Being organized helped me through my cancer diagnosis and treatment. I added reminders on my calendar for medicines and set alarms before meetings.

• I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022, at 37.
• I had to do eight cycles of chemo followed by surgery and then radiation.

In May 2022, at 37, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully I was reassured that it was treatable, albeit with a daunting regimen involving eight cycles of chemotherapy followed by surgery and radiotherapy.

Once I was over the shock of the diagnosis, I was faced with a question I'd never anticipated: How was I going to organize my life?

I pride myself on being a highly organized person, but cancer turned my plans upside down. Hospital appointments started sprouting across my calendar like mushrooms. I'd receive a letter or a call every other day, and a half-day of earning potential — I freelance — would vanish.

I also had no idea how ill the chemo would make me. Would I be able to work at all? How could I make firm plans if I needed to go to the hospital at short notice? And given all this uncertainty, would my clients still want to work with me?

Fortunately, I was not our household's main earner. We could have afforded it if I'd wanted to take a few months off. But it was important to me to maintain the momentum of the freelance career I'd carefully built up over the past three years.

I turned down jobs I wasn't very familiar with

The first thing I did was tell my clients about my diagnosis. I was anxious about their reactions, but I needn't have worried. I'd guide them based on my energy and availability. This might not have worked as well if I'd been newer to freelancing, but I'd had time to build up the relationships and trust that made this possible.

Chemo did feel awful, and it became cumulatively more so as the treatment progressed. I was determined not to let it get the better of me; if I was going to feel terrible anyway, why not earn some money at the same time?

I was also keen to keep my mind active and avoid chemo brain fog. At the same time, I tried to be conscious of my limitations. I turned down work that was unfamiliar or especially mentally challenging, sticking to familiar clients, manageable deadlines, and projects I knew well.

Reminders and alarms helped me take all my medications and make it to meetings on time

My Google calendar became clogged with medication reminders. The chemo-drugs regimen can be fiendishly complicated: Mine included one daily pill, another pill twice daily on certain days, and injections on days three to 10. As soon as I was home from the chemo unit, feeling fuzzy and nauseous from the infusion, I'd add reminders to my calendar; I would have forgotten some doses otherwise.

I found myself working in short bursts, punctuated by naps on the sofa. I'd often set alarms to wake up in time for meetings. When last-minute hospital appointments meant I needed to reschedule things at short notice, my clients were understanding and flexible, thanks in part to my openness with them earlier on.

Being organized, however, only got me so far. My husband managed household tasks and childcare for our young daughter when I was too ill to help. I found chemo hard to manage without his support.

I'm in the midst of three weeks of daily radiotherapy, requiring trips to central London at wildly different appointment times, all of which seem subject to change at short notice. But managing this feels easy compared with the grinding ordeal of chemotherapy. I'm grateful to have withstood this experience with my health and career in relatively good shape.