Cancer

In July I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of rare blood cancer that typically affects people 60 and older. As a 47-year old, I have won some kind of perverse lottery.

At first, it was just some extra pills. Carrying on was not only possible, but simple. Unfortunately, those chemotherapy pills are poison. A poison that hopefully kills cancer cells faster than healthy cells, but it poisons them both. By November, my energy was perpetually low, and my body ached most of the time. By December, I slept for 10 hours during the day on some days, and on others I could barely get out of the chair.

In January, I had an autologous stem cell transplant. For this transplant, they collect healthy stem cells from your body and store them. Then, they give you a very strong chemo/poison called melphalan that kills your entire immune system, and hopefully the cancer cells along with it. After, they transfuse your stem cells back into your body where they collect in the bone marrow and start rebuilding your immune system.

It worked. But, I spent a month in bed. Then, I spent a month trying not to throw up every time I ate. Then, I spent a month rebuilding any form of strength.

Shortly after finally getting back to some sort of normal, my immune system began to crash, a result of a rare (sigh) reaction to daratumumab. I spent most of July in the hospital as a result of basic infections that a person with a normal immune system would easily fight off.

My Freelance Writing Business

So, what happens to a freelance writing business when you spend seven months unable to write a decent email, let alone an article, whitepaper, or training seminar?

I lost all of my clients, my websites stopped ranking, and my business is now nothing more than some websites, an email inbox full of spam offering to monetize my websites, optimize my websites, or supply some venture capital, and a few hundred dollars a month from AdSense.

What now?

As Andy Dufrane says, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

Well, I’m going for the former. That means rebuilding my online freelance writing business from scratch.

The upside to this is that I can document the process as it happens, along the way creating a template for building your own freelance writing business from scratch.

Step One?

Start rebuilding those websites by adding new content signaling to both potential and former clients, as well as the search engines that I’m back. Content just like this post.

• And this new personal finance post over at Finance Gourmet.

Here we go.

We’ll start by building a freelance writer website.