Finding Your New Normal After Cancer

One can make a case that we are all driving our way through life, accelerating and moving forward to our “destination,” whatever it may be. Despite vastly different paths, there is one destination every human being shares: death. After our body hits its prime, it is a show of slow but inevitable descent to that destination. Your body starts to wither, muscles atrophy, and you’re crankier with your young self behind you.

It’s when you encounter terminal illness that the weight of your foot causes you to accelerate towards your doom prematurely. Such was the fate of our author Perry Muse.

Being a bulky individual, Perry Muse was as strong as they come until chemo pills decided otherwise. Luckily, sometimes life completely changes your course, and you suddenly find yourself moving forward…

But in reverse.

Let’s glance at the light waiting for you at the end of the tunnel and ponder over how your life can improve for the better, how your scars begin to heal, and how you’ll find yourself moving forward in reverse after remission or otherwise.

Finding a new normal

After numerous needle pricks and doctor’s appointments, it’s only fair that your body looks and feels different when recovering. It is a patient ride into returning to the normal you once came from. Perry Muse was a soldier returning half his weight. Due to his treatment and medications, his manhood, strength, and ability to control his bathroom break faced repercussions during his healing journey.

Baby steps

When moving in reverse, going back to the hobbies you abandoned what seems like a decade ago may feel like taking your first steps in learning how to walk. Your legs wobble after enduring an immune system-destroying medication.

On a sunny March 20, 2021, Perry decided to pick up the debris left in the aftermath of his battle with cancer and proceeded to work his yard. Though in pain and feeling the effects in the back carrying the weight of his morbid thoughts, Perry found motivation in the most mundane chores. That’s all it takes for you to step on the gas while reversing.

Step on the gas

Latch on to every little progress you are making. No effort is too small for applause—strength needs to be rejuvenated in your muscles, bones, and mental health. Water the seed sowed for your plant of the property after uprooting your older self. Pick up momentum after your life was at a halt, busy with tests and the mental trauma of knowing there was no hope.

As time progressed, Perry Muse held onto his amazement when doing tasks he didn’t fathom he could do. He slowly let go of his medications, and his testosterone replenished, but so did his self-esteem and morale. He no longer needed naproxen or pain relievers, nor did his joints rusted up on him.

A testimony that, even though you may not be completely free of illness, you can still feel like you are excelling.

Keep moving forward (in reverse)

You may not be able to run a mile or go back to the gym getting those gains, but with every bounce of the basketball put through a hoop… be it one pointer till a three, you need to keep score.

Numbers are climbing like the speedometer of your life moving… in reverse.

For more on Perry Muse’s life prevailing against the morbidities of cancer, pick up his heartfelt memoir now!