Firstly thanks to everyone for the wonderful feedback to my blog as I hit Blog 11. This blog is a little different to my previous ones, mainly because rather than a story, it’s a reflection and not ‘funny’ as such, but important to me. I promise this is a one off. I’ve had a few people ask me “Why write a Blog?” So for blog 11, this is why.

There are very few people who don’t find something, even a small thing, that gives purpose and joy as we travel through life. Whether it is sport or art or drama or being involved with community or gardening or family or travel or flipping houses, well you know what I mean. Most people have something that feeds the ego and if we are lucky feeds our soul as well. What cancer does, which maybe isn’t discussed as much as other factors, is it robs a lot of people this aspect of their life. It’s often a physical loss, but it is often a mental loss as well.

For me my passion was work. I was a teacher and I loved it. Well, I didn’t love the politics or paper work or game-playing but I loved being in a classroom. I loved seeing a ‘lightbulb’ moment, I loved seeing a human find confidence in themselves and I loved seeing people learn not only what but how to learn and to think critically. It’s fair to say I was never a ‘soft’ teacher and my expectations were high, but for some reason (It was possibly a mixture of my scary ‘witchy-poo’ face and trust) it worked. Teaching was my vocation and cancer, the bastard, took that from me.

After the bowel cancer, I fought, I fought hard to get back to teaching and I did it. I may have been functioning at 70% pre-cancer but it was wonderful. I was still able to help students achieve beyond their own expectations and make positive change. That was such a gift. Then along came breast cancer and with that, at the start of 2023, came the end of teaching for me.

I was medically retired. Two and a half years of fighting Cancer took a physical toll. A lot of this was ‘Cancer Fatigue’ which I intend to blog about quite a bit later on. I was no longer in a position to teach and in all honestly it really wasn’t fair to be away from classes again whilst I went through more treatment. Six months in, once radiology and cancer treatment settled down a bit, I realised that this was real. No more teaching. No more making a difference. I went into a big slump emotionally.

“I can’t move like I did, I can’t do half of the things I did physically, I only have enough energy to do coffee’s with people for a couple of hours. Who am I now? Do I have value? Do I keep fighting this?”

Cancer is a bitch because , together with the treatment to cure it, it can take away your passion and energy. In some cases it can take away your world as you knew it, and that is hard. It is insidious and takes In small ways for some people, in big ways for others. Cancer took part of my purpose, or what I felt was my purpose. Cancer took away my ability to make change for individuals in this world.

So, once I had the OK from cancer specialists this time around, I went chasing lobsters, literally. I couldn’t head on the long planned overseas trip to Scotland due to cancer diagnosis number two. Instead I spent three weeks visiting my family and friends and going to the best seafood restaurants I could. I decided if ever there was a time to eat lobster it was now. (I will also say I am now a gun seafood restaurant reviewer based on this little adventure.)

Upon returning home I thought “OK, this is ridiculous! Brain you are still working, what can I do to keep being relevant?” Throughout my time with cancer I had continued to be engaged in learning through helping a number of students and ex-students with essay writing. “Yes, I am physically damaged and I get tired a lot. However, I can still think, I can still write.” It came down to “Am I now brave enough to honestly tell my cancer stories?” You might have me done and dusted physically cancer, but I’m still going to fight you. So that is where Chasing Lobsters-A Cancer Blog was born.

I’m going to finish this by saying thank you to everyone who has been reading this and sending positive feedback to my blog and sharing on f/book. This, much more than the Pegfilgrastim Injection mentioned in Blog 10, is just what the doctor ordered. Thanks also to those who have shared my coffee dates so far, and more so those who were OK when I couldn’t get to one. Now you understand why.

Normal blogs to resume after this.