Making my peace with Parkrun

I wanted do one final Parkrun after lockdown ended.

In the end I did two and, with a grand total of 103 runs under my belt, I’m now bowing out.

These popular, volunteer-led 5k running events used to take place every Saturday morning in hundreds of parks across the UK. By the time they stopped with the first lockdown, in March 2020, I’d done 101 runs – a considerable achievement, it has to be said, considering I did most of them after I finished treatment for primary breast cancer in February 2016 and a dozen or so after I was diagnosed with secondary, incurable breast cancer in April 2019.

I didn’t run for a good few months after my secondary diagnosis. Indeed at one stage, I genuinely thought my running days were over. Thankfully they weren’t.

The cancer is in my bones and the fact that it has also “infiltrated” my bone marrow means I’ve been anaemic essentially since my secondary diagnosis. The ongoing inability of my bone marrow to make enough haemoglobin to transport sufficient amounts of oxygen around my body is a major challenge.

I’d really just started doing Parkruns regularly again when the pandemic hit. My stamina and strength massively reduced over the 16 months of lockdown. I kept running on and off, despite the anaemia and despite the fact that I had problems with my feet – caused by the medication I was on and made considerably worse by running.

Anyway, Parkrun finally started up in England again a couple of Saturdays ago. By pure chance, one of my brothers and his son were visiting us in London at the time. We all egged each other on – in a nice way – and decided we’d all go for it. This, I said, would be my last. It would be good to have some support.

It was a two-lap course. I started at the very back of the pack, assuming I’d be running very, very slowly compared to many if not all of the other runners. Also, I’d decided that being at the back would be safer from a coronavirus point of view. Given I’m on active treatment for advanced breast cancer and immunocompromised, I’m categorised as clinically extremely vulnerable. Very soon after lockdown began, I decided to stop shielding – ie staying at home and not going out other than when absolutely necessary – in favour of being careful when I was out. No point in being reckless now, I thought. I sought advice from a doctor friend and she agreed the risk was low.

Off we went. I jogged around ten steps then realised I couldn’t jog a step more. My legs felt so heavy. They just wouldn’t move. No matter what my head was telling my body, that clearly was not going to change. It was all a bit strange, as several weeks earlier I’d done a run of the same distance – slowly, but problem free.

I started walking and after a few minutes tried jogging again. No change; a few metres at a time was all I could manage. My head was all over the place. This was my final Parkrun and it was turning out to be a huge disappointment. I genuinely thought of giving up there and then. Then I thought how daft that would be, given that all I’d be doing instead was cheering on my brother and nephew and all the other runners. I then gave some consideration as to what Parkrun’s about – it’s about participation, community, effort and overcoming adversity. Parkrun has changed the lives of thousands of people for the better and taking part has been such a privilege. For many, just walking the course is a huge achievement. Dropping out would be such a negative way to finish my Parkrun “journey”, I thought. I checked with the “tailwalker” – the person who brings up the rear and makes sure no-one comes last – to see if he would be ok with me walking most of the route. He said that was more than ok. It turns out his wife was Scottish and we spent a fair part of the course talking about Parkruns in Scotland.

I duly finished the course. In a pack of more than 450, other than for the tailwalker, I came last. I jogged the final few metres – because how could I not? My husband, brother, nephew and a few enthusiastic Parkrun officials/volunteers cheered me over the finish line. It wasn’t a disappointment at all. In fact, it all felt great.

102 Parkruns and out – or so I thought.

Then something happened a few days later that made me want to try again. I had blood tests done, and it turns out my haemoglobin level was almost as low as it had ever been since I was diagnosed in Spring 2019. It was pretty darn low. That went a long way towards explaining why I could hardly put one foot in front of the other the previous Saturday. The day after I got the test results, I had yet another red blood cell transfusion – my third since late June. Two days later I ran what I’m pretty sure will be my final Parkrun as a participant. I’m ok with that; I now feel I’ve made my peace with this wonderful initiative.

A blood transfusion doesn’t fix everything. It gives you a very welcome temporary energy boost but it does not make you superwoman, or indeed get you remotely close to the level you were at before your diagnosis. Even after this latest transfusion, my haemoglobin level is still only at two thirds of what it was pre-diagnosis. I was wiped out after the run, my hips and my knees hurt and I basically spent the best part of the rest of the weekend on the sofa. I even went for a nap on Saturday afternoon. To be honest, I would probably have stayed in bed had I not been going to see Chrissie Hynde – yes, that Chrissie Hynde! – in concert that night at the Royal Opera House in central London. The following day I still felt shattered and I cancelled a lunch date in town, which is most unlike me.

However slowly I ran, it was worth doing this final run for reasons of personal satisfaction. It was also fitting that it was at my home course of Tooting Common, where I’ve done the vast majority of my runs (the previous week’s run was at a nearby Clapham Common). I’m not sure I want to spend whole weekends in recovery mode, though, so it’s 103 and out. In future I’ll be helping out as a volunteer, which I’ll be more than happy to do.

I have my next set of blood tests next week. We’ll find out how my haemoglobin is bearing up two weeks post-transfusion and we’ll be looking closely to see what action there has been on the tumour marker front. At the end of my third monthly treatment cycle almost a month ago now, the marker had, to our pleasant surprise, unexpectedly fallen slightly when the trend over the first two months of treatment had been upwards.

