The Waiting Window Between Surgery and Chemo.

Build step by step. Push
yourself, but not too hard.
Learn. Keep it fun.

Matt Fitzgerald

When you work beyond your bandwidth

Even with the best intentions, there comes a point where you have to look honestly at your reality, your capacity, and stop yourself from getting carried away. During the half month when Nidhi took Aria to stay with my sister Mayura and the rest of the family in India, I told our help not to come. Part of it was stubborn independence, and part of it was the financial pressure of endless doctor visits, unclear insurance coverage, and the silent fear of ever needing to ask for money—something that has always been very hard for me.

On top of this, Mahesh—who was never into diets or green juices—decided to join my “health regimen,” while happily outsourcing most of the hard work to me. That’s when I learned how demanding juicing really is. Fasting felt easier because you simply don’t eat, but juicing meant buying mountains of vegetables, washing, chopping, juicing, and then dealing with a messy, complicated machine. He wanted juices and cooked “healthy food,” which suddenly doubled my workload.

At the same time, I was juggling my own new routine: breathing exercises, physiotherapy to prevent lymphedema, hours on breast cancer forums, speaking to people who had tried alternative therapies, and reading nonstop to decide on chemo or no chemo. Adding someone else’s “healthy plan” into that mix pushed me well beyond my bandwidth. If I ever had to redo this, I would be crystal clear from the beginning about what I can and cannot take on—those famous boundaries again.

Still, staying on a clean diet right up until chemo was worth it; my treatment felt gentler than what I had braced myself for. But this is the truth about most alternative or lifestyle‑heavy approaches: you are your own army. There is no instant, one‑click solution; you have to show up, shop, chop, cook, juice, clean. When others around you get inspired—like my husband finally wanting to eat healthy—it’s beautiful, but unless everyone shares the workload, it can quietly exhaust the very person who is already sick.

In some ways, doing so much that you forget you’re ill is a blessing; you don’t have much time to sit and feel sorry for yourself. In other ways, it’s a warning sign: when the thing that is meant to heal you starts to drain you, it’s time to pause, simplify, and remember that your energy is also a precious, limited resource.

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