As I believe that I really am recovering from cancer and will live a lot longer than my Oncologist consultant suggested – it is nearing the time when I need to decide what to do, with the rest of my life.

Having been given a very final prognosis I immediately re-acted and started the lengthy process of winding up all my affairs so that my wife Clare was not faced with any more stress than she is under already. Finding out your partner, the person you love dearly, is about to depart this world, is hard enough to deal with without adding even more stress of sorting out the mess they leave behind.

Well I have done most of that now, at least all that I can do. My attitude about the future was changed as a result of that prognosis purely because according to the experts, I had no future.

Now however, things have changed. I realise that contrary to what they told me, I’m not going to die soon or even in the near future. I have to be realistic and realise that I have a serious condition which even if I can control is quite likely to occur again at some later stage.

I’ve accepted that I probably will never be a very old man, and if I am realistic I probably have somewhere between five and seven years at the best. But why not enjoy that time rather than worry about the end!

When I became ill back in 2010 and after I had been diagnosed with cancer and operated upon, as I lay recovering I began to realise that the future did not hold very much for me. Until then I had always been optimistic that tomorrow would bring new and exciting things. But that optimism faded away and I was left with little to look forward to.

In some ways, being diagnosed with terminal cancer a year later was a sort of relief. Now I did not need to worry about what I was going to do with the rest of my life. In fact, all I needed to do was clear up my affairs and wait for those last few weeks and days.

But as time crept by and my belief that I could and would recover grew, I began to question how long I really might have. Of course it is impossible to put a figure on it. I’m two and a half months into the worst case scenario of just three month, without any sign of my health actually deteriorating in any way. In fact I feel better today than I have for a long time.

So how long do I have?

I don’t know, nor does anyone else. But what I do know – is that I cannot just sit around until I get some sign that things are coming to an end. Then it will be too late to do anything. I must get on with my life today! I believe I will continue on this earth for some time, so I need to make the best of it.

A lot of my time is taken looking after my health, improving my body strength, building my immune system and generally keeping myself as stress free as possible. But that does not take every hour of the day.

So the question is – what should I do now to keep me focussed on staying alive as long as possible. It is interesting that the proportion of people who die within two years of retirement is higher than almost any other time in life. Is this because they become bored? May be it is because they feel they have no real worth? Perhaps they see no point in continuing to live.

That is what I was starting to believe.

However, keeping busy and fulfilled, valued and respected is the key to the solution. Finding a job is a possibility but when you are nearly 63 that is much harder than one might imagine. I know – I have been trying since I was 60!

I have a great business idea that some of you will be aware of called Bamarii, but that has been shelved because I cannot guarantee that I will have enough energy or direction to see it into fulfilment. Perhaps I can create some other more simple ideas to keep me interested and involved. There are lots of options.

Finding one that will give me a real passion to continue into the distant future is all important and that is my challenge at this time. I’m sure I will find something – it might just take some time.

Anyway, enough of this for today! I do not want to bore you all into an early submission and to lose the will to live! Well – it’s your choice I guess!

Enjoy your day; it’s nearly mid-week and a day nearer pay day.

Regards

Jim Tuffin
I Was The Traffic Genie until this happened!

All comments are welcome below. Feel free to share this blog with other, as I want to help people to understand that there are always alternatives – www.jtuffin.co.uk – Thanks!