The other procedure I’m having that could help on the haemoglobin front hasn’t yet had an impact. It can take a while to work, so we still have a few weeks to go with that.

The seemingly never-healing cold sore wound on my lip has almost gone. Hurrah! I have had this wound on my lip for two whole months now. Two whole months. Also on the positive side, the medication-induced ulcer that started developing on my tongue a week or so ago went away as quickly as it came. I nearly cried when I first felt it. Just as I get rid of the cold sore wound, I thought despairingly, a tongue ulcer comes to replace it. If you’ve never had one of these, count yourself very, very lucky.

Here’s nice story to finish. I told our sons a while back that I’ll lose my hair as and when I move on to my next treatment – intravenous chemo. I didn’t want it to come as a surprise to them when it happened. My hair at that point was the longest it had been in years. I mentioned to the younger son a week or so ago that I was thinking of getting it cut. He himself is a redhead and has a beautiful thick mane that reaches half way down his back. Without hesitation, he says, “Nah, mum, use it ‘til you lose it”. I compromised with a trim! 

When a 5k run means so much more than a 5k run

The very slow 5k run I did this morning ranks among the sporting endeavours of which I am most proud. It is also almost certainly the slowest 5k I have ever run.

The idea that I might get out there and try running five kilometres began forming a week or so ago. I hadn’t done any running at all in more than two months. As a result of that and various other factors, I’d really lost my confidence. But the omens were good. 

The main thing was that the wounds I’d had on my right calf and right sole were finally healing. I had two pigmented and irregularly shaped lesions removed towards the end of April and the resulting wounds were taking longer to heal than I’d anticipated. Apart from the odd bike ride a month ago to see how the wounds would bear up – they didn’t – the only exercise I’d done since having the procedure done was walking.

Secondly, my feet were feeling better than they’d felt in many months. The side effects of capecitabine, the previous medication I was on, had worn off. The specific side effect from which I suffered is called palmar-plantar or hand-foot syndrome, where you develop sore and red palms of hands and soles of feet. The skin may also begin to peel. With me, only my feet were affected. They would hurt even when I was walking and the pain would keep me awake at night. With running, I’d get huge blood blisters even in the most comfortable and supportive running shoes.

So as I say, the omens were good.

Then, to top it all, just three days ago on Friday last week, I had a blood transfusion. The reasons for needing a transfusion are never good but I know from experience that they give you an energy boost. In my case, the metastatic breast cancer that has spread to my bones and bone marrow is preventing my body from making healthy red blood cells. My haemoglobin keeps falling, making me anaemic. This was my fourth transfusion since being diagnosed with advanced breast cancer over two years ago. The third one was only a few weeks ago. The effects of a transfusion can last for up to two weeks.

So those were the reasons making me think I should do a run. On the flip side, it’s been a really difficult few weeks on the cancer front (more on that in another post) and I’ve been struggling to deal with it all. Also, I have a cold sore that’s taking forever to heal and that is making me feel really self-conscious, not to mention lethargic and down. 

One part of me was thinking “go for it”. Another part was saying it would be no big deal if I never ran again. 

Anyway, I can’t tell you how many pep talks I had with myself before I finally put on my running shoes, left the house, and walked to where I wanted to start the run. 

I reminded myself that I will probably have to change treatment again soon. It’s a dead cert that my ability to exercise will be curtailed further once that happens.

Also, hand-foot syndrome is a potential side effect of the treatment I’m currently on and have been on for just over two months. While my feet have indeed been fine for a while, very recently the tingling and throbbing has come back at night and my sleep has been badly disturbed a few times in just this past week.

If I didn’t attempt a 5k now, when would I? The answer to that was possibly never. 

I also tried to think of what the various cycling coaches I know would say to motivate me.

I’m pretty certain that when I was in my 20s, I ran a 10k in almost the time it took me this morning to do 5k. But it really doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. What matters is that I ran at all today.

What makes it even better is that I did the local Parkrun route. Parkrun is a free, timed, mass-participation, volunteer-led 5k run that pre-pandemic took place on Saturday mornings in parks around the UK and indeed in many countries. I was a huge fan and ran my 100th Parkrun in January 2020. I managed one more before the very first lockdown began two months later. 

The route comprises three laps of Tooting Common, the green open space that starts at the bottom of our street in south west London.

I did stop once, to take a photo of a cluster of mushrooms (see above).

That probably added at least 20 seconds to my time. Anyone who’s pushing or over 58 will know how much effort and time it takes to get down into and back up from a squat!

It was hoped that Parkrun might start up again in England some time this month but it’s been postponed to the end of July. Initially I was really excited at the thought of it starting up again but now I’m not sure about running among large crowds. I wrote recently that I’d like to do at least one more Parkrun. After this morning, morally, I feel I’ve done it.

Completing a challenge amid joy and sorrow

Last Friday was one of those days where you experience a vast range of intense emotions over a short period of time and for hours afterwards they’re all spinning round your head, vying for attention.

It was the day I finished the challenge a friend had set for herself and me in December last year. We were to run, swim or cycle the 192 miles of the Coast to Coast route from St Bees in the Lake District in the northwest of England to Robin Hood’s Bay in Yorkshire in the east. We would do it more or less together – virtually, of course – and we had three months in which to complete it, starting on January 1st.

