My Saga with Leukemia

Energy Depletion

While "exercise" was encouraged to keep my energy level up, I found this to be impossible. The staff brought in a treadmill, placing it between my bed and the wall by the window...the only available space it would fit in. During that first week of constant chemo, any exercise other than walking to and from the bathroom was out of the question. With the addition of a syringe of Ativan to each bag of chemo to counter stomach upset, I was drugged into oblivion the entire first week.

Out of a sense of obligation, after the chemo treatment had ended, I did give the treadmill a try. Setting the pace very slow, I walked one-fourth of a quarter mile, roughly one block! That proved to be more than enough to tire me out and I promptly went back to bed and fell asleep watching who-knows-what on television. Other drugs made me tired as well, particularly the morphine "cocktail" ... as the doctor called it, that was given to me prior to my weekly bone-marrow tests. Administered via my IV line, it promptly put me into oblivion and took a good six hours to wear off.

Reading, of course, had the effect it always does, even when I am not sick! I had several good books I fully intended to read while confined to that little room, but within fifteen minutes, my eyelids would grow heavy and the book would drop from my hands.