It’s difficult enough trying to look and feel your best when facing the regular day-to-day challenges of modern life. When you add additional hardships – like the toll that both cancer and its treatment can take on the body – it can seem almost impossible.
Whether it’s surgery or chemotherapy, cancer treatments are notoriously draining. The first can leave you with visible scars and even remove important parts of your body. One of the most famous side effects of chemotherapy is hair loss, although that doesn’t happen to everyone. Both can leave you feeling exhausted, during both the procedure and recovery.
That’s even before we get to the psychological and emotional effects. There’s also the fear and uncertainty of not knowing whether the treatment will work, the possible impact on school or work, the financial cost, and the strain it might put on your relationship with your friends and family.
There are specialist counseling services and other programs designed for people recovering from cancer, so it may be worth seeing if any operate in your area. You need doctors and therapists with the right expertise to recognize the unique challenges you may be facing and tailor solutions accordingly.
It often starts with taking things slowly. No one expects you to be at your best. You need to allow yourself time to heal before you can even start trying to rebuild. Patience is important, and so is being willing to ask for and accept help, something the more independently-minded among us sometimes struggle to do.
Some people use tattoos to cover scars. Some will have prosthetics fitted if they’re visibly missing body parts. Wigs are available in all sorts of colors and styles if you do lose your hair, and some of them are almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Then there’s the old advice about diet and exercise, which is always the most important part of looking and feeling better.
Diet is more difficult if you feel nauseous, and exercise is more difficult when you’re physically and mentally exhausted and in pain. That’s where patience and starting slowly come in again. Just a walk in the fresh air and a light snack can be a way of making progress.
It may be more difficult to look and feel better when recovering from cancer, but with the right support, you can do it.