I decided I would try to run a third of the route and cycle two thirds. I am so slow at running these days but I reckoned running 64 miles and cycling 128 miles over three months was manageable. My friend was running the whole thing. However, once we started, it soon became clear that she would finish in early March. I knew I’d have to up my game to keep up with her.

I’m not going to lie. The running was hard.

I already had a permanent tingling in the balls of my feet and my toes as a result of the nerves being damaged by the chemo I had in 2015 for primary breast cancer. I’ve said before that it’s annoying rather than painful; I am constantly aware of it but it’s just something I live with.

Making things worse, though, was the fact that I think I have developed over the past few months one of the more common side effects of the oral chemotherapy that I’m on as part of my treatment for secondary breast cancer – palmar-plantar or hand-foot syndrome, whereby the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet can become red and sore and numb and swollen and the skin can become dry and blister and peel. Luckily I only have it in my feet and even then I mainly only experience soreness and numbness. It’s more pronounced than the existing tingling (or chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy to give it its officially name) and I’m in no doubt that running exacerbates it. Long walks do too – the friction from walking can result in large and painful blood blisters as the skin is more sensitive than it would usually be.

On one of the secondary support forums I’m on, we refer to it as “cape feet” – “cape” being shorthand for capecitabine, one of the chemo drugs that can cause this particular side effect.

The bottom line is that my feet hurt when I run and the further I run the more they hurt. I therefore decided that I’d do lots of short runs than than fewer, longer runs. If I was meeting a friend for a walk a mile away, for example, I’d run the mile there. I also ran the couple of miles to or back from the hospital a good few times – once after having had blood taken for my latest round of blood tests and another time after having had an MRI scan of my spine, one of the places the cancer has spread to.

Inspired by Parkrun and an associated initiative known as Cancer 5k Your Way, I saw 5k as a good distance to aim for if I was feeling up to it. Parkruns are free, timed Saturday morning 5k runs organised by local volunteers that take place in parks and open spaces around the country and indeed the world. I was a huge fan before the pandemic-related restrictions put a halt to organised outdoor sporting events and, of course, to so much more.

“Cape feet” undoubtedly affects my quality of life. However, as long as I was still able to run, there was no way I was not going to complete the running part of this challenge. I’ve stopped looking at how long it takes me to do stuff now and I’m just grateful that I’m still able to do them. I’ve embraced the concept of “it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it”. Plus, I’d treated myself to a new pair of running shoes and bluetooth headphones!

To encourage myself to get out there and run, I’d been listening to podcasts. Given the foot issue, I realised something more motivational was needed. So I put together two playlists on Spotify – one is called “Mo Is Dancing” (I’m Mo) and the other is “Women in Country”. I love both and it’s always hard to decide which to listen to.

Talking of motivation, I remember on one occasion standing in my running kit outside the hospital after a scan, my feet already throbbing. I was thinking that I really didn’t feel like running home. Then I thought “what if this were going to be your last run?”. That did it, and I set off. Some people say you should live every day as if it were your last. I’ve always thought that was kind of daft because that would mean every day would be exactly the same – and potentially very boring or very exhausting depending on how you’d chosen to spend it. However, it did come in handy that day at least.

It also helped that another online breast cancer support group I’m a member of was holding a challenge of its own throughout the month of February – for its members collectively to virtually walk round the coast of the UK. In addition, my company was running a February Fitness challenge, with around 250 teams from around the world all competing to clock up the biggest number hours of exercise over the month. All the runs and bike rides I did for the Coast to Coast counted towards those challenges too.

In case you’re wondering, running doesn’t seem to cause long-term damage. You do have to put up with some sleepless nights after you’ve been on a run that’s longer than a couple of miles. The symptoms recede to a large degree after a few days of rest (ie no running or long walks) but I have to be honest, the discomfort even when I haven’t been running does still cause the odd disturbed night.

I kept up with my friend by putting in some miles on my bike (mostly outdoors, but there were also a few indoor sessions) whenever she got too far ahead. We decided to run the last few miles at the same time so we’d finish more or less together. We video-called each other a few minutes before our agreed start time and then set off, me in south London on my own and my friend in south Wales with two of her lovely three daughters. We video-called again once we’d finished. It was all quite exciting! And the medal you get for finishing is rather smart.

The challenge was organised by a company called My Virtual Medal (myvirtualmedal.co.uk). You log your miles on a website that tracks where you are on the route. My friend and I had virtual tea and cake together in some lovely coffee shops and stayed in some very nice hotels along the way! Maybe one day we’ll visit some of these places in real life. I also dropped in for a virtual coffee with a friend who lives not far off the route as it enters Yorkshire! I did in fact call her up and we had a good old chat.

It couldn’t have ended in a nicer way. Towards the end of my run, on Tooting Common, my local stomping ground, I bumped into a friend who was also out running. His wife is a senior intensive care nurse at the hospital where I’m being treated. She’s been in the thick of it during the pandemic. Her husband and I hadn’t seen each other in person for a while and we stopped to chat.

Mid-catch up, a dog runs up to me and drops a ball at my feet. I recognise her immediately. It’s Ruby, our friends’ and neighbours’ beautiful black labrador. As it happens, I am chief ball thrower for Ruby when we’re out on walks with our friends. She’d clearly recognised me and wanted to play.

