I haven’t started my new treatment yet.
No infusion chair.
No first day countdown.
No side effects I can neatly blame on a drug.
And my body is already exhausted.
I’m sleeping more.
Longer naps. Earlier nights.
Falling asleep without meaning to. Waking up still tired.
Not because I’m lazy.
Not because I’m depressed.
Not because I “need to push myself.”
This is cancer tired.
The kind of fatigue that doesn’t live in your head — it lives in your cells.
The kind that doesn’t respond to motivation or willpower.
The kind that feels like your body is quietly pulling the emergency brake, even while life keeps asking you to accelerate.
I can feel my body slowing down in ways I don’t control.
It decides when I sit.
When I lie down.
When I sleep.
And that scares me.
Because if this is how tired I am before treatment…
What happens when treatment starts?
Everyone talks about chemo fatigue.
Radiation fatigue.
Treatment exhaustion.
But no one talks enough about the fatigue that comes before.
The exhaustion of carrying cancer itself.
The invisible work your body is already doing just to exist.
Cancer is not passive.
It takes energy.
It pulls resources.
It demands attention from systems that used to run quietly in the background.
So even before treatment, my body is already working overtime — and it’s asking for rest in return.
I don’t fight it anymore.
I can’t.
Naps aren’t optional.
Sleep isn’t indulgent.
Rest feels less like self-care and more like survival.
There’s a grief in that.
Grief for the version of me who could power through a day.
Who could make plans without calculating how much energy they’d cost.
Who didn’t have to weigh everything against how tired she already felt.
And layered underneath that grief is fear.
Fear of what happens when treatment stacks on top of this.
Fear of losing more stamina.
Fear of becoming someone who sleeps through her own life.
I know treatment is meant to help.
I believe in medicine.
I believe in trying.
I believe in moving forward even when it’s terrifying.
But believing doesn’t erase the reality that something will be taken in the process.
Energy.
Strength.
Normalcy.
And right now, I’m already running on less than I used to.
Some days I try to reframe it.
Maybe my body is being smart.
Maybe it’s conserving energy for what it knows is coming.
Maybe this slowing down is protective.
Other days it just feels unfair.
Like cancer has already started negotiating with my life before treatment even begins — and I wasn’t invited to the table.
What makes it harder is how invisible this kind of tired is.
From the outside, I probably look fine.
I can talk. I can laugh. I can show up for short stretches.
But inside, everything feels heavier.
Every movement costs more.
Every day requires more planning, more pacing, more compromise.
And I feel guilty for worrying about this before treatment starts — like I haven’t earned the right to be this tired yet.
But that’s not true.
Cancer doesn’t wait to exhaust you until the first infusion.
It starts taking long before that.
So if you’re in this place too — sleeping more, canceling plans, listening to your body ask for rest you can’t argue with — you’re not imagining it.
You’re not weak.
You’re not lazy.
You’re not failing before you begin.
Your body is carrying cancer.
That alone is exhausting.
I’m still moving forward.
I’m still choosing treatment.
I’m still showing up.
I’m just doing it tired — in a way that deserves to be named, respected, and believed.
Mojo POV
Mojo doesn’t question my naps. He doesn’t ask what comes next or how I’ll manage later. He just follows me from room to room and curls up wherever I land, like rest is part of the plan. Maybe he understands something I’m still learning — that slowing down isn’t giving up. It’s listening.
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