run bike swim beat cancer

Going to the Where Now ? sessions at the Maggie’s centre has been amazing, I have learned so much – I’ve learned stuff that I didn’t even know I didn’t know !!! My way of thinking about this whole cancer journey has changed, and I feel much more comfortable with it – I didn’t realise I could, I never really bought into the acknowledging and understanding thoughts and feelings – that’s all a bit too lah-dee-dah !! you just get on with it don’t you !!

During the treatments, you do just deal with the practical side of it all – you go to chemo, go to the doctor, get bloods done, go for a scan, feel ill, feel better, go to work, go for a walk, try to eat, go to another appointment – you are locked into the cycle – no time to think too much.

My main motivation for going to the Where Now ? sessions was to try and find a way to deal with the fear of the cancer coming back. I felt physically fine and I felt mentally pretty tough and pretty much ok – and I still feel like that, but I now also understand that I have desperately been trying to get back to ‘normal’ both physically and mentally. I’ve been throwing myself 110% into the run-bike-swim to try and get back to where I was before the cancer. And mentally, I always felt invincible and had no doubts about the future – I was going to be breaking the world record for the 100 metre sprint for a 100 year old !!! I wanted to feel that certainty again.

I wanted to get back to normal, bounce back, get back in the game, back at work, grow my hair back, good to be back, nice to see you back…..

….but there is no going back.

Throughout the sessions it’s dawned on me that nobody ever goes back, to anything – we all go forwards. When I really think about it, I actually don’t want to be the person I was before, even if it was possible. I’d like to keep my positivity and determination, but try to have a better balance with family and home time, because that is the only thing that really matters. I always knew it, but probably wasn’t very good at the balancing act.

At the end of the six weeks of sessions we were to think about our main challenges and how we might deal with them. I found that really difficult – I didn’t really know what my main challenges were. So I guess my biggest challenge is to really look at what I want for the future, how I feel and how the most important people in my life are.

In one of the sessions we talked with the physiologist, and it was all good sensible, practical and useful stuff – not at all lah-dee-dah 😁 I liked the analogy of having put our thoughts and feelings in boxes. Some of us had opened the boxes, some had opened and unpacked !! I was pretty sure mine were still in a pile of boxes that I had pushed aside to look at another day – but apparently you can pile up the boxes, but will probably eventually fall over them ! I was laughing at myself having this massive wall of boxes piling up in front of me 😆

I was still being flippant though and imagining I was putting the boxes behind me and moving forwards and away from them, but then was laughing at the thought of the boxes running to catch up with me haha this sounds like one of my nightmares where I turn up late to a race or turn up without my trainers – that nightmare has now morphed into turning up to a race consisting solely of boxes hahaha mind you… if I win the race, what does that mean hahaha… !!? 😆🙃🙄 anyhooo… I think I might have gone too far with that ?!

The course was great, in all sorts of ways, but the best thing about it was the amazing people I met. Everyone’s journey was different but so very similar in so many ways. Everyone had similar thoughts, fears, feelings, perspectives, ideas, needs and wants. Every person said something that I identified with. Every one of them was inspiring. I learned so much and am so glad I went along. It’s good to talk !!! 😁😁😁

Oh yeh and I’m still intending to do that Ironman 😁😁😁💪💪🏊‍♀️🚴‍♀️🏃‍♀️😆 I’ll find a balance !!!? and I’ll class the training as ‘me time’ 😁😁😁