Her “master”, our friend Dave, wasn’t far away. How could I say no? I laughed and kicked the ball for Ruby while half-running the last few hundred metres of my run.

Coincidentally, Dave knows Robin’s Hood Bay really well and told to enjoy myself while I was there!

Dave is a good few years younger than me. He’s been living with Parkinson’s disease for ten years. I’ve mentioned Dave before in various posts. I had the pleasure of joining him and a group of friends last summer on yet another of his fundraising events for Parkinson’s UK – this time walking the Hadrian’s Wall Way during one of those periods when the pandemic restrictions were lowered. Dave’s a bit of a legend in the Parkinson’s community and in the world of darts, having been a presenter of Sky Sports Darts for many years. Check him out on Twitter at @daveclarktv.

While I was writing this post, Dave dropped off a prize – a memento from Robin’s Hood Bay (see photo) – for having completed the challenge. I love it!

Dave and I are among each other’s biggest fans, supporting and admiring each other through adversity. It was therefore lovely to bump into him and Ruby. However, it also felt quite strange, given that just a few minutes before, I’d been standing in front of a bench a few hundred metres away with tears streaming down my face.The bench is dedicated to the memory of a good friend of one of my sons, who took his own life last October. He was 21.

I’d known the bench was there but this was the first time I’d seen it. I’d looked for it before while out running but in the wrong place and coming across it at that point really took me by surprise. The bench was covered in flowers and looked beautiful. I had this most tragic of events in my mind* when I bumped into my running friend and Dave and Ruby soon afterwards. It all felt quite surreal.

I’ll finish by saying that it was good to complete the Coast to Coast challenge early. It meant I was able to finish it before I get the results of my latest set of scans. I had an MRI scan of my spine (the first in almost a year) and a near full-body PET CT scan the week before last (the first since last September). I get the results tomorrow. As we know, there’s no point trying to second guess the results. That said, if they show progression and I have to change treatment, it’ll be better to head into the next phase with a shiny new medal than with 60 plus miles of running and cycling left to go.

*If you’re in the UK and you or someone you know is struggling, you or they can get help from organisations such as The Samaritans (https://www.samaritans.org/) or CALM (https://www.thecalmzone.net/about-calm/what-is-calm/). It’s only by encouraging people – and men in particular – to reach out and seek help that we’ll make inroads towards lowering the numbers of those who see suicide as their only option.

An update

In the grand scheme of things, I’m quite relieved at the results of my latest round of blood tests.

I met the oncologist earlier this week to discuss the results of the tests I’d had done the previous day. The best I could have hoped for was for my tumour marker to have stayed at the level it had jumped to in December. I figured that was unlikely given that it had risen by a whopping 20% between the November and December blood tests. In the event, it went up by around another 10%.

On the upside, on the blood front things are good. The secondary breast cancer that has spread to my bones has also infiltrated my bone marrow and so reduces my body’s ability to make healthy blood. It was therefore good to hear that my haemoglobin count is up from last month and is again within the normal range, albeit at the very lower end. My neutrophils, while still below the normal range (they’ll never be there again), are 40% up on last month. That means I’m a little better placed to face any infection that comes my way – a positive in the current climate.

Once again, it’s swings and roundabouts. The tumour marker is up but bloods are ok.

With the pandemic still on the rampage, every effort is being made to minimise the number of trips patients on treatment make to hospital. For example, every other appointment with the consultant over the past nine months has been on the phone rather than in person. In fact, I may have had more over the phone than not. Some people don’t like this way of communicating but it’s fine by me. In addition, for my next two rounds of treatment, I’m going to self-inject at home the bone strengthening drug (denosumab/Xgeva) that I have at the start of every new cycle. It’s usually done by one of the oncology nurses at the day treatment unit at the hospital. I did it myself last month at the unit under supervision and that too was fine.

The fact that the marker is going up indicates that there is increased cancer activity somewhere in my body. That’s what happens with secondary cancer. It eventually outwits every possibly treatment. While these latest results were far from disastrous, you do have to be practical. The oncologist therefore discussed with me what drug(s) I might move onto if the scans I’m to have in seven weeks show signs that the cancer has progressed to the extent that we need to change to another treatment. The scans could show any number of things. While you can’t predict a precise course of action in advance as you don’t know what you’ll see, you can be thinking of what might need to happen under various scenarios.

The discussion was quite sobering. But let’s not pre-empt things. That decision – if indeed a decision needs to be taken – is eight weeks away. In the meantime, I carry on with my current treatment and just get on with things.

One of those things is reporting my health status daily on the Covid Symptom Study app – covid.joinzoe.com – that is used to study the symptoms of COVID-19 and track the spread of this virus that is causing such devastation and unimaginable heartache to so many. (On a personal level, next week will see the funeral of a good friend’s husband who died from COVID-19 just after Christmas. His death was heartbreaking on many levels.)

It seems heartless to carry on writing about my own experiences having just written those previous two sentences, but the case is that I reported having a runny nose on the Zoe app, as it’s known, one day last week. While a runny nose is not a symptom of infection with the virus, I, together with any other household members, was “invited” via the app to take a test. It was all very efficient. The test kits were delivered the day after we requested them, we posted them back the following day and got the results – negative in the case of both myself and my husband – 36 hours later via text and email.

