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What cancer taught me about uncertainty…

We are living through some uncertain times…we are living through what we never thought we would have to experience….

In a world where we feel we are in control at a touch of our fingers…we are loosing control each day…we are waiting for the government to tell us what to do next, we are not sure how our financial situation will be affected, we are not sure if our local supermarket will have enough food for us to buy…we are lost and all we want is to feel safe again…like before the coronavirus.

But the coronavirus is not going to go away overnight…

This situation brings me back to when the rug got pulled from under my feet.

At 38 years, I was told, I had between 70-90% chance of survival.

As I write this, it pains my heart just thinking about these numbers…all of a sudden I had not only lost my sense of security…

But I was scared, fearful and powerless…

Then I had to face the world…and tell people I had Stage 3 Bowel cancer and that I was going to have 12 sessions of chemotherapy.

Most people’s faces gave me even less hope than the actual prognosis given to me.

My GP then told me that I needed to avoid crowds… I needed to stay at home and away from people as much as possible as my immune system was going to be down.

I had a slim hope my immune system was going to be stronger than most as I was young, righht?

Little I knew that as soon as I started chemotherapy, that became my new reality…my immune system became very weak.

I had many delays during treatment because my immune system wasn’t recovering…

Until one day I ended up in emergency with 0.01 neutrophils (these are the white cells that fight any infection/bacteria/virus you may have)โ€ฆ

Well I had none…

Two bags of blood and one bag of iron later, my body slowly started to recover and one week later I was able to go home.

I was then left by myself at home to pick up the pieces of what was left of me…

I knew I needed to focus on building up myself again…my physical and mental health if I wanted to survive.

I needed to accept my new reality, adapt and change to survive.

Slowly I switched my focus to changing my diet, doing exercise, meditation and listening to anything I could to feed my mind with positive things, with knowledge that was going to help me.

I stopped thinking about tomorrow because I had learned that I couldn’t predict my tomorrow…things could change quite quickly and all I could do was to focus on the NOW.

I feel the world is now at a similar place…we have all lost our sense of security and we are finding difficult to navigate through this new reality.

We are listening to some informative news but we are getting bombarded with a lot of negativity too.

It is challenging to move away from it…

I would like to invite you to think about the things you can control right now…focus on what you can control…tap into your inner strength (we all have one, trust me)…

You could focus on something as simple as reducing the time you spend watching the news…or increasing the time you meditate…or take up on reading again.

Little things can make a big difference in how we live, in who we are, in who we become through this…

I have also learned that nothing is permanent…I had some pretty shitty days but they too passed and the coronavirus shall pass too…

Stay safe and healthy,

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Don’t let “life” compromise your health

How well are you taking care of yourself these days? 

I could say I have had a full life so far…born and breed in Brazil…I left when I was 21…first one of a huge extended family to leave without a plan… 

Unless you can call having a Spanish passport and โ‚ฌ1000 a plan? ๐Ÿคฆ๐Ÿผโ€โ™€๏ธ 

Looking back my plan was very simple…I had a deep desire to prove to everyone you could create a life on my own terms…even though I was a woman…๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐ŸŽค 

Coming from a chauvinistic culture, that was a big statement at the time… 

I went to Spain first, then I lived 3 years in Belgium, 4 years in England…went traveling with my boyfriend at the time, husband now through Central and South America…ended up in New Zealand…had 2 kids and 3 years ago, we moved to Brisbane.๐Ÿ˜… 

We moved to Brisbane for my daughter’s health, she had asthma in New Zealand. She was cured when we moved to Brisbane but then I got cancer…

Bowel cancer Stage 3 to be more precise๐Ÿ˜” 

My KPIS for the day went very quickly from how many placements I could make in my recruitment role to

what I was going to eat to heal my body…

what I was going to listen to help my mind…

and what I was going to do to help my soul…

all of this wasn’t actually too hard for me…. 

BUT what it was hard to learn was… 

~to be vulnerable 

~to ask for help  

~to be dependant on my husband  

~to count on family and friends to help us… 

I had to learn to climb up from the deepest hole I could have ever dug myself into… 

Somewhere along my life, I thought to myself I was invincible…

it turned out…I wasnโ€™t…and I am not… 

And ya know, it wasn’t easy…

I had to work hard…

I had to acknowledge my mistakes…

I had to accept responsibility and learn how to get to know myself…

and face my worst fears… 

I had to learn how to forgive not only others but myself too.๐Ÿ˜Š 

Now life looks very different…

2 years after my diagnosis, I feel the healthiest and happiest I have ever been… 

I am continuously working on my physical, mental and spiritual health…I swore I would never take my health for granted anymore…

I am living up to that promise with every breath I breathe, E V E R Y   S I N G L E   D A Y 

Recently I left my 10 years recruitment career to focus on my business –

I am now a Wellness and Lifestyle coach.

I help cancer patients to regain control of their health physically, mentally and spiritually by making small changes that compound into a massive impact on their lives.

I believe we can learn from scientific research and we can learn from experiences, our own and the experience of others too… 

I have read countless books….I have listened to podcasts, YouTube videos, Ted Talks, anything body, mind and health related…anything that could help me to heal, create a new body, a new mind and a new life after my cancer diagnosis.  

I knew that whatever I did up to the moment of my cancer diagnosis was killing me and I needed some drastic changes… 

The internal work is where it all begins….I mean not only physically but mentally too – health is a ‘360-degree’ gig…you need to look at all aspects of your life…one by one… 

And through my understanding we are experiencing a health crisis… 

~most people are not fit and healthy 

~chronic diseases numbers including cancer are on the rise in every country in the world 

~heart and lung diseases, cancer and diabetes are the worldโ€™s largest killers, with an estimated 38 millions deaths annually  

~the major risk factors are tobacco use, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet and the harmful use of alcohol

ALL THINGS WE CAN CONTROL right? 

And this is what we are doing about it…. 

~we are still being bombarded and falling for foods that create disease 

~we live a lifestyle that doesn’t promote a healthy body and mind 

~we feel powerless because we think being healthy is really hard work 

~we don’t want to invest on our health because when it comes to health , everything seems expensive right?

If you want to know how you can turn your health around….you need to take action…and your first action could be get in touch with me.

I know right, scary…and it takes courage but if I changed my health around, I believe you can do it too. 

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