Energy

Christine Miserandino, on her blog, https://butyoudontlooksick.com/ developed spoon theory to help explain how persons with chronic illness have to manage life. Essentially the spoon theory says that the energy you have for the day can be equated to spoons. Somedays you wake up with three spoons and that is okay. Until you realize you need 3 spoons just to wake up, shower and make sure the animals are fed.

The theory says that when you have a chronic illness (or, I would contend, when you are traveling through cancerworld) you have to be conscious about managing your energy and acknowledging that you may not be able to predict how much energy you have on any particular day may be a healthy way to manage life.

This idea has also been explained on TikTok by using a gaming analogy. You may be able to have strong "attacks" in a video game, however using that "attack" will deplete your health bar to the point that you can't reenter the game productively until you get a health elixir or you sit out for a mandatory rest period. You can still do awesome things. However you may not be able to do those awesome things as often, or for as long, as other players.

Whatever way you think you think about it, the truth is that for those in cancerworld, having to think about what we are able to do in a day, rather than only thinking about what we want to do, is a reality. For many of us, who are used to being able-bodied, this new reality can be hard to acknowledge or manage. Some of us will spend a lot of time asking ourselves, "what is wrong with me, I can't do A,B,C that I used to do with ease!?!" Probably there is nothing wrong with us.

We are simply living in a new reality. And, for many of us, this reality will be transitory. Once we are through treatment we may get to return to our former way of functioning where we get to do what we want to do, rather than having to plan for what we are able to do. That is a lovely hope to hold onto.

And, while we are holding on to hope, we might take this "limited energy" time to adapt and figure out what is important to us. What are the things that we must either find the spoons for, or remember to ask for help to complete? What are the things we have done out of routine or habit that we may be able to stop doing while we are traveling through cancerworld.

A small personal note: I am an avid (and experienced) knitter. At one point in my cancerworld journey I stopped knitting. Was it because I had not figured out how to manage the neuropathy that I had? Was it because I was actually depressed and wasn't processing that very well? I am not sure. For me, the important thing was to remember that I just couldn't do that thing I loved, right now. And to assume that I might, in the future, be able/motivated/rested/ enough to resume. I resisted seeing it as "one more thing I had lost to cancerworld."

When we have to manage our energy one of the best things we can do is be kind to ourselves. To celebrate when we have energy to do things and to rest when we do not.

This might also be true for folks who aren't traveling through cancerworld.