My business helped me through cancer… until it didn’t
This tactic worked for a while. Continuing my entrepreneurial journey as the Founder and CEO of a global communications consultancy was the biggest distraction. Colleagues would mention how they couldn’t believe I was marching on with my business, while staggering around with no eye on one side – all the while hidden by big sunglasses as I healed.
There’s no time to waste
It became normal for me to do video calls with my team and clients with huge, dark Chanels on. I still couldn’t reveal the truth. It was hard to utter the words out loud. That I had just two weeks’ warning between my ocular melanoma diagnosis and eye removal surgery. And that I was adjusting to monocular life, where judging distances – like laptop screens, keyboards, and pouring boiling water into a cup – was a daily strain. This, as my brain readjusted and rewired to seeing life only through my right eye. Not to mention the flashing initially, known as ‘missing limb syndrome’; a cruel reminder of what I’d lost.
The truth is, my business saved me, because I have a massive drive and passion for it. It’s my baby (after my two girls and two cats). I had an innate desire to push on through, as if everything was completely normal. I wasn’t about to let go of what I’d built.
I also felt like I had dodged a bullet. Life is short, and that never had greater meaning for me. There was simply no time to waste. Carpe diem, and all that.
Turning pain into purpose
Many people commented how I must have an inner resilience. And I think there’s some truth in that. It’s little surprise that 92% of founders rank resilience as the number one requirement for entrepreneurship, according to a UCL School of Management study. It helps people overcome setbacks, maintain motivation and momentum, and basically not give up when the going – or markets – get tough.
For me, resilience was about turning pain into purpose. And my business was the conduit through which I could do that. But it transpired, when the dust began to settle, that it was also a façade shielding something too terrifying to deal with behind.
Record turnover in the aftermath of my diagnosis
What I never realised was that trauma is most manageable in the moment – and the months – after, because you’ve been protected by an invisible cloak of shock. It’s nature’s defence, I believe, to get you through some of the hardest, most harrowing times. For me that meant ploughing myself into my business more than ever before. I went on an entrepreneurial offensive – ploughing us into new markets, liked the Middle East. We achieved a record two years of turnover, in the aftermath of my mid-life cancer diagnosis. Motivation for me certainly stemmed from the health rollercoaster I’d been through. The mental repercussions took a while to catch up.
But when that mantle of shock falls, it’s mentally tough, despite the physical healing being long over. I am now two and a half years on. I live with monocular vision and wear an eye prosthetic. To the outside world – my clients and colleagues – I’ve bounced back; a phoenix risen from the ashes, so to speak. But to receive a cancer diagnosis, and to pour all your energy into your business simultaneously – to not give yourself time to heal mentally – takes its toll. There is no escape from the overwhelm of being an entrepreneur who is learning to live with the aftershocks of a cancer diagnosis at age 45 and life changing surgery. No matter how long you try to stave it off. And that’s the battle I must now try and win.
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