Wanted: post-cancer life coach

As the life of "all cancer all the time" slips away from me, to be replaced by a new reality of "cancer as a chronic disease that needs to be managed all the time", I feel like I'm in need of some kind of guru. Problem is, I'm not your typical guru-seeking type. I'm a diehard atheist, heathen, questioner of all things, think most people are full of shite when it comes to most everything, and when they're not, they're generally insufferable types who get all judgey when you eat your fries and gravy in front of them.

I've spent the last 10 months cramming book after website after email after conversation down my own throat so I could move beyond the local medical stuff and the "10 ways to reduce your chances of getting cancer!" headlines on well-meaning mags and e-news sites. If I relied on those two sources, I'd think eating a high-fibre/low-fat diet and exercising regularly were the two magic bullets for prevention. And for some, they might be. But with the rate of cancer going up every year - 84,000 cases for women alone in 2010, which is up from around 50,000 cases 20 years ago - the two risk factors of carrying extra weight and leading a sedentary life have a billion details under them that I'm trying to redefine for myself.

By all accounts, and to break it down to the simplest terms, eating mostly fruit and veg every day and working up a sweat somehow every day, while maintaining some semblance of zen and purpose in your life, are the best ways to stare down the c-monster. If I had received a clean bill of health 10 months ago and had 10 months to learn the same shit, I'd be cutting out the cow's milk products, cutting down the flesh intake, raw-ing up the rest of my meals (juicing, salad-izing) and alternating my days with yoga, meditation and ultimate fighting.

The problem is, I didn't get a clean fucking bill of health 10 months ago, so the c-monster likely has a few small homes set up throughout my bod and I have to kick it up an extra 3,000 notches to make sure those homes don't turn into communities.  Some might say I have no control over that - and certainly my cancer twin's experience shows that hard work and big life changes can still result in some mighty dirty fighting ahead. But I can't live like that. I can't give up.

Here's where I need help. I'm going back to work soon and won't have the time I've had over the past 10 months to do the research I need to do to keep up on the goings on in the health and wellness world. Your typical life coaches either won't be clued in or will tell me shit I already know (now who's the annoying know-it-all?) and the medical community (including the alterna-types) want to either sell me shit, treat an existing problem, or stick me in a room with 40 other survivors who are likely over 60 to us all the same story like we're one big amorphous woman.

I don't need group counseling or daily affirmations, I need someone who's been there and can now make her living telling broads like me not to worry with every jolt of heat or pang in my breast, every headache, every muscle tweak, every night of extreme tiredness, every roast beef sandwich, every cookie, every evening spent watching Gossip Girl instead of running around the block, every application of a chemical-laden beauty product, every non-organic veg, every sleepless night, every longing look at my girls, every throat-catch when I see my husband's concerned face, every examination of the hair growth on my tennis ball head.

I know such a gal doesn't exist. I know it's me who has to keep coaching myself through all this jazz (saying nothing of the gazoodles of support I get from countless family members, friends and acquaintances), but man... lately (and I know it's mostly the recent news from my cancer twin) I've been feeling awfully in need of a good dose of "do this, don't do that" from a wise woman guide. And I'm willing to pay, y'all.