What I learned from having cancer… the third time
This article is a sequel to another article
What I learned from getting cancer… twice.
I remember feeling exhausted and let out a long slow exhalation of pain from my lungs. Like I had just run a marathon and then told. “See that mountain over there? Climb it!!”.
I was sitting in my oncologist’s office. He had just finished telling me that our latest scan had shown an increase in one of my lymph nodes which meant that my cancer was back and had spread. His recommendation was to go through with Chemotherapy as we needed to treat it before it spread any further.
It had been nearly two years since my cancer surgery and my oncologist had noticed a small lymph node in my back that had increased in size. It was tiny and had taken a very long time to even get to that size but the idea was it was better to catch it early and knock it out before it spread.
I remember fearing the unknown that was coming. I had made it a habit to build my mental and physical strength over the last few years. If anything would test it, then this was it. I also felt a little excited at the opportunity. If I could get through this then what else was I capable of?
This was something big. Something that would take months to come to fruition and all the way through it I would feel weak and ready to give up. The physical and mental load would be so great that I might have to abandon my day-to-day responsibilities just to get through it.
I could not do this alone. We cannot accomplish most big and great things in life in isolation. The three things I would need were:
- A Reason — This is your why and will power all your other decisions. It will motivate you and your team but also provide direction when things aren’t going the way you planned it.
- A Plan — This is as simple as having a general idea of how you will get to point A to point B. From where you are to where you want to be. The important part here is that your plan will probably be wrong either by a little or a lot. Being able to think ahead and plan out these possibilities or just augment on the fly is the most important part. Your plan needs to limit any negative factors while promoting positive factors in the biggest way.
- A Team — To execute upon this plan you need to let people help you and to be clear about exactly how they fit into the plan above. Not everyone can do all things, so you need to be very clear on the singular focus that you want from each team member.
With these three items I developed a plan that utilised the goodwill of friends and family to support us through these tough times. I will forever be grateful for the kindness we received and feel people genuinely appreciated being told directly how they could contribute.
With the above you can tackle anything in life.
