Skip to main content

Milestones and moving on

The last few months have been filled with difficult moments and milestones. The first Christmas & New Year without my mum, my "cancerversary" (a year from diagnosis), a year since my surgery, and yesterday (2nd Feb) marks a year since I received my results from surgery and was referred to oncology for chemotherapy. This date on its own doesn't really mean much to me, but the Breast Clinic use this as the date for their year review. So yesterday I was back in that same room where I first heard those words "I'm afraid it is cancer", with the surgeon I haven't seen for a year to have my breasts examined and then stuck in a vice (okay the mammogram machine isn't actually as bad as it seems but it did remind me of a cartoon I've seen doing the rounds on Facebook). 

All went well, although I have to wait a few weeks for the results to come through. I don't feel overly worried about these results, perhaps because I'm still receiving treatment, although to be fair a year ago I had convinced myself I had nothing to worry about too! I've had a lot of things on hold over the last year and this year review was always my target. Whenever anyone asked if I was staying in Inverness I would say that I wanted to stay at least until my year review, so it is a significant date for me. Funnily enough when I logged onto Facebook yesterday I saw in my 'memories' that this was also the day back in 2013 that I left Edinburgh for Tanzania, strange how some dates in life seem to hold greater significance.  
  
So today feels more like my New Year's Day! I feel like in some ways I now need to put the last year behind me and start to move on. Quite how I'm going to do this I'm not really sure yet. I'm still happy with my home in Inverness for the time being, I have a great group of friends here but the work situation is another matter. I'm still signed off sick, but my job at the hospital here was only ever temporary and so I will need to start looking for a new job very soon, which is quite daunting. 
  
I want to move on, but that doesn't necessarily have to mean physically moving, although that may come in time. I have decided that the way for me to get moving and start making some positive changes in my life is to start challenging myself. I've been wanting to raise money for Maggie's for a long time now, they have been a lifeline for me in the last year. Providing me with a place to go when I felt alone, people to talk to when I just needed to vent, great advice and fun classes. I've met some wonderful people through the centre and I can see the amazing work they do on a day to day basis welcoming everyone who walks through their doors. With this in mind I have decided to set myself a number of challenges over the next year in order to raise money for Maggie's Highlands and also the new Maggie's Yorkshire which will be built in Leeds. As my body has taken a bit of a beating in this last year and I have gained at least 1 and a half stone (10kg) since starting treatment, many of the challenges will have a fitness element to them, in an attempt to get a bit more control over my body and hopefully clear my mind also. Not all of the challenges will be fitness though. I have a few ideas of what I would like to do and I intend to rope a few unsuspecting friends into helping me with some, but I would love it if people could also suggest some challenges for me. I imagine the challenges getting bigger and crazier as they go on, I'm not totally sure what I'm letting myself in for. So please, if you would like to help me raise money for this wonderful charity or would just like to see me doing some crazy stuff, you can sponsor me at the following link.

I'll kicking off my challenge by doing at least 10,000 steps a day every day for the month of February. Since getting a fitness watch for Christmas I realise that this is going to be harder than it sounds for me, but hopefully it is achievable.  

Last year was truly awful in a lot of ways, but I also had some wonderful moments and made some terrific friends. Hopefully this next year will be full of wonderful moments, great friends and crazy challenges. I'll keep you posted as the challenges go on and hope that you'll all get behind me by suggesting challenges, sponsoring me, joining me or sharing my page. Thanks! 🙂 


A few pictures from my rollercoaster year:



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feeling a little blue

I think my last few blog posts may have seemed quite depressing and that some people might think I was being quite negative, but hopefully you can all understand why. I was worried that I was constantly complaining, but after my last post a friend going through their own cancer experience (one that is much more emotionally challenging than mine I might add) thanked me for what I’d written and helped me to realise the importance of being as honest as I can be in this blog, otherwise what’s the point? So I'll continue to try and just hope that I can get a good balance. At this time of year when the dark nights draw in and the weather becomes cold and wet I know that people usually start to feel a bit down, it’s pretty common. Since returning from Tanzania and spending my time in the north of Scotland I have to say it doesn’t quite affect me in the same way. Living near to the equator when every day is virtually 12 hours all year round you start to miss the long summer nights and sh...
Post a Comment
Read more

My biggest challenge so far.....

Okay, so I've debated with myself a lot about starting this blog. Part of me feels like its a good way for me to process everything that's going on at the moment, and to let people know some details so that I'm not asked the same questions over and over again. Another part of me feels it's a little bit self indulgent and that now is not really the time to share such personal things. I guess if you're reading this then the first part won through. I started writing a blog back in 2013, when I moved to Tanzania, for the sole reason of keeping people updated with stories and pictures, but found that the blog became a bit of a therapeutic tool for me more than anything else. Since leaving Tanzania I haven't continued with blogging, I didn't even really finish that one properly. In the year and a half since I returned I have struggled a little bit to adjust back to life in the UK, I've spent the time as a bit of a nomad working as a locum and moving around v...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's all about me

So, as it’s World Mental Health day today, I thought it might be a good time for me to write another blog post. Over the last couple of years I have found that writing these blogs really helps me to process how I’m feeling and make sense of some of thing things that have been going on in my life. After publishing my last post I was starting to feel like it is time to stop writing, interest in the blogs seems to have waned and I started to convince myself that people were getting fed up of me whining on about cancer. The thing is, I never really wrote these blogs for other people, of course it is always nice to get positive feedback and I did hope that by sharing my own experiences I could help other people, but the main reason was to get the millions of whirling thoughts out of my head and down on paper (metaphorically speaking). I came to the realisation that writing these blogs is good for my mental health, I just need to remind myself that worrying about other people’s reaction to...
Post a Comment
Read more