OK big breath.

I’m sitting on my couch after a great weekend of training, karate (so more training) and oh a wee bit of immunotherapy. Lets quantify that a wee bit more, I’ve been laid up most of the day as the immunotherapy has wicked side effects and the big snooze is one of them.

Last week I had a wonderful conversation with a fellow karateka and was given the nudge to write about the tough times. Not from a “woe is me” point of view, her comment was about my social media and how “you never post anything showing you down or with a negative tone” and her question was how I had managed to stay so positive. The truth is of course that I didn’t. So here’s the story.

This time last year I went to a gasshuku in the south of the UK. I stayed in a wicked hotel and everyone came it’s restaurant after Saturday training. I had my dinner but couldn’t get comfortable afterwards, I was in ridiculous pain. I’d noticed this a few times, I would get full quickly when I ate, and when I trained, would would sweat a lot. During all this time, my training was seeming to be ineffectual and I was putting on loads and loads of weight. I was also in denial. Looking back, I knew something was wrong I just didn’t know what and I would have told you I was too busy to look into it.

Scroll on some weeks and I couldn’t walk up the stairs without getting out of breath. I won’t go through all the hospital visits and the waiting in chairs and the tests etc. all the time no one uses the word cancer. In fact they avoid it, “something nefarious”, “something strange” and many more phrases became the norm. Norm. I’ve told this part of the story before, now I want to focus on the more mental aspects and specifically how I felt and dealt with the bad times.

In a previous blog I mentioned how I felt when I heard the word Cancer and how I was keen to move on with the operation and chemotherapy. That’s me all over, action focused. In the beginning there is a lot of noise, everyone wants to send their best wishes and you kinda feel special but also scared. Then it gets quiet that’s when the brain kicks in. My biggest fear with the operation was not waking up and then what’s known as the “staging” of the Cancer, more on that later. At this point things are moving pretty swiftly, tests are being done, meetings are held and it all feels like some sort of alternate reality. I was in a lot of pain and had spent 3 weeks in hospital on all sorts of drugs. I must say a huge thank you to everyone that visited and spent time as you guys were the highlight of my day and that’s when I realised I was literally living day to day. I am a planner and now I had no longer the luxury of planning. I desperately awaited my operation. A lot goes on in your head at this point. What if I died was the overarching one, then what about my husband, my cats, would I ever learn Pichurin properly, randomly I was sad I would never compete again. I’ve not competed in years. One night, the ward was quiet and I’d somehow managed to lose my earphone in the pillows when it all became too much. Out came the tears and in my desire not to wake anyone I set off, slowly around the nurses station, found a corner and cried and cried. Little did I know that was to be the first of many.

I’ve told many stories of people coming to see me after my surgery and my progress from the ICU to the dojo, actually, that might make a great book! Everyone and everything is great at this point as each day brings more and more mobility, less pain and most people are happy to see that you made it through the operation. You start to get back to life. I had so many hugs from people and I loved everyone of them. Especially one from “R” who isn’t a hugger, that one made my day.

Then they get you set up for chemo and man that is a motherf*cker. Access to portals, blood tests, weight measurements and access to the portal for test results. In the beginning you feel like a superhero then the effects come, the hardest for me the hair. Yes of course the hair. Just when you think you can’t take any more you have a huge “I’m really sick” visible marker, not that it got me seats on the train. Now people stare, you feel it all the time. I hated going out and the conversation that I had over and over, “yes cancer, yes doing well, yes fighting my hardest, thank you”. Of course people meant well, it’s just that’s not what I had on my plan for that day.

Nothing in life prepares you for the emotional rollercoaster of cancer. Each test result is a mixture of relief and a wee win. Many times you ask yourself, why did this happen to me? When does all this end? The tiredness that comes is all consuming. You can’t really just “get over it”, as one person suggested to me, it also kills some of the fight that they also tell you you need to to have. For me, I had to find different ways of making sure that I was being true to my mantra.

My focus,

My energy,

My outcomes.

Little did I know when I worked on them that these three mantras would become so important. OK, so today I can’t go to the dojo for (insert various reasons), instead I can watch class, or do some very slow kihon or just sleep. So each day became, to my mind a wee challenge with one question, what did I do today that is special and left me feeling true to my mantra. Let me be very honest here, one day, that was to walk around the nurses station in one go, a few months later I wanted to run at 5kph for 40 mins and then another day it was just to get out of bed and write my journal. All valid and all gave me a boost.

In my diary, I wrote about the days I was having, what I had achieved, and yes “not puking today” was a huge day!

Then the words RED ALERT. Never great on Star Trek and definitely not good on the top of a scan. Here we go again, all the fear and all the worries start again. So you take a moment to cry or do what you need to do, I have Bob, and he had a lot of action over the past year, then you get going again and that’s it.

No one really knows how they will react when they get a diagnosis but each and every reaction is valid and true. Strength comes in many ways and I also often think it’s actually harder to see someone go through all this when you can’t help and so support for spouses and family is hugely important also in my humble opinion.

I’m no saint, I don’t feel strong a lot of the time and so I use tools such as diaries and writing to keep me honest and focused and true to my mantras, each tiny achievement that I may drole on about is huge to me and that’s why you might see my silly posts and stupid challenges 🙂

Finally, hug your people (if they like it) keep them close and spend time with them. That’s the thing I missed most in hospital.