Treatment plan winding down as coronavirus goes up

This week of Mar 8-13 began with a fatigue build up that peaked last weekend and necessitated a slow down to rest most of the weekend and into Monday, last chemotherapy day, and Tuesday.

Moving along the journey

The ACCESS exercise program protocol requires me to assess my level of wellness before the exercise workout. I assessed on Tuesday, that I would not be working out. On Wednesday, for my radiation treatment, energy was returning and by Thursday, I had my radiation treatment, exercise session, and lunch at an excellent Dartmouth cafe with Farris and a very tasty soup. Yesterday, some of the responses in Nova Scotia to the coronavirus began to be more noticeable. (Toilet tissue sold out at Costco). The public health measures to contain the spread of the virus and reduce contact between people are today resulting in recommendations around hand washing, self monitoring, and self isolation for 14 days if you will be returning from travel to the US and Europe. I will have my last radiation appointment on Monday and will not be scheduled to return for a PET scan for about 4 weeks. This will improve my immune response at the time when the province expects some cases of COVID 19.



The journey in the Nova Scotia Cancer Centre for the past weeks has shown me how good we can be at caring for each other when in need. The spiritual reading I do frequently addresses our striving to transform from closed and selfish people to open, selfless, empathetic, and generous companions for our brothers and sisters. I am interested in “mindfulness” and the neuroscience around the process by which we are able to see our actions not be driven by the instinctive response of the “reptile brain”, or amygdala, but be transferred to the (PFC) prefrontal cortex where the often fear stimulated reaction to “fight, flee, or freeze” is given the opportunity to be dealt with rationally. I share the opinion of many that the opposite of Love is fear and the efforts made in so many ways in the Cancer Centre by health professionals, admin assistants, spouses, friends, children, brothers, sisters, grandchildren, other patients to comfort and care, especially for the those with fear, is hope for our ability to act during the coming COVID 19 times to care for the health of those most likely to be adversely affected by this virus.

Thank you for your continued support.