5 Tips to Getting on With Your Life After Cancer

I am lucky enough to be almost 9 years out from my breast cancer diagnosis. Those 3,285 days have been filled with some really bad moments and some pretty amazing ones as well. Just like life before cancer. HA! Nothing has been the same since I had a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation. Not to mention the scans, blood tests, and the stack of pills I still take every day to keep the cancer at bay.  It hasn’t been all bad – I wrote a book (and even got it published!), I’ve been asked to speak at some amazing events and I’ve met some incredible inspiring people along the way.

That being said, once you’ve heard those heart-stopping words “it’s cancer,” and gone through all the treatments, you’ve got to figure out how to get on with your life and sometimes that’s not so easy. So, here are my Top 5 Tips for life after diagnosis. 

1. Forgive and forget. Try your level best not to play the blame game. This can be super difficult when you live in a world where you are constantly bombarded with cancer prevention strategies. I was plagued by the questions like: Did I eat too much sugar? Not exercise enough? Should I be a vegan now? All that. Whatever the cause of your initial cancer, there’s nothing you can do about it now. It’s in the past, and it’s time to focus on your future—because you have one. Follow your doctor’s orders. Make lifestyle changes if they’re warranted, and don’t beat yourself up about how you got here.
2. Stay vigilant but enjoy yourself, too. Hypervigilance is a natural response to what you’ve been through. It’s normal to be extra sensitive to every new ache and pain and wonder if it’s cancer. Voice your fears to your support network and doctors, and when they tell you it’s okay, really try to focus on that. There are plenty of nerve-racking moments ahead (like the night before a scan) so try to push those thoughts of fear aside when they arise so you don’t let them overwhelm the good days.
3. Don’t be surprised when Cancer Girl makes an appearance. Life after diagnosis is a complicated, ever-changing patchwork of emotions. For weeks on end that pink elephant just stands quietly in a corner and doesn’t draw my attention, and then suddenly, seemingly without warning, cancer is all I can think about. This is normal. Sometimes the happiness at my survival far outweighs the fear of recurrence and the physical changes the disease has forced on my body. Other times the scars and fears are front and center. When that happens, the best thing to do is talk it out. Face that elephant and make it go back in the corner.
4. The feeling of being in limbo will go away. In the first one to three years right after treatment, many patients feel a sense of uncertainty, hovering between being well and being a patient. You’re still adapting to the many physical and emotional changes of the past months, and just because treatment is over, it doesn’t mean you feel like a survivor. You essentially have PTSD, so give it time. When I say “time” I mean months, even a year. Not a few weeks.
5. Just get on with it already. If only it were that easy. This is exactly how your friends and family may want you to feel after a while. It may be exactly how you want to feel after a while. You do not need to let cancer define the rest of your life the way it has defined this part of your life. I never say there’s life after cancer, because I never feel there is an “after cancer.” There is life after diagnosis and life after treatment, though. So: Go out and live it!