I want to help others who are faced with the plot twist of cancer and I want to help them the only way I know how - to get them back to work. Right now, I am focused on doing this for myself and it is an all consuming focus. I have finally redone my OWN resume - see it here --> how-to-take-the-next-step-after-cancer.html after spending decades helping others get resume ready through my old small business www.thenextstep1234.com. This resume makeover and help on how to interview are big parts of my “talents” that I was writing about a few weeks ago, using-your-talents.html.

To do this, I need to figure out more about the specifics. I mean helping people get back to work is a huge positive especially after I have been learning more and more about people who have lost their jobs during or after diagnosis/treatment—you can read my unfiltered thoughts on that here --> www.whatnext.com/blog/posts/after-cancer-treatment-how-do-i-get-back-to-being-me.

Not having a job means you do not feel “whole” yet. It means you do not have the necessary distraction from thinking about cancer and death. Most importantly, it means you have financial issues to pay your bills or to have healthcare or to afford your medication. It is a big deal.

I also want to think about how I can use funds that I can perhaps raise to do something for others or for research in addition to this skill I have in my tool house. I am not yet sure how it will come together. It is a priority to me and it is why I upgraded my URL via Weebly from www.thetimebetweenis.weebly.com to www.thetimebetweenis.org and also got the ability to use more programming options for this blog, too. I am looking at different ways to pay homage and to help others. 

On a related note regarding the fact that I am currently unemployed, I am still trying not to get triggered when I hear of someone dying from breast cancer. I am trying so damn hard; today I just spoke to a friend of the family whose 47-year-old sister just died from breast cancer after an 8 year fight—you do the math, as I did—she was 39 at diagnosis; so was I. It is times like these that I get down and want to cry but I know that will not help and I know that although it does statistically maybe look worse for me that it could happen to anyone and it does happen to anyone - random deaths happen all the time, it is part of what keeps newspapers in business.

All of this pushes me to get busier, because if I stay focused on busy, I have less time to think. Thinking is never good. I was an over thinker in the past and it was never “good”. It is especially not “good” now. So I am going to throw myself into a couple of projects to keep myself occupied and therefore out of trouble. They are:

  1. The job search: This is the most important; I need to find a job and I am interested in getting back to my high powered “glory days” of working in NYC and being able to go to the ladies room whenever I want and stuff - read more about that here --> life-is-change-or-how-i-decided-to-go-back-to-corporate-america.html
  2. The nonprofit: I want to set this up as soon as possible but it will probably not be done until sometime in 2018. I am still working on the papers and the names and what I will raise money for in addition to being able to have people working on the resumes in addition to me as I think this service, offered for free to cancer patients/survivors, will be in high demand.
  3. Focus on Friends & Family: I try to do this all of the time but adding in the friends more and keeping the balance of knowing the kids do not need me to helicopter.
  4. Last is most important—taking care of ME: In line with number 3, this is all about me. I need to keep me a priority, taking the time to do self care and to cry if I need to but not to wallow because wallowing never helped anyone.


So it is time for me to work on these things and get into gear.  Of course, I will always blog —well as long as it continues to connect me to my community, to help me grieve, celebrate, unload and move my needle back to “full” when I am on “empty”. It has led to amazing friendships and to different opportunities to share my story (check out my Press & Promotion Page --> www.thetimebetweenis.org/my-story-in-the-press.html).

As always, thanks for reading and especially for reaching out and/or sharing my story. I hope one day this story is just that a fiction that we remember having once existed that “cancer” is eradicated and no longer a mystery to those who die from it.

To my (new) friend’s sister, I know you are no longer in pain and that you are at peace. Please help the other women and men who have been dealt the plot twist of breast cancer with your prayers and I will pray for you, too.