Hi guys,
I thought I would lure you all to sleep by writing a few words he he! I’ve had an up and down few days...you know how it goes. I did feel better yesterday and better still today. As I was driving back from my friends earlier, I was listening to the Radio and the song by M-People came on...”What have you done today to make you feel proud”...hence the title! This is one of my favourite songs for various reasons, all of which I am going to share with you. In March 2005, I was so happy. I had finished treatment for Breast Cancer, after the trials of Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy I was finally on the road to recovery, my hair was sprouting in little tufts...my eyelashes and eyebrows were growing back. I no longer felt sick...I had lost a couple of stone on the Chemo diet hehe...I was back in my size 10 jeans..come on girls, you know the pair, the ones we all wore pre pregnancy that we just could never get rid of...the old “I’ll get back into them one day” pair of jeans! Shame I had to get cancer to get back into them..but...every cloud and all that hehe!
Anyway...I was so pleased that I had made it out of the other side, the team who looked after me were fantastic.... I was so grateful that I wanted to do something, I wanted to give something back. I was one of the lucky ones and it was only right, I wanted to do something BIG! I had started going back to the Gym and was just enjoying feeling normal again. I had managed to work through treatment, my employers were amazing. One of my colleagues Sarah had mentioned to me she was doing the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Weekend Walk and could she do it in my name. I laughed and said “no, but I can go one better, how about I do it with you!”. So the very next day I signed up for the Breakthrough Weekend, not a little stroll I might add but a 60k walk from Greenwich Park to Finsbury Park on the Saturday, camping overnight in Finsbury Park and then back to Greenwich Park on Sunday. Quite a challenge for me after just finishing treatment but it gave me a focus, I was excited!
My friend Sarah had also got her friend Kate to sign up for it. So we figured with the three of us we had a team..”Breast Buddies”, we got our sponsorship webpage up and running and before long another woman joined our Motley Crew! She lived in London too and we agreed to meet up with her on Registration Day in September (day before the walk). We spent the next few months training...60k is a heck of a long way you know! I would get up early, pull on my trainers, wire up my MP3 and off I would go! Well eventually the day of Registration came, we travelled to the London Excel Arena, me, Sarah and Kate, we met up with our fourth Musketeer, another Sarah and headed off to our hotel. Bearing in mind we were carrying massive backpacks we trundled along after asking directions to our hotel, after about 20 minutes and no sign of the hotel we decided to ask someone else for directions, a very nicely dressed gentleman who was just sat outside a cafe having a quiet coffee. He told us the hotel we wanted was probably about a 30 minute walk back in the direction we had just come from, we could have cried. He looked at us, four nutters, carrying backpacks, absolutely knackered and he smiled, “I’ll give you a lift” he said. “Just hop in the car, it might be a bit of a squeeze with all your gear sorry” The chap was apologising after offering us a lift, we all just cracked up laughing! Then we saw his car, a bran spanking new Jaguar...oh my goodness...we were terrified of scratching it or something but this lovely chap just said “hop in” and then he proceeded to squeeze all our gear in around us, we were like fricken sardines...but very happy sardines! As we were on our way to the hotel, he flicked his cd player on and guess what, it was M-People blasting out “What have you done today to make you feel proud”. All of us started singing at the top of our lungs, including our chauffeur! I often think of him, we never even asked his name but he definitely rescued four distressed Damsels that day.
So the big day arrived, the atmosphere was amazing, thousands of men and woman all full of energy and excitement, all with one purpose, to walk 60k and raise money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. The opening ceremony was very emotional as you can imagine, Michelle Collins was the guest speaker and also did the walk. We had a chat in a Starbucks halfway through while waiting for the loo hehe! What amazed me about this walk is that so many of the women walking were clearly in the middle of treatment or had that fluffy bonce that screamed I’ve just finished treatment. No mean feat to walk that distance even when you are fit and healthy. Our walk took us over Tower Bridge, through Hackney Marshes, over Hampstead Heath and up to Finsbury. It was so cool, people were clapping us, honking their horns. Whenever we got tired or were struggling one of us would break into song “What have you done today.....” you know the rest! It was fantastic. We camped that night and headed back on Sunday morning, in pain I might add, we had plasters on our blisters and blisters on our blisters!
As we approached the final leg of the walk we were all holding hands, crying, laughing, singing too! We walked up the hill to the finish line and all these wonderful people were there cheering us on, so were friends and family who had come to support us. We crossed that finish line and Sarah’s friend was there with a bottle of champagne, she promptly shook it, popped the cork and soaked us! I can just remember all fours of us, knackered, in pain, grotty but wearing the biggest grins ever! I remember ignoring my aching bones and sore feet, grabbing my team mates in a big hug, jumping up and down singing “This is what we’ve done today and boy we feel proud”. That weekend was life changing for me, not only did I achieve my goal, we raised £15,000 between the four of us. I was even more proud when I was re-diagnosed with secondary cancer in the liver and bones just 6 weeks later...I had done that 60k walk not even knowing yet again how ill I was! When I told the girls my cancer had come back they were devastated, the first thing all three of them did was register for the following year. They are all still very good friends of mine, we share something special between us and although we all live in different places, every so often I get a random text from one of them saying, guess what I’m listening to on the radio......yep you got it..”What have you done today to make you feel proud”!!!!!!
Lots of Love
Indie xx
