Gabriella Kourie unpacks the reality of body issues during and after cancer treatment.
You can listen to this article below, or by using your favourite podcast player at pod.link/buddiesforlife
Cancer treatments can cause changes to the way your body feels and looks both during and after treatment. Some changes may only last for a short time, but others may affect you for a longer period after treatments have been completed.
Examples of physical changes may occur due to certain medications that cause general body swelling, which may lead you to feel heavier than usual.
If you’re being treated for colorectal cancer, you may have to use a stoma bag, and this may limit your confidence in partaking in social or work scenarios due to the worry of carrying equipment or fear that it may leak.
A more commonly associated physical change is the loss of hair during treatment, which for many feels like a part of their identity has been taken away.
Time is needed
Every treatment process is different, and the medications and procedures affect patients differently, based on a variety of factors. The changes may be things that loved ones and friends notice or that only you will notice. However, like every challenge in life, you need time to adjust to these changes.
It’s important to be aware of and to discuss the changes you’re experiencing with your treating doctor. These range from the easier to digest short-term changes, like hair loss and skin changes or scars from surgery, to the more serious conversations, such as loss of fertility and/or induced menopause due to targeted chemotherapy or endocrine treatment.
When faced with the choice of life-saving treatment, like chemotherapy, and then knowing the risk of the body changes that come with it, it’s not a fair choice in the slightest. With these body changes, you may feel a sense of loss.
These losses are real and it’s okay to feel upset, anger, and grief about the changes in your body. The healing process is never linear and it’s natural to have fluctuating good and bad days for as long a period as needed.
Body changes, in the way that you look and function, can also be hard for your loved ones. Seeing changes such as body weakness and loss of weight may cause them to worry more about you. In turn, this may prevent you from showing when you’re having a low day and rather keep up the appearance that you’re coping and everything is okay.
Tips to adapt and cope with body issues
When it comes to oncology rehabilitation, it’s vital to identify and talk about these body changes but the most important component is learning how to adapt and cope.
- Mourn your losses and know that it’s good to feel your emotions whether it’s anger, sadness or frustration. Your emotions are valid and you have the right to feel them all.
- Focus on your outlooks on life and how the diagnosis has made you stronger, wiser, and more careful with your time and effort.
- Movement is the most underrated prescription. Exercise, be it gentle walking to muscle group training, does not only improve your physical abilities to cope with body changes but the psychological advantages that come with exercise are even more beneficial in reducing stress, anxiety, and fatigue.
- Seek help from your treating doctors, either to refer you to another healthcare professional like a psychologist or counsellor, or even a support group with other patients experiencing similar body changes.
- Ask about products that are safe to use for skin changes, hair loss, and gastrointestinal changes.
- Do the hobbies and activities you are still able to do, to make yourself feel and relate to the person you were before treatment started.
Last but not least
Giving of your time to share your story or mentor other patients can be more healing for you than the person in need. It’s important to be in a clear and positive headspace before you are able to give of yourself and help others but as human beings, our core being is to be social.
Relating to another person or knowing that these changes have also happened to someone else can be unifying and comforting on many levels and it may be just the thing you and the other patient need to cope with the struggles of body changes.
MEET THE EXPERT – Gabriella Kourie
Gabriella Kourie is a qualified occupational therapist, specialising in the field of oncology and breast cancer rehabilitation. She is also a certified lymphoedema therapist.
Header image by Freepik