I reckoned the results would be negative but, with transmission rates as high as they are, you can obviously never be sure. Our two boys are back at uni and so it’s just my husband and me in the house. I work from home so it’s been a few weeks since I’ve been out for anything other than to exercise or attend hospital appointments. In my husband’s case, it’s for exercise or shopping. I now exercise on my own; I’ve even stopped the walks with friends that had become such a regular and welcome feature of life.

I’m feeling well on the whole and another thing that I’m doing now that I don’t meet up with friends for walks is go out almost every day either for a run or a bike ride. The reason is that I have signed up to a bit of a mad challenge that involves running and/or cycling a total of 192 miles between the beginning of January and the end of March. I could do it all on the bike but I’ve decided to do as much of it as I can on my own two feet rather than on two wheels. Running is so much more challenging than cycling, at least it is for me given the pace at which I cycle. I run incredibly slowly but I guess it still counts as running in that I do overtake people who are simply walking!

There’s no way I’d be running if a friend hadn’t suggested we both sign up for this challenge. Even after having signed up, I’ve had to come up with an incentive to get me out running. I wanted to listen to Transmissions, a multi-episode podcast that I’d heard was really good – about the iconic Manchester bands from the 1980s, Joy Division and New Order. I decided I would only listen to the podcast while running. It was a good plan and it works both ways. I’m loving the podcast so much that I go out running so I can listen to another episode and listening to the podcast makes the runs easier.

This has been a good week for running. I’ve got the week off work, so I’ve got no excuse really. I’m in the category of people for whom work has never been busier and I worked part, if not all, of each of the four working days between December 24th and 31st. It has been so relaxing to have a big chunk of time off. The house is very quiet now that the boys are away again. We had a lovely Christmas together. It’s usually just the four of us anyway on Christmas Day so in that sense at least it wasn’t so different from other years.

The photo above on the left is of me on the 25th, relaxing on the sofa with two of my presents after an almost two-hour spin on the bike – out to Richmond Park, a favourite destination around seven miles away.

The photo on the right was taken in our garden by my husband not long after the bells on New Year’s Eve.

Hogmanay, as we Scots say, normally makes me feel quite melancholic. This year, though, presumably because of all the sadness that 2020 held, it felt important to celebrate and look forward – both because of and despite what the future may bring.

The busy business of living under lockdown

Another four weeks gone by, another round of treatment started.

Last Wednesday, I had the usual blood tests – plus a couple of additional ones that I have every so often. The following morning, I got the all-clear to go ahead with treatment in a phone call from the oncologist, so off I went to the hospital later that day.

I had my temperature taken and was given a face mask before I could enter the oncology day unit, which has been re-sited to a stand-alone building away from the main hospital buildings to reduce the risk of patients catching or spreading the coronavirus. I had my various injections (fulvestrant, denosumab and filgrastim), was given my next 28-day supply of abemaciclib tablets and an extra filgrastim injection to give myself mid-cycle to boost my white blood cell production and headed home again.

That’s cycle #13 under way with the core drugs I started on a year ago now. On 23 April, I passed the first anniversary of my unofficial diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. Official confirmation came shortly after that the primary breast cancer that I’d been treated for almost four years earlier had spread to my bones (mainly my spine) and was also in my bone marrow.

There were a couple of changes but no big surprises on the blood test front. The relevant tumour marker has gone up as it has done every month since November. And while my red blood cell or haemoglobin level varies by the month, this time it had dropped to slightly below the normal range for the first time since September. It’s been going down since February or March. That unsettles me. I feel fine largely, but maybe that explains why my running has become little more than a brisk walk! I need some excuse so I’ll take that one.

During the phone call with the oncologist, I decided to take the opportunity to ask her to talk me through every possible drug treatment option from here on. She did, in great detail. It seemed like a good idea at the time but I spent much of the following day really out of sorts thinking about the enormity of it all. Plenty of good things happened that day but overall I would not describe it as a good day. Days like that are allowed every so often.

It’s been an eventful few weeks, despite lockdown.

For starters, I had a week off work. It’s been super busy and it was good to get some time off, especially so when it coincided with some fantastic weather here in my little part of south west London.

I read a couple of books. I got my summer clothes out and had a bit of a wardrobe clear-out. I polished four pairs of shoes that were sorely in need of cleaning and I replaced a pair of shoe laces that had needed replacing for at least a year. I prepped the garden for some plants I’m hoping will be delivered this week or next. I thought I’d mastered making flapjacks, but then promptly burnt the next batch.

I’m in the category that I’m terming “vulnerable but no longer shielding” – my oncologist said last month that she was happy for me to go out for exercise. I decided I could safely do socially distanced cycling, so in that week off I went for a couple of longish bike rides, through a beautiful and largely deserted central London. Being out on the bike felt very good indeed.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve also had a clear-out of my “memory box”, which in my case was a suitcase. It was a joyous thing to do and I highly recommend it.

There was the odd photo; not many though – the boxes and files of photos are  another thing entirely.

