Well here I am, treatment finished, feeling well, blues under control… but feel like I have reawakened after this journey, in a foreign country without a road map!!
By this I mean, now I have time, to look around i realise my life plan has totally changed. i don’t want to go back to the same type of work, i want to move… I think I basically just want to reinvent my life, but how do I begin ? Have had lots of ideas, but can’t seem to find the right way forward.
My fear is I will just slip back into my old life and there is of course well meaning pressure from those close, who i am sure would find that comforting.
I have been a parent since the age of 21 (now 52), i have had a responsible and taxing career, all of which has contributed to me, at 52 not knowing what i want to do with the rest of my life.
Is this frustration another normal pattern of after treatment? What have others done, yes I know the yoga and exercise trip- I want change.
Hi Lotus,
Join the club! I’m in the same boat. At 56, want to reinvent my life but don’t know how. Also have lots of ideas, but they are just that - ideas. I did leave my very stressful but well paying job at the end of last year and have been freelancing from home. However, am not getting that much work in with the result that our finances are not great,which is causing a bit of a problem between me and my husband .
Get a bit fed up with all those well meaning people who tell me cancer was a “gift” and an opportunity for me to change my life for the better . . . .
Oh well, onward, ever onward!
Hello,
me too! i am 28 now 26 when dx. it is nearly 1 year after treatment. i thought I knew the path my life was taking… and now I feel lost, at times i cry and ragghhh. I to do not want to get back into the old routines of life before. I must say I feel ‘better’ now as time has moved on and I have had time to reflect and reenergise. I was in my 3 year at uni when dx. now finished degeee and looking for a job it is so hard. don’t know what i want to do. jobhunting is so hard at the mo with financial stuff going on people just don’t seem to be hiring1 Anyway enough moaning…
all I know is that somehow thins change, along with the hair growth, you grow as a person and somehow find your way somewhere.
Goodluck and Godbless
Nxxxxxx
Hi Girls,
Have you thought about seeing a life-coach? I haven’t, but did some life-coaching exercises in a magazine, and found it profoundly helpful in identifying what it is that really makes me tick. I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. Of course I didn’t have BC then, so it may feel different this side of it. You could get a book from the library and have a look-see first?
Hope this helps
Jacquie x
Hi, I bought a couple of life coaching books by a woman called Fiona Harrold which are really good. One is called Be Your Own Life Coach. She has a website and offers short distance learning courses in self development.
After disastrously taking on a new job at the beginning of the year and ending up with no confidence because of it, I’m now retraining as a copywriter via distance learning and hope to specialise in writing copy for the web. OH started a small web development and design business 6 weeks before I was diagnosed and we are working together. I’m mainly doing admin/marketing on a p/t basis around my study. However, I’ve learned enough about copywriting to do a bit professionally, have just finished my first little job for a website and have another in the pipeline. I also do some html after attending a course 6 months ago. We work from an office at home which is an added bonus.
I don’t think I could go back to my old life now, too much water under the bridge and doing something else is helping me to move on. I have been helped by counselling and am being discharged from that after my next session in a few weeks.
I know its not queit the same thing but since treatment finished i have felt more adventurious.
I hate heights but went parasailing (300 meters up) and enjoyed it and now want to do a tandem parachute jump. I dont want normal holidays anymore i need some adverntutous ones, treking (but with my weight probly not) and help wash elephants and experience so much than just sitting by a pool. My hubby thinks i have gone abit mad but cant help the way i feel. He definatly doesnt want me to parachute (i wont let that stop me!) and he just wants to lay by a pool. Went snorlking in the red sea a year ago and bumped into a shark. At the time i was terrified and traumatised for afew weeks but now i am over it and glad of the experience.But what do you do when your over half doesnt want these things.
I haven’t had the confidence to travel far this past year as I wasn’t a good flyer or airport person before, being ill made me worse!
However, I’ve a long list of places I want to see next year so watch this space!
Lotus… my mum decided to completely change her life aged 52 too and she had me when she was 21 too. She hasn’t had BC though.
I’d say go for it, it’s served her well, as for what you want to do talk to people about what they do and wish they’d done etc.
I run my own business with my OH and have done for 10 years and 5 years ago we decided to leave the city and move to the lake district, we did it 6 weeks later. So I would say when you find what you really want to do, seriously consider whether it’s realistic and if it is just do it.
Of course it can all go horribly wrong but what’s life for if it isn’t for living and after something like BC that makes more sense to me now than it ever did.
My mum went from being a high sales person for BT to being a homeopath BTW.
Angie
One year befor i got my bc dx ( I was 51 at that point) I decided to fullfill my educational dream and startet a two year part time study. Got dx three weeks before my first year exam, but still completed it the day before my second op…
After having finished treatment, I decided to complete my studies and had my last exam in May this year, on the day three years after my first WLE.
I am so glad I did finish this, and I am in the market for a more demanding job now. I have appilied for quite a few and been to interviews with almost every application. But when the employers find out that i have had bc, them seem to forget everything else. The questions turn from my qualifications and experience to how I can handle their demanding job. I assure them that I am motivated, have a good prognosis and feel fine.
But i still have not given up hope that someone will see behind the bc dx and find ME, and give ME, not the (former?) cancer patient, a chance.
Anybody else with similar experiences?
Ca-va
I can totally empathise with everyone - I have a burning desire to change my life - but I need the money my career provides so cant see myself changing THAT much about my previous life - however I do crave some serious long term romance… anyone know any potential gorgeous single men out there!!!
Ca-va - I don’t know much about these things but employers are not supposed to discriminate against you because of bc and it might pay to ask BCC for more info on that and have that info at the ready with future job applications; I found no problem with getting a teaching job after diagnosis I have to say, though have given up now for a time as needed ‘my space’ for a while - so a little concerned how it might be when I want to go back - but they should not discriminate, and technically, though who wants to have to do it, you could pursue it legally if they did - I think a few words explaining the law in a diplomatic way might do the trick.
All these posts struck a cord with me. I’ve been seeing a hypnotherapist at a cancer support center. The sessions have been really helpful in giving me insight into what I don’t want to go back to. I feel that my treatment period has given me time to reflect on who I am and what path my life is taking. Oddly I feel happier now (most of the time!) than I did a year ago before diagnosis. I haven’t made any huge life changes but have grabbed any opportunities offered to try new things, including the hypnotherapy. Before I didn’t allow myself any time to do stuff for myself being a mum to 3 kids, elderly parents who need support and with a demanding job. A friend of mine decided when she hit 40 to never turn down an invitation and she now has a new job and new man who adores her. The living with cancer courses run by macmillan are very helpful, well structured and you will meet other people who are asking themselves the same questions. I think you can find info if you google living with cancer.