It is strange that as you travel on your journey post Cancer that the threat exists for as long as you live and is always with you in some way or the other. I was reading Steve Kelley's Blog and especially this really interesting piece mapping out the journey ahead. It occurred to me being a Project Manager that the successful outcome of the journey would be to die naturally without Cancer having reoccurred.
You'll have to excuse the morbid way I just wrote that but actually that would be a result I think. I don't think I am any more susceptible to another Cancer but I am perhaps more likely to get Bladder Cancer again. I'm not planning on that but it is a possibility that grows more remote the more clears I get.
Going back to Steve's posting - the mapped out journey has no end date and as a Project Manager you always like to see something concrete delivered. A Programme is slightly different as it can continue to move and grow and doesn't always have an end point defined at the beginning.
Until I can get my head around not having a definitive end point I think that I am going to continue to struggle with coming to terms with Bladder Cancer. I've reflected many times on the fact that if you break a bone or have an illness, in general terms there comes a point in time when you were back to the way you were before. That doesn't happen in cases of serious illness because it messes with your head as well as your body and I can't see a point where I'd be "back to normal". I'm still amazed at how some people react when they meet me and find out I had Cancer, they almost do a double take and they just utter the strangest things. I wonder if I would be one of those people if I hadn't have experienced this first hand?
Because there isn't going to be a sign off and a point where the Doctors say "go away" or "you're all done now", because I am going to be having blood tests and check up every year and perhaps, like Steve's plan, a Flexible Cystoscopy for every year of my natural life, this will just stretch on to my last days. I think that the UK might be different though in terms of moving the inspections to longer distances so they go out to 18 months, 24 months, 36 months etc. I'll find out all about that in April and May of this year I hope.
I hadn't really managed to grasp this point until I looked at Steve's chart and considered that this is no one off project it is a full on programme (program) which has multiple facets, multiple outcomes, hundreds of possible paths and priorities and Bladder Cancer is one of the major work streams pulling every other part of the programme along with it. It is no single entity, not one thing to deal with, it affects everything I do and almost every decision I make. It is a single reference point and commands the highest priority in decision making and actually, in that way alone it is also the commonest excuse for not doing something and procrastination.
Dealing with the "depression" that this brings is the most important thing for me this year. I use the D word and yet whilst I am certain it is that - it isn't anything like the Black Dog Depressions I used to get a few years ago and which thankfully don't affect me any more. This is the feeling that I am on the scrap heap job wise and all those years of experience and lets not beat about the bush, money that used to go with those jobs may well have gone now. It was poignant when my kid brother told me he had to take a pay cut to stay in his job last year. His pay cut was more than I brought in for the whole year. That felt like a wet fish slap around the face. Money isn't everything and I probably don't need to do that sort of work any more anyway and I don't really need the money I suppose. However, that needs to be resolved this year. The current job could be done in a few days a week not full time and I really want to get involved in my other business venture where I can.
So one side of the problem - I'm not using my brain enough, my skills aren't being used and I'm well enough now (I think) to move on to something a bit more challenging but where that is I don't know. Many think I should hold onto this job. I'm good at it and I have the ability to make it my own, perhaps make a bigger role and I know that I am guaranteed work to 2017 - so what is the problem? Many would say that you should accept and carry on - "go native". That would never work I can't just 9 to 5 and not make a difference especially in an organisation that works like it is still in the 1960s.
On the other hand - things aren't so bad with my health and coming out of the rough bit of the BCG treatments and being clear for quite a while should give me confidence to move on. In fact I am happy to move on but I find that I will probably be plotting a solo course on this. What I want to do and what everyone else wants to do are quite different and no one wishes to share that with me. So another side of the problem is that try as I might to move things on, if I am not getting the support to do them, then this too will add to the dilemma.
Some time ago I mentioned that the difficult part of the whole thing was that you can't change people's reactions to your Cancer. They have to deal with it themselves and when I was at my most cynical a few weeks ago I dared suggest that perhaps they expected me to die rather than live and haven't worked out how to live with a ghost yet :-)
So whilst everyone has been most supportive and stuck with me throughout this pretty torrid time, they may not be the most appropriate people to go ahead with and move forward.
It now depends how you value your friends and family and how whether you are prepared to burn bridges. I would hate to do that and having lost a few friends because of Bladder Cancer (I'm still in touch but they couldn't deal with it and went into quiet mode), I'm not sure dumping those that helped me through the hard times is a good strategy and yet, it may be necessary for my own well-being and peace of mind in the long run.
This may not be the first day of the rest of my life but I think that I have finally put a few more pieces in place to help me decide what to do next. To continue in a way that sees me dissatisfied with life, the universe and everything is not the way forward. I can take away the assumption that there is an end point to BC and remove that from my calculations. I can take away the possibility of recurrence and just have to deal with it if it happens. I have to tackle and weigh the options on whether to shrug off the hands that hold me back and go and do what I want to do rather than try and gain a quorum or gain levels of acceptance or grudging agreement. I'm very good at keeping the peace, promoting the Status Quo and being the good guy, always bending to fit in but perhaps it is time now to change that and do something about it.
To vacillate or not to vacillate - that is the question......... or is it?
Life can be so complicated can't it :-)
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