There were dozens and dozens of cards. Mother’s Day cards. Birthday cards. Christmas cards. Valentine’s Day cards. Wedding cards. Postcards from friends and family. Letters from old boyfriends. Dozens of cards and letters from my now husband. Wedding invitations. Orders of service from funerals. Letters from my brothers when they were away travelling, from Sri Lanka and Australia.The two cards I received from friends asking me to be godmother to their children.

There’s a letter from my late dad from when I was living in Spain in the mid 1980s. That’s one to keep – my dad never wrote. There’s also a cutting from a Spanish newspaper; it’s a photo of me on my now husband’s shoulders at a march in Madrid from around the same time (see below). Ticket stubs from dozens of concerts, going back to when I was in my final years at school the late 1970s. The ticket from my first flight. My first pay packet, from 40 years ago – four hours work in a grocer’s at 74p an hour. My first proper job offer in London. Exam certificates and indeed exam papers, that I couldn’t possibly answer now.

Madrid, December 1984

There are also medals and certificates from various 10k runs and the odd half marathon done over the years. My fastest recorded time for a 10k run, in London in 1993 when I would have been 29 or 30, was just under 50 minutes. Not brilliant, but not bad. It would take me more than half an hour longer at my current speed.

I was brought up a catholic and there was also the certificate from my first holy communion when I was seven and the rosary beads I had as a child. It seems really strange to me now that I kept these. I’ve been lapsed for so long, but perhaps there’s something in the saying “once a catholic, always a catholic”.

I came across an English project from secondary school. I got an A*, which came with a comment of “very competent”. For an A*? That seems rather harsh. I don’t recall feeling anything other than pleased at the time but I’m outraged now! Surely an A* deserved very good, or even perhaps excellent.

And then there’s the certificate thanking me for having been a blood donor. I gave blood 22 times in the UK before a gastrointestinal complaint I had nearly ten years ago meant I could no longer donate. I remember being gutted at having to stop. I loved giving blood – it made me feel part of something bigger. I donated 23 times in total. My first donation was at a mobile unit that had pitched up at the campsite I was staying at in the south of France for the summer between first and second year at uni. The incentive was that they handed out free sandwiches after you’d donated. None of us there had much money so it was a no-brainer! As you can see, I have the certificate from that too.

I’d gone to France on the train from Glasgow with a friend from uni after seeing a notice for summer jobs on the student union notice board. We ended up selling apple donuts (no hole in the middle) and ice creams on a nudist beach for six weeks. It was an interesting experience to say the least. I’d turned 18 just days before I left for France and was still pretty naive – I was less so by the time I came back! 

I’m going to get on my high horse here and say that if you don’t give blood and there’s no medical reason preventing you from doing so, you need to have a word with yourself. Having a genuine phobia of needles also gets you off the hook but just being a bit nervous around needles or can’t be bothered really doesn’t cut it. Say you get sick and you need, for example, chemo or antibiotics via a drip, or indeed, a blood transfusion. Are you going to refuse on the grounds that you don’t like needles? No, I didn’t think so. Do it, it’s your civic duty. You won’t regret it. Incidentally, I’ve had all three procedures I mentioned. That’s incidental, though; I’ve always felt strongly about this.

Other things have happened.

Some exciting cycling plans I had for the summer have been scuppered, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. My diagnosis last Spring meant I had to give up on plans to ride a few stages of the Tour de France a week before the real thing in July as part of a big fundraising event known as Le Loop. My heart therefore skipped a beat in December last year when they released the route of the 2020 tour and I saw there were going to be two back-to-back flat stages. Flat is not usually a word you associate with the tour, and my interest was piqued. Each stage was 100 miles but I was feeling much fitter than I thought I’d be. I mulled it over for a bit and decided that if I were still well and suitably fit come July, I’d go for it. I wouldn’t have to raise any money as the money I raised last year would roll over.

No-one knew of my plans other than my oncologist, my husband and two boys, and the lovely people at Le Loop. My plan was to crack on with the training – quietly and without any of the fanfare that accompanied my plans last year – then do the event, completing what I saw as unfinished business. Anyway, like many charitable events and so much else, this year’s Le Loop has been cancelled, having initially been moved to the end of August. It’s disappointing, but for me what matters is that I felt well enough to at least consider going for it. There may be a chance to do it next year, or there may not. There’s no need to think about that at present.

I heard someone say on the radio the other day that no matter how inconvenient things were for them under lockdown, they were very much aware that they “weren’t the victim here”. That resonates with me. Of course it gets you down and you fear for the future, but I can’t feel too sorry for myself. Too many people are losing loved ones and there’s too much real suffering going on. As for the fall-out of it all, we have no idea.

My family’s safe so far. My mum is in a care home in Glasgow. That’s a big worry in itself but to date thankfully the home has managed to stay cononavirus-free. I haven’t seen my mum since last November. That’s also tough, but we know she’s well cared for and we’re relieved she’s well. Those of my brothers who live locally pay regular visits and chat to mum from outside, through the window of her room on the ground floor.

Here in London, somewhat selfishly, my husband and I are relishing having our boys back home. They were both away at uni, in their first year and having fun, and while it’s only right that they’d much rather still be away, their very presence makes us happy. They probably find us as annoying as you’re meant to find your parents at that age, but I hope they’re at least feeling the love. They’ve reverted to pre-uni status whereby they spend a lot of time in their rooms, but supper together is sacrosanct (we all take turns at cooking) and we have carefully negotiated film dates. I am regularly woken up in the middle of the night by the smell of baking. I can’t complain when the result the following morning is freshly baked chocolate cake.

