Well, it is now 28 February 2018, just over 6 months post diagnosis. Oh, and it is 11:40 am my time (Qatar)...so that'll be 08:40 am back in the UK, where I believe you are dealing with some pretty grotty weather. At least you have trees! Anyway, I digress...back to the "here and now".
I decided to write this blog because it suddenly struck me, as I read my profile, that it was more in the form of a "blogesque" narrative. At the risk of shamelessly reproducing the profile entry, I will occasionally dip in to the profile entries to try to give an account of the history of my illness and treatment insofar as I can. After a while it does become a little trying to revisit everything. That said, the illness is not something that we can so readily discard and move on from. Put bluntly, it is something we have to live with (be it mental or physical effects) potentially for the rest of our lives; not because we want to wallow in it, but simply because it was our reality for a given period. Yet that does not and should not stop us from actually getting on and "living" and most definitely not under the cloud which the illness introduced to our lives.
So, to today. Feeling pretty pleased with myself as I finally summoned up the will-power to go for a run last night. Yes, you read that correctly...a run! Now the sensible option would have been to get on the treadmill in the gym...frankly, a soulless experience in my book. My wife can pound out the miles on the treadmill at home, but I just find it an awkward one. Maybe it's from all those years in my teens when I was running pretty competitively and 20's when it was part of my overall training and fitness regime. Whatever the reason, I decided to go for a run here in Doha. It was the evening and bizarrely enough we had actually had some rain yesterday. That always causes utter chaos because in their wisdom the desert states have little if any drainage on the basis that rain is regarded as such an unusual occurrence that it is not needed...hmm, until it is! It's not unheard of to see cars driving through a foot of water after a downpour.
I had finished treatment (33 fractions of radiotherapy and 7 weeks of chemo) on 28 November 2017 and the PEG was removed on 19 December (6 weeks after fitting). I started back in the gym doing some light weights in the third week of January 2018. Not too bad, but still getting some light-headed moments. So, deciding to go for a run was something I approached with some apprehension. Yes, the treadmill would have been a more sensible option as at least I would have been in a confined indoor area if something had gone wrong! Throwing caution to the wind I decided to run outside...
I used to have a reasonable turn of pace, playing my rugby as a winger. Oh, but blimey doesn't the treatment make your realise how big an effect it has on all the things you took for granted!? Having lost about 10 kg from the date of first surgery (August 2017) to now, my muscles simply do not act as they used to; or rather, they simply don't have the strength they used to. The initial "jogging" (I hate that word...I was always someone who said that I RUN don't JOG!), was fine - although I did rather wonder how I would cope with the lack of saliva (thanks for that, radiotherapy!) Then I decided to start doing some sprint work. Perhaps a bit optimistic after 8 months of doing pretty much nothing. However, I thought it was my best option for rebuilding my quads and hamstrings.
First sprint went reasonably well, building to about 75% pace. Each sprint section was conveniently (if accidentally) split into 2 parts (about 25m each) by bollards on a very quiet back road. After the 4th set, I really noticed as I tried to "put my foot down" that my legs started to feel like jelly. It's a strange sensation I would generally have expected after several miles (!), but I think it would be wrong to attribute it to the ongoing post-treatment fatigue side-effect. Maybe that is a contributory factor, but I suspect that it's just as likely to be the total lack of meaningful activity for the past several months! What I do know is that the legs which feel fine today will feel utterly hopeless tomorrow...why is it always more uncomfortable on the day after the day after!?
So, tonight will be a weights session in the hotel gym (hopefully that bloke who has no idea about gym etiquette won't repeat his hogging of 3 pieces of equipment whilst spending 30 minutes doing some very odd stretches in his denim shorts and flip-flops). Tomorrow is a hideously early start for a physio appointment at 07:15 am (yep, you read that correctly!) to deal with some comparatively mild neck lymphoedema before I see the Medical Oncologist at 08:45 am...let's hope this time he has actually bothered to read my notes.
Cheerio for now...
