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PaperclipPerfector  22hr ago (text post)   352 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for December 31, 2025

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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My father starts chemotherapy in the new year. I will be heading to see him as often as my job and his physical condition allow.

I wish there were more I could do for him, but I am forcing myself to remember that, at this point, it's out of my hands. It's difficult to unravel our past, but it seems like he's happy that I'm there. If being there helps, I will make an effort to be there.

He has been relying on me to understand and translate the medical jargon that they are lobbing in his direction, and I'm doing my best to keep up. Medical studies are dense pieces of writing, and I'm trying to be both accurate and honest about his choices. I wish I didn't have to be - they're not very good.

I worry about his wife and my youngest brother. They both have a large extended family who want to support them, but none of those family members have ever really dealt with anything like this, and they aren't coordinating with each other at all. They're both getting a little overwhelmed, and I fear it's only going to get worse.

I am exhausted, burnt out, and putting almost all of my effort into simply keeping my shit together. I haven't been eating right, or sleeping right, or exercising regularly, and I'm concerned about the impact this might have on my employment. I don't know what to do about it, though, other than hope for the best. I can't make my father not have stage four metastatic cancer. That's not something I have the power to do.

For anyone who has gone through this before, I have two questions.

First - what can be done to make the treatment more tolerable? The carboplatin/paclitaxel/pembrolizumab cocktail looks like it's going to play merry hell on his system, and if there's anything other than anti nausea medication (already prescribed) that might help, I want to look into it. I'll take anything from double blind randomized clinical trials to old wive's tales at this point.

Second - how do I keep my shit together? My father and I have always had a distance between us. He comes to visit maybe once a decade, and he rarely calls, but he's still my father. I have tried to bridge that gap over the years, and it feels like I'm running out of time. I feel helpless, and like I'm not doing nearly enough, and that this is somehow all my fault. I know that some fraction of that is not rational, but it's difficult to to disentangle everything when you're also confronting the fact that a loved one has less than even odds of making it a year. It feels like I'm coming apart every time I think about it. I don't want to end up in a spiral. That won't help him or me.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it. The next few months are going to be the worst part of your life (so far). It really is that bad. People don't like to talk about things like this. I am only doing it because I'm a few drinks in on New Years Eve.

The one bright spot is that doctors tend to be pretty liberal with prescribing pain meds for stage 4 cancer patients. It helps if you and/or whoever accompanies your father to his doctor's appointments presents as not being the kind of person who would misappropriate generous opioid prescriptions.

You are going to be visiting him every weekend. Every chance you get to see your father is a treat. This is what will get you through the week.

Work will be the only time you will be able to get your mind off of the situation. In time, you will find this as something also to be cherished.

Things will be particularly hard on the primary caretaker. Dealing with the physical consequenses of the disease will be left mostly to her. I notice you said "his wife" instead of "my mother". Whatever her relationship to you, she is now the second most important person in your life.

Everything is going to suck for a while, and then you'll be fine. You don't have cancer. You have the rest of your life in front of you once this is over. You will survive.

Good luck. Your family is counting on you.

New Year's goals/resolutions.

