A Race for Life to #Beat CancerSooner

It was inevitable the Race for Life – my first competitive run since before diagnosis – would fall on one of the hottest days of the year. I signed up in February, back when I imagined I’d be running 10ks effortlessly by July, with a view to improving my fitness while raising money for Cancer Research.

It was only in mid-June that I realised it was going to take me a lot more than just four months after radiotherapy to actually be able to effortlessly do anything and, secondly, that I am much less tolerant of the heat than I was a year ago. Still, I figured I could handle it.

Fast forward to 14^th July 2013 and I am running along with thousands of other brave, sweaty and slightly crazy women in Hyde Park under a blazing hot sun, panting and feeling like I’m about to pass out, while thinking “Jesus, what exactly possessed me to sign up for this?!”

Still, I crossed the finish line in an hour and six minutes, hot, sweaty, feeling rather pukey and with what I am pretty certain was a mild case of heatstroke that lasted several days afterwards. (Not sunburn, though, I hasten to add – I was covered from head to toe with factor 50).

It was all worth it, though, and I had a tear in my eye pretty much all the way round from reading all the messages to loved ones on the runners’ backs, including some of my friends, who were running for me. When you’re just about to give up and thinking you can’t keep running, there’s nothing like a note “In memory of my amazing Mum/sister/Dad/grandad” to bring you right back down to earth and make you keep going. So congratulations and thank you to all the women who ran that day, including my very speedy girlfriends!

The two groups organised by Stylist magazine (who kindly provided us with Hummingbird Bakery cupcakes after the event) raised almost £3,000, but if you’d like to help us hit that big round 3k, please click the link below and sponsor us: http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/team-stylist-10

A huge thank you to all who have donated us so far!

Tying in rather nicely with the Race for Life is Cancer Research’s new campaign, Beat Cancer Sooner, or for the hashtaggers among you, #beatcancersooner. It’s an initiative to reach 1 million actions against cancer, and they want as many of us as possible to get involved to help bring forward the day all cancers are cured.

How can you help?

There’s loads of ways to get involved, from fundraising to volunteering, to sharing info about cancer and campaigns on social media. For those of you who love gadgets, games or a bit of science, you can even go to the Cell Slider website and have a go at classifying some cancer cells – you can actually help Cancer Research by doing this. And please, please send out a tweet or Facebook post about #beatcancersooner – the more people we can reach through this campaign, the closer we’ll one day be to a world where nobody’s brother, sister, mother, father, best friend or partner has to die of cancer.

It’s actually thanks to Cancer Research UK that I’m alive today. So, to anybody who has ever said to me “Anything I can do to help, please let me know,” now is the time.

There are some really simple ways to help, so please just click this link and see what you can do. Thank you!

Boobettes and Blood Tests

This week I gave my first breast cancer awareness talk to a class of young women at Notre Dame school in south London. It was my first experience as one of the ‘Boobettes,’ a group of young women who’ve all had breast cancer or some kind of scare and who are now helping Coppafeel! spread the message to boys and girls around the UK to check their boobs.

I did the presentation with Jo, a fellow breast cancer survivor who had the disease at the remarkably young age of 21 and who is doing fabulously now, 15 years later. I talked about my personal experience while Jo talked more about the charity. The teenage girls were very receptive and asked everything from “Do you sometimes have to have your boob chopped off?” to “Are you going to be able to have children?” Ah, life’s big questions! Let’s just say I got a proper grilling, but I didn’t mind.

Here I am, coppin’ a feel, and above with Jo, Coppafeel!’s Maren and a giant boob.

The next day, I got some results back from a blood test I’d had earlier in the week at my local doctors. It was my first blood test since December, and I was quite alarmed to discover that my blood counts have not returned to normal since finishing chemotherapy. My white blood cells, neutrophils and lymphocytes are still lower than they should be, meaning my immune system hasn’t returned to normal and I’m not quite the strong ox I thought I was. There’s nothing I can do to raise the blood counts, but my GP is writing to my oncologist to see if anything needs to be done. Given that I haven’t had so much as a cold since before Christmas, I thought my immune system must be pretty strong, but maybe I’ve just been lucky.

Meanwhile, my hair has been growing pretty nicely and is starting to look a bit like my Dad’s. If I don’t comb it down when I get out the shower, it sticks up hedgehog-style, so here’s a pic of me post-shower and au naturel, with Pricey Senior. Also note my make-up-less eyebrows, which are still a shadow of their former selves but slowly, slowly getting there. (The eyelashes, on the other hand, are pretty much back to their pre-chemo state).

This morning I did my final bit of training for the 10k Race for Life I’m doing in London next Sunday (14th July). I practically killed myself running up and down the hills of Yorkshire in 25C heat today and I haven’t managed to run 10k in less than an hour yet, but I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. If you’d like to sponsor me and Team Stylist 10 to raise money for the all-important life-saving charity that is Cancer Research UK, please click here.

Finally, I thought you might like to see this picture of me after my first post-treatment 3k run (in the snow) in February, vs. my third 10k run (in the boiling sunshine) today. Evidentally I’m not looking quite so much like a cancer patient these days. Cancer, we’re coming to get you!