[rozza]

My wife has chronic cancer* and one day when talking to the doctor at the hospice after a period of grueling treatment she talked about only having so many "spoons" in a day. The doctor liked the analogy as it was a fun way at looking at a real issue.

I'm pleased I now know where it comes from! This analogy helped us both come to terms with managing her lower energy levels.

* I use the term chronic cancer as she has Stage 4 cancer. The term terminal cancer to describe her cancer has been so incredibly unhelpful, its taken me years to frame where we as a family fit into it and how we can live. Essentially, the term has caused more fear than was warranted at the time. So until she needs end of life care, I won't call it terminal even though that is the expected outcome. That maybe 6 months from now or 6 years from now.

[koheripbal]

I know this thread is about the severely limited energy of chronic pain sufferers, but there's some good lessons here for the rest of us healthy folks as well.

While we have many more spoons than someone who's ill, our spoons are still limited in number each day, despite most of us assuming they are unlimited.

[aszantu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tteYZfMat4 may you find a solution

[ufo]

These days I've grown to see the word "integrative" as a red flag for pseudosciency or pseudoscience-adjacent stuff.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-is-integrative-oncolog...