Thursday 5 November 2015

Normality is more of a distraction than I expected...

Hello lovely people

I could try to apologise for my tardiness but I've been so remiss in my updates that I wouldn't have any idea how to start! I have been getting back to glorious normality and reminding myself every time that I have a stressful day at work that in comparison, to chemo it's a walk in the park - I'd take a stressful day over a chemo day every time! It's probably similar to my running metaphor, cancer treatment makes you realise just how much suffering you are built to cope with and it provides you with a whole new baseline to compare your rather inconsequential daily gripes with!

The writing that I was enjoying in keeping this blog up to date has now sadly been taken up by my return to the MBA and I can confirm that the output is far less interesting. Although I have missed writing about such riveting subjects like "the reality of efficient market hypotheses" - I would much rather be writing about the my experiences of trying to make sense of this disease. It's amazing how something like cancer can hit the pause button in your life and force you to take stock of just how much you could lose - those things that you don't invest time in as you go about your day to day life.

I have found it incredible just how quickly things do start to go back to normal but those of you who know me well will likely have noticed some post-cancer personality shifts:

  1. On a sporadic and entirely random basis, I remind myself that I came very close to saying goodbye to the most important people in my life. That emulates itself in random displays of affection but thankfully Erica is young enough to still allow me to squeeze her and smother her with kisses as I silently thank my lucky stars that I still have the chance to do it.
  2. I smile to myself every time someone barges me out of the way to get that seat - an experience like this really does give you new perspective on what you should not waste your time getting flustered about. 
  3. No matter what happens in my week - I now know that things could always be a whole lot worse.
  4. My patience was pretty awful before this happened, it's even worse now! Time is precious and I am determined not to miss out on opportunities.
I would never wish cancer on anyone but it really is incredible just how much something like that can make your life utterly shit for one year but has the surprisingly ability to make you a better person as a result.

#fightlikeagirl