Life After Cancer - What Now?

What does it mean to go back to normal? What is normal anyway? Normal could mean different things to different people but for those who go through a cancer diagnosis, we know getting a "new" normal can be quite scary, and well, hard to adjust to. We want to be able to do what we once were able to do but the sad truth is our bodies are often not capable to go back to what they were. We suffer from both physical and mental hurtles that make us incapable of going back to the normal we once knew.

That's what its been like for me. I used to be able to spend hours in the gym multiple times a week. I would never get tired so fast as what I do now. Now it's different. I get tired from just walking from one room to another in my house. So now that I'm adjusting to my "new" normal, what's next?

As a cancer survivor, I know the first thing my medical team, family and myself were worried about was getting rid of the disease that was taking control of my body. I mean, I was stage III, there is only up to stage IV. We had to get rid of the crap that was floating around in my body and organs before it spread to be the worst stage. With neuroblastoma, once it spreads to the rest of your organs, there's pretty much no looking back. So now that the initial surviving the disease is over, what now?

I'm sure many cancer survivors wonder this when they get the great news that they're in remission. Everyone always applauds the great news of remission but no one talks about how the side effects of treatment and the aftermath of beating the disease is just as brutal, if not worse than treatments. So what do we do? Where do we go from here? What is our normal?

I think there needs to be more emphasis on the side effects and the "new" normal that cancer survivors will have to go through after their treatments. I think we need to talk about it more and as a community of survivors, we should build off each other and help each other heal and find out what this normalcy is we are all searching for. It could help answer the question "what now?"

I started this blog in 2013 as a way for exposure for my writing. I never thought I would be writing about cancer. And although my blog is focused on books and writing related topics, I think people need to be educated more on cancer and the aftermath of the disease. So if writing this blog with a random cancer blurb from time to time helps someone discover that they're not alone and that we can find our "new" normal, I'll continue writing. After all, the writing community helped me in my darkest times and I'm glad to say that writing will always be my "normal."