Day #6 – Meditate

Today’s task from the I’m Too Busy to Take Care of Myself Challenge:

Day #6 – Meditate

Meditate, or as I like to call it, Zzzzzzzzzz, is supposed to make me more aware of my body and calm my mind, thereby reducing my cortisol levels.

Yeah.  I fell asleep.  I set an alarm on my phone for 15 minutes, and Googled “mediation for beginners” and had the best of intentions to be mindful of nothingness, but after running through a to-do list for my mother’s medical items and reminding myself to go to my daughter’s orientation night I totally conked out.  But maybe it was bad timing.  I did it when we got back from my mother’s first infusion.

So let me tell you about chemo.  The first thing they did was weigh in the patients, and it was like the reverse of every weigh in I’ve ever been to.  People who gained weight were giving the nurses high-fives and people who lost weight looked embarrassed and disappointed.  The room had about 6 reclining chairs; some of them with attached TV screens.  There are also regular waiting room chairs next to the recliners for the caregivers.

I told the nurse that my mom has very small veins and the IV needs to be in her hand with a butterfly needle.  She said she would and then proceeded to use a larger needle, which of course, didn’t go in right, so it took two nurses to do the needle insertion three times to draw the blood for the lab work.  Grr. 

Seeing my mom in pain was really tough to watch.  But once the IV was set up and other people came for treatment, mom started to calm down.  We figured out the TV so she was able to watch her soap, The Young & The Restless.  The room was filled with a collection of people, women and men, pretty much every ethnicity, and ranged in ages from late 40’s to 80’s.  One woman wore a “Cancer Sucks” t-shirt.  Everyone had hair, so either they were new to chemo, like my mom, or wigs look incredibly natural these days.

Here’s something interesting – The American Cancer Society will give one free wig to chemo patients.  That’s pretty cool, because Medicare doesn’t cover the cost for wigs, which apparently range from $300 – $600 if you’re buying them on your own.  I’ve been playing voicemail tag with them to set up the fitting.

We got home, four and a half hours later, and she had some unpleasant side effects from the treatment.  I helped her out, got her settled in, and then helped myself to the local McDonald’s.  It didn’t even taste good.

Then I Googled, “how do I stop emotional eating?”  The advice said to drink black tea and try to massage my foot, as both would reduce the cortisol level in my body, which was the biological reason for me craving sugar, salt, fat and carbs.  Then I remembered that meditating a) also reduced cortisol and b) was my challenge for the day and c) Zzzzzzzzzzz.

So how about you?  Did you try to meditate today?  Do you have any tips for how I can stay awake while meditating?  FYI – tomorrow’s challenge is to write a letter of gratitude to someone.

Lisa 

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