As I've said before, it's like driving a car on ice. Every correction I make for a symptom or an issue risks a more disastrous overcorrection in the other direction. Try to miss the pothole, find myself heading for the ditch. Steer away from the ditch, head for a sheer wall being climbed by a roped-together team of widows and orphans fresh from the bus I just ran off the road. So to speak. (Metaphors tortured professionally here, no appointment needed.)
Two main lessons learned:
When I take Imodium (or any analogous medication), I must take a laxative in the morning to make sure I get a timely system restart. Regardless of whether I feel like it. That's a checklist item now.
Also, I can only generalize from the experience of each chemo infusion round. What works in one round doesn't always translate well into the next round. This means I never really know what I'm doing. I have to accept that, and be accordingly flexible when making self-care decisions. Even with a checklist in play.
I tell you, cancer is one giant set of Valuable Life Lessons™. Some days I feel like I'm living in a Hallmark Movie of the Week cliche.
