Hi Naz - yeh me again, I’ve been forum stalking you (!)
You didn’t say why you quit teaching ?? That was a big decision and before your dx and prolonged treatments. What didn’t you like about it cos it obviously counts in your next choice.
I HAD to quit my profession at 45 due to health probs - not BC. (That followed UNexpectedly in the next 2 years).I’d tried to find something else to get into, the previous 3 years leading up to sellling my business. Hard isn’t it. I even attended career advice with a patient of mine who ran the career advice service at the local college. Applied for all sorts of things. I would have preferred to have had something lined up the other side of because I didn’t like the unpredictability and financial insecurity of not. However, I had to just sell and then tackle afterwards.
Like you, at 45 I didn’t feel it was worth retraining for another 2 or 3 years, from the point of view of working life beyond 48. (12 - 17yrs perhaps). I could have afforded to fund myself through it. Boy, do I regret NOT doing it, or even just finding some kind of menial work to just keep me ticking over. Instead of investing in myself retraining, I invested my capital in property with the view to refurb and sell. Got struck down and delayed for 2 years with 2 seperate BC’s/mastectomies, only to then struggle with massive depression after the 2nd mast and further delay due to it. By the time I’d completed the properties, the property and mortgage crash happened which totally scuppered everything which pushed me into even deeper depression. Aaarrrgh. I haven’t found my path or feet since and I’m now 56 !!
So . . . . . MY MESSAGE to YOU behind all that is . . . If you can afford to retrain, DOOOO. Obviously in this day and age of massive unemployment, you’ve got to always think of employability afterwards. I would have retrained in Physiotherapy because it was related to what I was doing before and was actually what I’d wanted to do on leaving school but didn’t get the grades, so settled for a second best that DID accept my grades. 2nd time round, I had a medically related degree under my belt + a load of relevant experience so I’d have been accepted without any probs, could even have done it as a Post Grad 2 year course. And if I couldn’t have secured a job in the NHS, I’d have set up in private practice. I’d have still had to deal with the BC delays to training. BUT. . . . I could have worked beyond 70 if I’d wanted or needed to blah blah blah.
So. . . Are you detecting the note of regretful bitterness here Naz !!
Back to you then, and your dilemma. I’m presuming you have a degree? If so have you checked into local Post Grad courses, something may spark your interest.
Do you know what I would retrain in now, if I were your age now. . . . COUNSELLING.
With the state of unemployment, increase in cancer etc. etc., there’s a huge increasing population of depression. You have a wealth of life experience + your exp of cancer. I know from your various posts that you are a very compassionate, sympathetic, empathetic person.
Sadly, the NHS can’t cope with it and don’t always have the budget to employ the amount of therapists/counsellors that are needed, so more and more tablets are being doled out instead. But, if you’re interested in the suggestion, check out the NHS jobs website, because a few years ago, they were recruiting people who had an initial qualification in counselling / therapy and offering paid traineeships. I’d come across this myself when looking at other health jobs. Apart from NHS, it’s something that would be soooo easy to run from home, property dynamics permitting, OR renting a room in a medical / allied medical / alternative therapy practice. There’s NLT, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), all sorts of different strings to it.
Other than that, the famous question is - What are you interested in and is there any way you could create an income from it??
Keep us posted
Lotsa love Delly xx