Man In The Mirror

The more people that tell you you are looking well the more you start believing it. In all honesty this probably is a better gauge than the mirror, scales, doctor or social media profile pictures. 

It was these same people that questioned and commented on your ill health before you yourself acknowledged it. They noticed the change in demeanour and loss of weight before you consciously did. Therefore they might be on to something. It's a good springboard to realise yourself how far you've come and certainly gives some much needed caress to the confidence.  Onwards and upwards.

Patience

Picking up training after an enforced break is much harder than when you started for the first time.  When you first set out on the journey the expectations are low, your abilities are limited and you're happy just to set off.  Small steps are acceptable and the pressure you put on yourself is bordering on non-existent.
Resuming training is a different kettle of fish.  You naturally want to pick up where you left off.  The fact that there has been a two month hiatus, you're body has been put through the mill and someone has effectively hit the reset button don't register.  Patience is of a limited supply as apposed to the vast amounts of desperation to be at the level you were before the break.  You want to be able to go for as long as you did before, you want to go as fast as you did before, you want to go as far as you could before.  Hell, after sitting on the shelf for so long there are parts of you that are deluded and want to make up for lost time and instantly go faster, further and for longer.  In general, delusion is a frequent visitor the further you get in to your recovery.  These feelings run parallel to the feelings in every day life.  You want to be hands on with the family, you want to be at work, you want to go out shopping, you want to do the gardening,you want to be out and about.  Like a big piece of elastic attached you your yearning body, you are held back however much you strain and it is the most frustrating thing of all.
During recovery you concentrate on so much in getting better.  You exercise your muscles and keenly become more physically activity with the joy of a toddler learning to crawl then walk.  You manage your diet, building up portions and becoming more adventurous (not that you can become much braver than eating my wife's cooking).  Appointments are attended and you take on board the advice and sometime reassurances on offer.  The one thing you neglect giving a go is applying a little patience.  You know you should but stuff it, you chuck patience out with the nasty surgical stockings, the torturous hospital meals and the feeling of giving a shit about the people who haven't been in touch.
With hindsight patience would have been the gift that kept on giving.  I wouldn't have been beating myself up or sulking in a pit of depression and frustration.  Eventually I improved from my body all but being redundant and every step beyond the front door being a struggle to cycling, wondering around London and playing on the beach as quick as flicking a switch.  The sudden change was most welcome if unexplained.
The trick now is to learn from it and apply patience to training (and work and home life).  What I can't do today I might be able to do next week.  What I can do now be grateful for and it will help in the long run.  Determination, optimism, hard work, exercise, advice, setting targets; they're all useless without patience and yet this is the one it takes the greatest effort to recall.

Long Road To Ruin

Cancer ruins your life on way or another.  If it doesn't kill you or disable you it still finds a way.  You can be blessed with remission but in one way or another it's still ruined your life.  It will bring you down. it will derail your career or work, it will put inhuman strain on your loved ones, it will trigger your temper, it will make you inactive, it will haunt you, it will stop you doing the thing you love day in or day out, it will create anxiety, it will make you look at the world differently, it will exhaust you, it will hit you like a train when you hear of others struck down by it, it will create thoughts from the darkest recesses, it will make you selfish.  It finds away.  You might not feel it every day; you might not feel it every week.  
The best of the best learn to adapt.  It takes time and it's hard and it has to come from the individual.  Some days it works, some days it fails miserably and some days you cannot be arsed to even try.  Some weeks it works, some weeks it fails miserably and some weeks you cannot be arsed at all.  It drains the patience of others and they don't have a clue what is going on.  Actually neither do you.