Blogger Mel O'Neill: 'Why I won't be worrying in 2018'

I need to go to work to stop filling every last second with menial jobs, getting palpitations last week from juggling too many roles and multitasking to the max.

But what happens if I don’t do it? The world will still turn, I know, but who else will do them?

What frustrates me is that some women do, as well as hold down full time jobs, have children and husbands and pets and sick loved ones…the list is endless, so why can’t I when I don’t even work?

I think there lies the problem. Going to work I’d have to share the endless tasks that I give myself to do and I suppose I’d be more inclined to ask for help.

Feeling purposeless, hopeless, unable to remember, unable to retain information has an on-going effect on my self-esteem but I do my best to rise above it when proving to my kids that I can be someone they can be proud of even when I have very little to show for it.

Gone are my ambitious days. I’ve had the stuffing knocked out of me far too early in life when I had so much more to prove, but in that sentence alone lies the answer.

I have nothing to prove to myself anymore or nobody else so I can now let go of worrying what people think of me and just be and in turn I refuse to play the victim not even after my latest hospital visit where I was hit with more uncertainty yet again.

The clinical trial I am on, which has cleared away every bit of cancer, has destroyed my immune system and my bone marrow is struggling to recover every time I have my six-weekly chemotherapy.

Last week, my white blood count was too low to have treatment so I was asked to come back the following week. This has been happening for ages now so I am unable to plan anything ahead as my blood count may be under their lowest limit and I’m deferred a further week.

But today, having been deferred last week, it was still too low to have the chemotherapy and I was told if it hasn’t risen by next week, the trial company may want to remove me from the trial all together.

I went into overdrive asking numerous questions, having my doctor reassure me that she’d find another trial suitable for me. Whilst playing the scenario over and over in my head on the way home, it suddenly occurred to me that there is no cancer anymore.

That the trial drug has sent it to sleep, so there is nothing for them to measure which is what’s needed when going on a clinical trial. I’m even confused how to feel about that.

Then I realised all the numerous times I’ve spent worrying about the future when there was nothing for me to worry about. How I’ve blogged in the past about living with uncertainty and this humongous question mark hanging over my head that has reappeared.

Things have gone a bit quiet in my life lately so I should have known drama was waiting around the corner as it always is.

It’s not what life throws at me now that distresses the hell out of me, it’s how I handle it and how I perceive the news. My mindfulness, meditation class teaches me that and that we don’t have to like what life throws at us to be ok.

Almost 7 years of dealing with cancer has allowed me to grow a thick skin but it’s the courses I’ve done, the books I’ve read and the people I’ve spoken to that have given me the strength and the knowledge to deal with life in general (not just cancer) and after everything that’s happened, I am living proof that there’s no point worrying about the future because anything can change at any moment in time and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.

So I won’t be wasting my next 7 days crying or full of anticipation and worry, I’ll be dancing with my kids (which I love to do), looking forward to Christmas and learning that the world will still turn if I don’t do so many tasks all at once! Whoever invented multitasking?

Wishing myself and everyone else a relaxing, peaceful and Merry Christmas.

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