We’re being careful with hygiene in the house and while the boys do go out, they haven’t been able to consider getting jobs, for example, as they’re being careful not to put themselves at risk in light of my situation. We’ve just now started looking at potential less risky employment options for them.

My husband’s well. The boys are well. I’m well (apart from the obvious). I’m working, I can cycle, I can run (just), we live next to a lovely common, we’re in touch with lots of people and, very close to the top of the list if not at the very top, my treatment is unaffected. This isn’t the case for a lot of people.

Also recently, I had a call from the GP, asking me to arrange a care plan in case I catch Covid-19 and need to be hospitalised. It wasn’t a shock to have to think about this. I’ve already made my end-of-life preferences clear in the context of having a terminal illness. It’s written into the power of attorney document I arranged last year. If I’m in the final stages of breast cancer, I told the GP, I want to go quietly and gently, but if I get Covid-19, do whatever it takes to keep me alive. Everyone should have a care plan. No-one wants to think about their own death, but the point is to make things easier for your nearest and dearest at an already very difficult time – should the occasion arise.

It’s time for my next set of scans. It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly three months since the last lot. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll have an MRI scan of my spine and a half-body (essentially from the top of my head to above the knee) combined PET CT scan to check for any disease progression. If they pick up what’s been causing the blood tumour marker to rise and there’s evidence the cancer’s spread beyond a certain point, we’ll be looking at moving on to the next appropriate line of treatment. That would be a big step. I’ll get the scan results when I next talk to – or possibly even see – the oncologist, at the end of April.

That’s more than three weeks away. That’s another three weeks to get on with the busy business of living.

Topping off a lovely few weeks with my 100th Parkrun

I’ve just done my 100th Parkrun and it was the perfect end to a lovely few weeks.

I started doing Parkrun seriously in April 2016 to get fit again after finishing active therapy for primary breast cancer. Little did I know then that these free, timed, volunteer-led Saturday morning 5k runs would become a big part of my life and that almost four years and two cancer diagnoses later, I’d be chasing down my 100th.

Reaching one hundred is a pretty big milestone in the Parkrun world. I couldn’t be more pleased, especially as at one point earlier this year, not long after I was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer, I genuinely thought my running days were over.

It really felt like a massive achievement. Others agreed. Friends turned up to cheer me round our local course at Tooting Common in southwest London with the banner they’d made when I cycled Ride London last summer. One friend ran the whole 5k with me. Another chose to make this her first Parkrun. Finally, there was a welcome party waiting for me with champagne, party poppers and cake!

It was the perfect end to what had been a very pleasant few weeks.

Just two days earlier, I’d gone ahead with the ninth monthly round of the treatment I began in May for secondary breast cancer. I’d had a wide range of blood tests the day before. It’s no longer as straightforward as saying that the results are showing good news across the board – the relevant tumour marker has edged up again. However, my oncologist clearly thinks the balance is still in favour of continuing with the same core medication I’ve been on since starting treatment last May. This is my first so-called “line of treatment” and the longer you can stay on these early lines – and off chemo – the better.

I’d been feeling good physically most of the way through the four weeks of treatment cycle #8 – apart from on one key front, more of which below. Feeling well, however, is no indication that things are going well inside. That being the case, together with the uncertainty of the past couple of months, it was a huge relief to hear I’d be staying on this treatment for another four-week cycle.

So off I headed to the day treatment unit for three lots of injections and to collect my next 28-day supply of the abemaciclib tablets that I take every morning and every evening.

Treatment at the day unit consisted of four individual injections: one of the same drug (fulvestrant) in each buttock lasting two to three minutes each, one of another drug in the left side of my abdomen (denosumab) that took about a minute, and a quick 30-second jab of yet another drug (filgrastim) on the right side of my abdomen to finish.

It’s not an exaggeration to say I felt like a pincushion by the time I was done. That’s not a complaint; it really is just a statement. They can stick as many needles as they want into me if it keeps the cancer in check.

It’s been the loveliest of Christmases and New Years – spent very sociably but also very locally. Our two boys started uni in September and it was great to have them home for a few weeks. A highlight was them treating us to a delicious home-made Beef Wellington on Boxing Day.

I’ve been having a lot of fun sports-wise. I was on a mission to reach my 100th Parkrun as early in the new year as possible. To achieve this, I did four Parkruns over a ten-day period – two regular Saturday runs at my home course and two special events, one on Christmas Day at Dulwich Park a couple of miles away and one on New Year’s Day, also at Tooting.

Also, I’m back playing in the tennis leagues at my club. Over the holidays I played – and lost – two singles matches.

Most fun of all, on New Year’s Day a friend and I took a dip in Tooting Lido, the local 100 x 33 yard open air swimming pool. Even with a full wetsuit, we managed no more than two widths – my hands and feet were frozen the second I got in. It felt like a suitably bonkers thing to do on the first day of a new decade.

