Feeling Lost 30 Months After My Glioblastoma Diagnosis

It has been 30 months since I was diagnosed with Glioblastoma.

Thirty months.

Sometimes that feels like a lifetime ago, and sometimes it feels like I am still sitting in that hospital room trying to understand how my entire life changed in a matter of hours.

I have survived longer than I was told I would. I have had clean scans. I have worked, gone back to school, built JohnVsGBM, taken part in advocacy, shared my story, filmed a documentary, spoken publicly, joined the National Brain Tumor Society, and tried to keep moving forward.

From the outside, it probably looks like I am doing great.

And in many ways, I am.

But the truth is that lately, I feel lost.

I have noticed that when I start feeling uncertain, I take on more. I make another plan. I sign up for another class. I look at another degree. I think about law school, an MBA, a certification, a new job, another collection for the store, another way to grow the business, another way to advocate, and another thing I can put my energy into.

I convince myself that the next goal will give me direction.

Sometimes it does.

But sometimes I take on so much trying to find focus that I end up feeling even more lost than I did before.

I think part of this comes from Glioblastoma. Not necessarily the tumor itself, but what the diagnosis did to the way I look at time.

Before cancer, I could make a five-year plan and assume I had five years to carry it out. I could take my time deciding what came next. I could stay in a job, build toward something slowly, or put a dream on hold until life settled down.

After cancer, waiting feels different.

There is always a part of me that feels like I need to hurry.

Hurry and finish school.

Hurry and build something meaningful.

Hurry and make more money.

Hurry and become the person I thought I would be.

Hurry and do the bucket-list things.

Hurry and prove that surviving was not wasted on me.

That is a lot of pressure to carry, especially when I am already trying to live with a disease that has no predictable path.

I finished my bachelor’s degree, something I am incredibly proud of. Then almost immediately, I started asking what was next.

Law school?

An MBA?

A Power BI certification?

A state job?

A different career?

Should I stay where I am because it is stable, or should I move because I do not always feel fulfilled?

Should I keep pushing myself, or am I pushing because I am scared to stand still?

Those are the questions that live in my head.

I know I am capable. I know I have worked hard. I know I have built a career, earned degrees, and done things after diagnosis that I was not sure I would live long enough to do.

But knowing those things does not always quiet the fear that I am falling behind or choosing the wrong path.

Some days I feel confident. I feel like I can handle anything. I can study, work, run the store, advocate, manage appointments, plan for the future, and still find time to laugh with Ernie and live my life.

Other days, I question all of it.

I question whether I am good enough at my job. I question whether I am still seen the same way professionally. I question whether I belong in analytics. I question whether law school is a real dream or just another way to distract myself. I question whether I should pursue an MBA because it makes sense, or whether I am simply uncomfortable not having a next step.

Even with JohnVsGBM, something I love deeply, I can get caught in the same cycle.

I work on products, collections, posts, search rankings, partnerships, promotions, and ways to grow. I want the store to succeed, not just because I want sales, but because it represents something very personal to me.

It represents what happened when I chose not to disappear after diagnosis.

It represents a survivor building something from a situation that could have completely broken him.

But even something meaningful can become another source of pressure when I start treating every idea like it has to work immediately.

The documentary was another strange emotional moment for me. Watching my life and my diagnosis unfold on a screen made me proud, but it also made everything feel real again.

It reminded me that I am living a life I did not plan for.

I am grateful to be here. I need to say that clearly.

I am deeply grateful.

But gratitude does not erase confusion.

Being alive does not automatically tell you what to do with your life.

Surviving does not come with a roadmap.

People often talk about cancer survivors as if we come out of treatment with perfect clarity. Like we suddenly know what matters, what we want, and how we are supposed to spend every day.

That has not been my experience.

I know what matters more than I did before. I know the people I love matter. I know time matters. I know memories matter. I know that being present with Ernie matters.

But I still struggle with purpose.

I still struggle with identity.

I still wonder who I am now compared to who I was before November 2023.

Before cancer, my career was a major part of how I saw myself. I loved my job. I felt confident in what I knew. I had a direction.

After cancer, I came back to a life that looked familiar, but I did not always feel like the same person inside it.

That is a hard thing to explain.

I am still me. I still know what I know. I am still calm under pressure. I am still usually the person who steps up and takes the lead. I am still adaptable. I still care about doing good work.

But there is also a part of me constantly measuring time, questioning my place, and wondering what I should be doing next.

Maybe feeling lost does not mean I am failing.

Maybe it means I am still trying to understand a life that changed without my permission.

Maybe I do not need to solve everything at once.

I do not need to decide my entire future today.

I do not need to prove my worth by collecting degrees, certifications, job titles, projects, or accomplishments.

Those things can still matter to me. I can still pursue them. But I do not want to keep using goals as a way to run from uncertainty.

That is something I am trying to be more honest about.

I want to learn how to choose things because they are right for me, not because I am afraid that time is running out.

I want to give myself permission to slow down without feeling like I am giving up.

I want to recognize that staying alive for 30 months after a Glioblastoma diagnosis is already something. It does not need to be justified by how productive I have been during that time.

I am still allowed to have days when I do not know what comes next.

I am still allowed to feel proud and lost at the same time.

I am still allowed to dream about law school, work toward an MBA, grow my store, explore a new career, or decide that one of those paths is not right for me.

Changing direction does not mean I failed.

Taking a breath does not mean I stopped fighting.

I do not have a perfect ending for this blog because I do not have a perfect answer.

I am 30 months into this journey, and I am still learning how to live inside the life I fought so hard to keep.

Some days I feel focused.

Some days I feel lost.

Most days, I am probably a little bit of both.

For now, I am trying to accept that.

I am still here.

I am still figuring it out.

And maybe, for today, that is enough.