What I Need to Do Every Day

• Take my medication:  at breakfast, lunch, 2:00, supper, 8:00 and bedtime.  It's easy to forget a few of them.
• Take my temperature to be sure I don't have a fever again.
• Walk with a walker, or in a tight space a cane.
• Do my arms and leg exercises.  No weights.
• Decide whether to wear a wig, a hat, a scarf or go commando.
• Drink plenty of water.
• Put on a LOT of skin cream.  Where I had radiation the on my back and pelvis is finally getting better, but my legs and scalp are still very, very dry.
• Put on over-the-knee compression stockings to try to stem the swelling in my feet and calves.
• Put my feet up for a few hours.
• Check whether I'm due for the home-care nurse to put on a new cartridge of painkiller on my pain pump.
• Each Friday:  have the home-care nurse change the PICC line cover that connects the IV to my left arm and bloodstream; change the tubing on my pain pump.
• Pray.
• Meditate and visualize my healing.  This is another thing that I've found harder to find time for.  If I leave if for the end of the day, I fall asleep before I get very far into it.  I need to make time for this.  Whether it works or not, it gives me a tremendous feeling of wellbeing and of being loved and cared for by this world and the next.