  1. Work: I had a huge surge of success right before I left for break, so I'm feeling optimistic about finishing my PhD this year. I probably won't graduate until May 2027 still, but I hope to have all the experiments done by the end of this year.
  2. Fitness: Every year I keep saying I'm going to try high volume training and never actually do. I plan to build up to 15-20 hours a week of training, 1-2 of those being mobility work, 2-4 being in the gym and the rest some form of aerobic exercise (swim, bike, run, row).
  3. Intellectual stuff: I want to focus on improving my Italian this year, and having a more professional approach to writing on substack (drafting and proofreading posts before I publish them).
  4. Finances: I have a system I'm happy with set up for investing (1/3 bonds, 1/3 index funds, 1/3 speculation, in retirement account it's more like 1/6 bonds, 2/3 index funds, 1/6 speculation), but need to work on budgeting this year. My sister (who lives in the UK) earns about the same as me, but is able to travel almost every month because she budgets better than me (she spends the money I would invest on travel). For me this means probably reducing sport related expenses (less races, not getting injured and having to go to PT), reducing travel, and limiting eating out to once a week.
  5. Dating: I think I'm going to be celibate for 2026 and put my energy into other areas of life.
  6. Spirituality: Will continue to practice tarot with my ex-roommate over zoom, and want to get into a breath work practice.
  7. Health: After reading This is Natto, I'm way less concerned with trying to optimize my health, which I think paradoxically will make my health much better. I will continue to track HRV and RHR for training purposes, but otherwise just listen to my body.
  8. Community: My tarot draw for 2026 was the three of cups, which is the card of fellowship/community. I want to cook for a friend at least twice a month this year, and hold a social gathering and my house or a third space at least once a month.
  9. Via negativa: All of these goals are going to require time to complete. Some of this is going to come from not tossing and turning in my bed trying to get extra sleep. The rest is probably going to have to come from reducing digital distractions. I'd like to reduce my phone screen time to less than an hour a day by the end of the year. I'm going to do this by adding micro anti-habits every month. The first of these is to batch respond to texts only twice a day in the morning and the evening and otherwise not respond.

In no particular order:

  1. At least one blog post a fortnight. As soon as I post something on my blog, the clock starts ticking for the next one, which must go up no later than two weeks thereafter.
  2. Gym at least 3x per week. With a view to being able to bench-press my bodyweight, deadlift 2x my bodyweight and squat 1.5x my bodyweight by the end of the year. As the new year begins on a Thursday, if I go to the gym twice between now and January 5th I will count that as a success.
  3. Dry January. May extend. The clock starts ticking from when I wake up on January 1st i.e. I can have a few drinks after midnight tonight.
  4. No fast food in January. Eating home-cooked meals wherever possible, may permit myself one date night in a restaurant. May extend this one past January.
  5. No snacking between meals in January. May extend.
  6. No porn. For the entire year. And as little masturbation as possible.
  7. Get SQL certificate. I found a free online SQL course which, upon completion, you get a certificate. I've been putting off doing it for well over a year at this point.
  8. Write, record and release album #2. The debut came out in January of this year and I'm pretty proud of it, though there's definitely room for improvement and I have lots of ideas for the follow-up. My plan is to spend January practising guitar for an hour every evening, and listening to heavy music for inspiration, then take a week off work in February to write the album, and record it in the following months.
  9. Increase earnings. Either get a new job with a 17% (or more) bump in salary; or failing that, stay in my current job but request a raise. By the end of the year, if I'm in the same job but making 10% more than I currently am, I will mark this one as a success.

Would you mind linking to your blog? (EDIT: nvm found it in your bio)

Let's keep each other accountable on porn/masturbation!

Good idea. When you say "celibate", are you including masturbation?

By celibate I mean no masturbation, porn, or sex with women (or with men I guess too, but I'm not into that). I think this will also probably be easier with no dating as well, but I'm not sure if I want to commit to that.

Wow, I assumed you just meant no sex. Doing nofap on top of that sounds challenging, I commend your ambition.

Out of curiosity, supposing you meet the woman of your dreams next year. Would you ask her out, or wait until 2027?

I think doing the whole kitten-caboodle will be easier for me, as fapping tends to make me quite lustful.

I would ask her out probably and stop being celibate after a few months if we get along really well. I think it's a bad idea for me to have sex with a woman too quickly in a relationship. I've gotten trapped in relationships before because I'm too addicted to the sex and feel like I owe it to the woman because I've already slept with her.

the whole kitten-caboodle

It's "kit and caboodle", not "kitten caboodle".

Thanks man. Been thinking about this proverb wrong the whole time.

kitten-caboodle

kit and caboodle

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