I was told I had just six months to live, but the doctors were so wrong... Now I’ve gone on a gap year around the world aged 70!
The pain in his back was crippling and had been getting progressively worse.
Then the test results came back and the news could hardly have been more grim.
The doctors told George Jerjian that he had a bone tumour. And he had only six months to live.
What happened next was little short of a miracle.
Thanks to an incredible stroke of luck, once further tests were done, George discovered he was part of the tiny percentage of people where the cancer was benign.
The Londoner, who is amicably divorced and has two adult daughters, recalls that his symptoms began with a bad back. But it took him a long time to be diagnosed.
“From 2005 to 2007, I was experiencing painful back problems, and I went to my doctor, who sent me onto a consultant, who took MRIs and found nothing sinister and then sent me to a physiotherapist,” says George.
“This happened three times over two years and still the consultant failed to see beyond what he wanted to see.
“In January 2007, I experienced a perfect storm of three unrelated events: first, we had just sold our house, and we were looking to rent, second, my wife’s father had a stroke and died a week later, and third, I went for a colonoscopy only to discover I had a bone tumour the size of a large eggplant sitting on my right pelvis.
“This is what had been causing me painful back problems.”
The oncologist told George that in 98 per cent of cases bone tumours are secondary cancers, which are invariably malignant and terminal, and the cancer would have spread throughout his body.
“He told me that realistically I was looking at six months of life, but that I had to undergo various tests to confirm his diagnosis,” George remembers.
“I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. I mentally disassociated myself from the illness, as though this was happening to someone else.
“It’s bizarre but true. My best guess is that it was my mind’s way of protecting me from the harsh reality.”
Miraculously, after more tests, George found out that he was hugely fortunate not to belong to the 98 per cent of cases that are terminal.
“I belonged to the lucky few, the two per cent where the cancer was benign but growing aggressively,” he explains.
“After three weeks in limbo, when I was finally told that my tumour was benign, I punched the air with excitement. It felt as though my life sentence had been commuted to six months in jail.
“I had two operations, one to block the arteries to the tumour, and a week later, another to remove the tumour. I spent the following six months going to physiotherapy, learning to walk again on crutches, and studying a 24-week philosophy course online.”
It also marked a change in his approach to life.
When he retired from his job as an equity partner in a US commercial real estate firm, he had thought semi-retirement would be enjoyable. But soon he found himself twiddling his thumbs.
“I thought semi-retirement was going to be a lot of fun, and it was for about 18 months, and after the honeymoon period was over, it dawned on me that I was in fact bored, miserable and restless,” says George, now 70.
“I was mentally and social disengaged, and my energy and drive were sapped. I started to ask questions of myself and others and discovered that retirement has so many challenges that we don’t talk about. The rest is history.”
George had never had a gap year himself, and found himself dreaming of the possibilities that travel could bring.
“I mustered the courage to pursue my boyhood dream to travel round the world, inspired by Jules Verne’s novel, Around the World in Eighty Days, a book that had left an impression on my young mind,” he says.
“So, over a three-month period, I used the services of Audley Travel and their country specialists, to create a bespoke itinerary of travel to five countries, over five continents. I chose countries I had not visited before: South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Canada, spending about two weeks in each.
“I focused my time on the things I really wanted to do, see and experience. Sorting out electronic travel visas and mobile eSIMs was a bit of a challenge, but one of the best decisions I made was choosing a Caxton Card as my go-to travel companion.”
This is a pre-paid currency card you can hold up to 15 currencies on at any one time and top up via an app, so saving on ATM charge fees abroad.
“It was the only card I needed, and it made the whole journey feel seamless. I never had to worry about running out of money or being hit with poor exchange rates, which really helped ease the usual anxieties of solo travel, especially later in life,” says George.
“I left London on 21st March 2024 and was back in London on the 10th of June 2024 a total of 81 days, because I gained a day over the Pacific, when I crossed the International Date Line.”
Just like Phileas Fogg in Around The World In Eighty Days.
George had travelled from South Africa to Australia to New Zealand to Japan to Canada.
George took insights he’d always wanted to see, such as the natural wonders of the Great Barrier Reef, the waterfalls of Milford Sound, the castles and temples of Kyoto and the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains.
And his passion for his retirement led to him starting a business focusing on retirees.
“I advise my clients to take a gap year, or even a few months, and travel somewhere, ideally overseas, that interests and excites them, so they can distance themselves from the prison of their daily routine,” he says.
“It also gives them time to observe how others live and work, and in the process, give themselves time to evolve their identity and to attune to a new purpose.
“Traditional retirement is past its sell-by date, but people are so invested in it that only a crisis will help shift their mindset, and for many that will already be too late.
“A retirement gap year will help people to let go of old ideas and concepts and embrace a new or evolved identity and attune to a new purpose, a more meaningful existence. It’s about transitioning from success to significance.”
George believes that extended life spans mean that society needs to think about retirement in a novel way.
“In our culture, we have a rite of passage for adolescents going into adulthood: a gap year,” he adds.
“We do not have an equivalent rite of passage for retirees. Why do retirees need a rite of passage?”
George believes that shifting the mindset our society currently has about retirement will help retirees to be more positive about life without work.
“To anyone retiring who feels lost and despondent, my answer is do not be, because the best is yet to come. I did not come to this realisation on my own,” he adds.
“Do not wait for permission. No one is coming to save you. The Hopi Indians had a saying: ‘We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.’ So, what are you waiting for? Seize the day!”