slightly darker, morbid one) I feel I should continue to be as active as possible, because, quite frankly these may be the best days left to me. I may not get better, I may get worse, and look back on these days of relative leisure and wish I had done more. It's not a thought that comes to the front of my mind very often, but it's there lurking in the background.

So, I am trying to stay active and do useful things, but I think I have to admit that not coming up to my fairly high standards is not the end of the world at the moment. I've decided to start writing little To Do lists, to cover stuff to do on a particular day, or in a particular week. I like lists, I love the feeling of crossing something off as done. I will (try) not (to) beat myself up over not completing everything. Some things will be simple, some thing will be fun, some things will, knowing me, be completely unachievable, but it will give me a feeling of purpose.

Today on my list I have:
Make plum jam
Make apple crumble
Write blog post
Research curtain fabric and shower screens

And I can almost cross off one already. My lists will often have food based items in them, as my brain files these as both useful and fun (and tasty, food is very important to me at the moment, even when I'm not feeling well).

Aside from my self-analysis, I'm feeling OK a week out from chemo number 3. Again more tired than rounds 2 or 1, and recovered from the sickness that afflicted me on the first day. My hair is still largely in place despite not using the cold cap, but I'm, expecting quite a lot will fall out before the next treatment (there seems to be a 3 week lag between treatment and shedding). Yesterday I was simply exhausted all day, but today I have woken up feeling much perkier.