I’ve lost my way. You heard me.

A few weeks ago it was all about the training and the journey back to “fitness”. Each day came with a gain and a way of measuring how things were going. I could feel it. Then, at some point, it all became… mush. There were less gains and well, I kinda felt that I was back to being functional. Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t feeling tip top, far from it. The new cycle of immunotherapy is kicking my arse royally. Worse, I took my foot off the gas. Lost my focus. Describe it any way you like.

Then I started a new contract and I had something for my brain to get caught up in. It was fabulous. New people to meet and loads of processes to get my head around. I forgot to look after me. Typical Ciara. Hours became days, sessions (my personal sessions) were missed and before I knew it, I was behind.

Now I can hear you all going, “what the hell is she talking about now”, 🙂 I’ve not gone mad I promise. I just don’t feel that I am doing all the things that I want to be doing. You see when I was in hospital I made all these promises to myself. The first thing and the most important thing that I wanted to do was to get back to the dojo and from there I sort of just kept going. Until I didn’t.

Chemo was pretty straightforward and I had few side effects, other than the hair, some tingling and a wee bit of tiredness. The immunotherapy… that’s a whole other ball game. Now I hate when people complain about stuff like this. I was in a “support group” that was more about people comparing their symptoms and drugs and issues over and over, so much so that I left. I’m more your “get on with it” type of person. But with immunotherapy things started to change. I was much more fatigued. Actually a lot more fatigued. Then the pain started.

With the chemo they gave me huge doses of steroids, now this had some huge upsides, I didn’t get my traditional winter flu. It stopped me from getting pains in my joints, (I did have them, but they were not so bad). With the immunotherapy, I am in pain every day, Most people don’t know that because I never talk about it. Yup, I just get on with it.

It started in my chemo but once we moved to immunotherapy man did it became worse. Now training wasn’t my usual release, it was pain, real pain, not the lovely pain of training. OK so maybe I am a bit mad. Some days are better than others, the bad days I can’t put my hands over my head without pain, I have to get my shoulders moving by grabbing my hands and trying to articulate them in the morning. No one sees that and so when they talk about people fighting Cancer for years, yes of course it’s the big stuff but it’s also the extra energy that it takes to just, well, move. That’s the real fight.

My doctor doesn’t want to start messing with my doses and so I’ve made the decision to go forward with the treatment. I can handle it. I’m hoping that after the treatment things start to go back to normal, but with Cancer you never know.

A few things have helped me no end though, the first was being asked to teach at the Tooting annual dojo. This for me was huge. A dojo can be an amazing place. For some it is a place to go once or twice a week (and that’s fine), for others it is a way of life. I’ve always been the latter (each to their own 🙂 ) and so as I mentioned earlier, it was the thing that kept me going when I was ill. The days I couldn’t eat, the days in the ICU, I joined classes and being back in the dojo was my goal. Then it was to train on a chair and little by little it became a journey, a journey within a journey if you like.

I realise now that with that and work and life and travelling etc. I had no space to just… well… be. Then last weekend I went on a gasshuku. Nothing special there I’ve been going on these since I was 12. But it was special. I had an amazing crew with me and then one morning I woke to go for a run. I did something I never do on a run. I stopped. For me it’s always been about the distance. The workout doesn’t count if I don’t have the data. I know, bonkers.

It was about 6 in the morning and I was running towards the French coast. We had a wonderful house and we were only 1 or 2 kms from the coast. I headed out and to be very honest wasn’t feeling it. I was plodding along, breathing heavily and hoping I was going to get my run done quickly, honestly it was the coffee back at the house that kept me going, I certainly wasn’t enjoying myself.

Then I saw the sun, the coast and a woman playing with her dog on the sand. I stopped. It was wonderful and I took a breath. I hadn’t done that in a long time.

For the second occasion in as many weeks the tears came and when I say that, I don’t mean dainty ones. I mean huge sobs. I took a moment and it was wonderful.

So being lost, not so bad. I’ll find my way, I have my training and wonderful people around me but the one thing that I’m learning is that it’s important to stop every now and again and take a moment. Just because you miss a session that’s not the end of the world. OK I am still working on believing that one 🙂