Another positive relates to the issue of drug side effects. Severe diarrhoea is a potentially serious side of abemaciclib, one of the two drugs I’ve been on from the start. There had been moments but I hadn’t been too badly affected. That all changed with treatment cycle #7 just over two months ago when I switched from Zometa, the drug I’d been taking to reduce the risk of bone fractures and other “skeletal related events”, to denosumab, which is aimed at doing the same thing but in a different way.

If you’ve had bad attacks of the runs – and I mean really bad – you’ll know how nasty diarrhoea can be. If you haven’t, well just be grateful. The antidiarrhoeal medicine loperamide quickly became my new best friend. I can now boast of being an expert in its use – for both treatment and prophylactic purposes.

While it didn’t spoil our recent holiday in Jordan it was, as I said euphemistically to the oncologist, most certainly “an issue”. I could only look longingly at the all-you-could-eat breakfast buffet at the smart beachfront hotel where we stayed for the last two nights of the trip. That felt most unfair. Also, I bet I’m one of the very few people who know the location of all – and I mean all – the public conveniences in Petra.

Anyway, the good news is that this cycle so far I haven’t been troubled anywhere near the degree to which I was in the first two cycles. It’s usually at its worst in the first two weeks – and at its very worst in the first few days – of the four-week cycle. Fingers crossed things are settling down.

Finally, the charity Breast Cancer Now has chosen to feature on its website an update of a blog post of mine that I wrote originally last November after a lovely summer and a trip to the US to visit two much-loved aunts. The fact that it’s had lots of positive feedback from many, many women with breast cancer makes me very happy indeed.

As I said, it’s been a lovely few weeks. Indeed it’s ongoing. At a ridiculously early time tomorrow morning, I fly off to the French Alps for my annual ski trip with friends. I’ve stocked up on loperamide but I do feel very fortunate even to be in a position where I’m able to  go. It’s from Friday to Tuesday, and the aim is to ski on each of the five days we’re away. I call it a long weekend; my husband calls it a short week. He is technically correct, but don’t tell him I said that.

Here’s to 2020. Let’s hope it’s kind to all of us.

A half marathon and feeling grateful

There I was at 10am this morning, running along the banks of the River Thames in the freezing cold, trying desperately to focus on something other than 1) just how bitterly cold it was and 2) the residual peripheral neuropathy I have in the balls of my feet and toes that’s a side effect from the chemo I had as part of my breast cancer treatment well over two years ago.

Peripheral neuropathy is a horrible mix of numbness and pins and needles; I’m mostly just vaguely aware of it but it gets considerably worse 1) when I’m running and 2) when it’s cold. It’s worse on my right foot than on my left.

Bit of a double whammy on the foot front, I was thinking as I ran.

I was only a couple of miles into the 2018 Hampton Court Palace Half Marathon and I knew it was going to go badly if I didn’t manage to divert my thinking to something more positive. So I started thinking about all the people who’ve helped and supported me through what I can only call the shitstormy periods of the past two and three quarter years.

Don’t get me wrong, some of that time has been brilliant. In fact, quite a lot of it’s been brilliant, but some of it’s been pretty damn tough. But it would have a lot tougher without the amazing support I’ve had, from many, many different people. Thinking about all that cheered me up no end. I started writing it all down here but it was getting so long that I decided it deserved its own blog post.

So what’s gone down over the past (almost) three years? Diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer (Stage IV is treatable but ultimately terminal) in July 2015, followed by seven months of treatment involving chemo, mastectomy and lymph node removal, and radiotherapy. High risk of recurrence and many, many months post-treatment trying to find a way of transferring my fear of recurrence from the front of my mind to somewhere less harmful. It’s sometimes still an issue, in fact. [The Scottish comedian Billy Connolly helped recently on that front. He’s got Parkinson’s disease and I heard him say not too long ago that his condition is the first thing he thinks about every morning when he wakes up so he makes sure his second thought is something nice. I bear that in mind when I feel that fear of recurrence creeping back.] Then, late last summer, just as I felt I was really moving on, I was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. Thankfully it was very early stage, but it involved two rounds of surgery to my right calf which amounted to several months of enforced inactivity.

Back to this morning’s run. Having spent an uplifting however long thinking how fortunate I was, I then focused on the fact that I was able to even contemplate doing this half marathon was cause for celebration. The wound from the surgery I had on my calf at the end of November had healed so well that I was able to start running again in mid-January.

There are a lot of people to thank for a lot of things, as you’ll be able to read when I get round to writing them all down. Special thanks, however, goes to my husband Andy, who surpassed himself today – as he has done so on so many occasions over the past few years. Not only did he drive me to Hampton Court Palace this morning at 7.45am, he also came to pick me up at the train station on the way home –  with a flask of steaming hot soup. I can’t describe how welcome that was. To give you some idea of just how cold it was, it took me 20 minutes after I’d finished the half marathon before I had enough feeling in my fingers to be able to use my phone.

Andy would have been to cheer me over the finish line too but I’d said I didn’t want that.

As everyone will know, the brilliant astrophysicist Stephen Hawking died this week at the age of 76. He’d been diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease as a young adult and was told he’d be dead in a couple of years. He’s quoted as saying: “My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.”

I was 52 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. My expectations were far from reduced to zero, and not everything since then has been a bonus. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t for Stephen Hawking either after his initial diagnosis. Having run a good part of 13.1 miles this morning contemplating the good things in my life, though, I know where he was coming from.