Sunday 30 December 2012

My first year as a survivor, and what is next

2012 was an interesting year year for a lot of reasons, both good and bad.

It was my first year as a cancer survivor, with many more to come hopefully, so I am hoping this gave me a good start on how to do that.

I learned a lot about myself, both good and bad things and am going to post about some of those things today.

I think I learned what it meant to be stressed. I used to think I did with work and school, but lead ups to scans and tests about what is going on in my body far trump anything else that goes on in life. I think with this I learned how to be a better person by enjoying some things more than I used to, stopping to smell the roses so to speak means a lot more to me now.

I learned that my career will most likely change. Not because I want to, but because working in a small field that I do in Canada, everyone knows what happened to me, so when I apply for jobs, although technically not allowed to use cancer as a reason, of course it will be in peoples minds, it is in mine after all. Fear of failure is still a great motivator for me for being successful in work (always has been).

I learned who my good friends are. I know I damaged a lot through things that have happened over the last two years, but I need to start making more of an effort to get back to who I used to be in a sense, and fix some of these broken bridges. You only get the chance to live once after all.

I need to focus on my health more. Both physically and mentally. I did a good job with the physical part so far (went from being in a hospital bed unable to really walk to biking to Seattle from Vancouver in about six months) but there is still work to be done. I also need to work on my mental health. "Getting over" cancer is not a simple task, and I think maybe I thought it would be. But is has effected parts of my life that need to get sorted out. This is a big goal of mine in 2013. This is something I was ashamed or scared of, but I think I am ready to deal with it now. (If you feel this way too, don't worry, I will post on how it goes as I get started!).

Last year was great, I met new and exciting personal goals. I volunteer at the cancer agency, I did the "Ride to Conquer Cancer". and am doing it again this year as a team captain (www.conquercancer.ca/goto/eamonnc) and I am excited about more opportunities like these.

I know I still have many flaws.Some related to cancer, some not. But I feel like I can continue to improve and get my life back on the "right" track. It has been an eventful year, never thought I would blog, never thought I would cycle, and never thought I would have this much trouble finding a new job, but here we are. I will set more goals as the year goes on, and try my best to stick with them, and help people out anyway I can, and myself along the way.

This is my last post of the year, but I will be back in January. Thanks to everyone who reads and leaves comments. I appreciate it all and hope the blog helps in some way.

Happy New Year,

Eamonn

1 comment:

  1. Happy New Year, Eamonn! May you conquer new goals and build strong bridges in 2013. ~Catherine

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