Preparing For Chemotherapy

I guess there are three or more components of preparing for a new round of chemotherapy treatments.
The first would be psychological, getting your head around the fact you need to have more treatment, either because of recurrence or progression - unless you deal with the psychological aspects then dealing with anything else gets harder. For me in a way the psychological aspect gets easier as time goes on. I am now on my 5th chemo in less than 3 and a half years and there is some level of acceptance now that this is part of my life. You also need to check your family's and friends' reaction to the news as well sometimes they have a harder time than you do accepting that you need more treatment. I go to counselling offered by the Cancer Society and I find that good for just checking 'my head's in the right place' before starting chemo.
Secondly, I try to be as healthy as possible, apart from the cancer. As my fitness had suffered from luck of exercise while on Xeloda, this time I enrolled in a 'Cancer Wellfit' course offered free by one of the gym franchises that gives you a light exercise regime tailored to your abilitiies and I have been surprised how quickly my fitness levels have picked up. If such a programme is not available, any amount of light physical exercise, walking, aqua-aerobics and such like is beneficial if you can do it.
Thirdly, would be organisational - I try to get big jobs done and out of the way before chemo treatment starts as to ease the load when I am not feeling well. I try to find out what likely sideeffects will be and schedule activities for what are likely to be my 'good days'. I am lucky that my children are grown up and my husband is a good cook so that I do not have to worry about organisisng meals and other household things in advance. I think if you have smaller children accept all the help you can get with meals, childminding and the like. I guess there are three or more components of preparing for a new round of chemotherapy treatments.
The first would be psychological, getting your head around the fact you need to have more treatment, either because of recurrence or progression - unless you deal with the psychological aspects then dealing with anything else gets harder. For me in a way the psychological aspect gets easier as time goes on. I am now on my 5th chemo in less than 3 and a half years and there is some level of acceptance now that this is part of my life. You also need to check your family's and friends' reaction to the news as well sometimes they have a harder time than you do accepting that you need more treatment. I go to counselling offered by the Cancer Society and I find that good for just checking 'my head's in the right place' before starting chemo.
Secondly, I try to be as healthy as possible, apart from the cancer. As my fitness had suffered from luck of exercise while on Xeloda, this time I enrolled in a 'Cancer Wellfit' course offered free by one of the gym franchises that gives you a light exercise regime tailored to your abilitiies and I have been surprised how quickly my fitness levels have picked up. If such a programme is not available, any amount of light physical exercise, walking, aqua-aerobics and such like is beneficial if you can do it.
Thirdly, would be organisational - I try to get big jobs done and out of the way before chemo treatment starts as to ease the load when I am not feeling well. I try to find out what likely sideeffects will be and schedule activities for what are likely to be my 'good days'. I am lucky that my children are grown up and my husband is a good cook so that I do not have to worry about organisisng meals and other household things in advance. I think if you have smaller children accept all the help you can get with meals, childminding and the like.