After years away from corporate life, carrying the full mental load of home and child and starting again in a completely different field, I rebuilt myself into a six‑figure role on par with peers who never took a break. The gap did not magically “close”; I closed it by refusing to treat my pause and everything that life threw at me including cancer as the end of my story.

My efforts were not glamorous: I reached out to people in tech circles, joined forums, asked very basic questions about roles, and was sometimes laughed at or dismissed behind the shield of “compliance.” Those moments stung, but they became fuel, pushing me to prove—to myself more than anyone—that I was capable of so much more. At the same time, there were people who did the opposite: friends who spent hours answering my “silly” questions, sharing interview prep, and opening doors they did not have to, reminding me that when I truly commit to moving forward, the right help has a way of appearing.

The real accelerator was not any single course or certificate, but a daily decision to back myself. I worked on my mindset first, choosing to believe that my attitude could be stronger than disease, gaps, or labels, and then I matched that belief with action—hundreds of applications sent, hundreds of conversations started, and every spare hour spent reading, learning, or practising. That mix of self‑love (treating my dreams as worthy of effort) and relentless consistency is what turned an “impossible” comeback into my new normal.

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