[chrisy]

Hmmmm.

What is "normal"??

I think that after treatment your life finds a new normal. Different than before cancer, but not revolving around the disease and treatment. In the new normal life, you can do and have most if not all of what you had before, but your perspective on things may have changed.

I couldn't tell from your posts exactly what your diagnosis was, but it seemed that you had early stage disease with no node involvement and (I assume) no metastasis. If I'm guessing this right, then I wonder if you misunderstood your oncologist's "5-10 year" survival comment. It would seem to me given your diagnosis that you would have a good prognosis, meaning high chance of passing the 2 benchmark points, 5 and 10 years! So now after a year, you have 4 and 9 years left until you get to declare VICTORY over it.

You didn't say exactly why your stomach is in knots. Is it the idea of working 40 hours? Working THERE? Or feeling trapped by the "golden handcuffs" of insurance, retirement, bla bla bla? I've been there from time to time, especially the latter - it's a real issue for most of us.

For me, I couldn't wait to get back to work - and in fact worked almost entirely through my chemo because my workplace was such a strong source of support, and I was lucky to have an easy time with chemo. Of course, there were, and are those "what was I thinking!?" moments...

Sounds like you have some time to decide. If you need a change or just need more time to recover. Take this opportunity to explore your dreams, and your options before you jump back in 100%. This is your life, and only you can make the decisions about how you want to live it.

take care
Chris