How I found my way to....

Note: This story reflects personal experiences and insights from an individual affected by cancer. It is not intended to serve as medical advice or recommendations. We encourage all readers to consult with their healthcare professionals before making any changes to their treatment or recovery plans. Each person’s journey is unique and what works for one individual may not be appropriate for another. 

Laura’s Story

This is a story that won’t be for everyone – I’m not suggesting it should be. Many people will think I’m a tiny bit mad, and that’s ok, they’re probably not wrong, but there might be something in here that will help those of a similar mindset to me, and hopefully something for those who aren’t.

Everyone copes in their own way, this was mine. I hope you find it interesting, enlightening, entertaining – anything other than inspiring!

September 2022

In September 2022 I set off on a ‘bucket list’ adventure – covering the 180 miles of the Hebridean Way, on foot. This involved covering between 26 and 38 miles a day for 6 days. 

I know, madness, right? My kind of madness, this was me, it was what I did, what I enjoyed doing.

Over the years I’d run various half marathons, marathons and ultra marathons. I was a runner who leaned towards longer distances, enjoying being out for hours, going far, not fast.

February 2023

Before I left for the Hebrides I’d had a reminder to book a mammogram, but I was busy (how many of us have done this – prioritising other things before our health?). So, it wasn’t until mid January 2023 that I made the appointment.

I received a breast cancer diagnosis on 14/02/2023 (the romance!). Following a biopsy and a scan I was assured this was a grade 1 cancer and while surgery would be necessary, there shouldn’t be any further treatment.

Strangely, I was ok with this. I was offered the option of a full mastectomy or a lumpectomy. If I opted for the lumpectomy I would also need to accept radiotherapy, again, I was ok with this. I mean, the surgery would require a few weeks off running, the radiotherapy about the same, I could be fully fit and back to running by the summer…..

During the process of diagnosis and treatment planning I made the decision to get dropped off at the hospital for my appointments and to run back (I would have run both ways but didn’t think it was fair on the medical staff to turn up sweaty, and let’s be honest, not the freshest).

This started as just a way to ensure I was still able to exercise, even on busy days, and get at least an arbitrary 10,000 steps in a day. However, as the process went on and the numbers got less and less in my favour it became more about a time to absorb what I’d been told and to prepare for sharing the news with others.

I’ve always done my best thinking while running and by the time I’d covered the 5 miles or so to get home I’d got to the bottom of how I felt, what it meant for me and felt able to share the news.

March 2023

Surgery

I was booked in for surgery just after my birthday in March 2023, a lumpectomy on the right side, the left side operated on to match, and some lymph nodes removed from under my right arm.

I was home by late afternoon with a giant bag of painkillers and various other drugs to counteract the side effects of the painkillers. I quickly decided that I would only take painkillers if I actually needed them (I never did) and try to get back to being active as soon as possible. 

Day 1 post surgery was fine – I stayed in the house with my feet up, I was back to work, but as work is only sitting down all day there was no reason not to do it. I also believe that for me it really helped in keeping me busy and keeping my mind ticking over.

Day 2 – I ventured out to the local shops and felt absolutely fine – I needed help getting the yoghurt I wanted from the top shelf of the fridge, but apart from that there were no issues. I’d missed being out in the fresh air, even though it was only for a couple of days and felt much better and more energised for having been out.

Day 3 – I woke up feeling fine so headed out for a walk. I took it nice and easy and was really careful not to trip but managed 10,000 steps at a slow pace. I loved being outside and even though I stuck to paths at the side of roads rather than being fully in nature it was good to be breathing fresh(ish) air and to be moving.

This was my thinking time, I was able to process what had happened and how I felt about it. Things were really clear in my head, I’d been very lucky and needed to make sure that I made the most of what felt very much like a second chance.

I managed my step target pretty much every day after that first time. On days when I was a bit short I made it up the next day. I decided that provided I averaged 10,000 steps a day I was happy. If I had a big day I could take it a bit easier the next day.

After 11 days I tried a very gentle jog and managed a full mile – I was absolutely elated. I must have looked quite a sight though, I was doing a very exaggerated high step to minimise the chance of falling (something which I normally do fairly regularly). In reality it would probably have been safer to just run with my normal gait, but I’m not claiming I was thinking straight!

A couple of days after my first run I was back at the hospital for a check-up. Everything was fine, I was healing really well and had good mobility in arms and shoulders (glad I was slightly obsessive about doing the exercises I’d been given). So, at the end of the consultation I asked the surgeon if it was ok for me to run home – he looked at me for a good long time before answering that no one had ever asked him that before. He gave it serious thought then said that provided I had a good supportive bra he could see no reason why not. 

I was elated and thoroughly enjoyed my run home (wearing not one but two sports bras – no danger of any movement there!).

A couple of weeks later I was back for the results of the tests on the lymph nodes that had been removed. Not the best news, cancer had been found in three of them, so as a precaution I was booked in for a full clearance of all the nodes in my right armpit, much smaller surgery than the first lot, so no concerns from me about getting back to running afterwards.

At the same consultation I was told that a sample of the tumour that was removed had been sent for testing. The results of this test would determine whether or not I would be ‘offered’ (like it was some form of treat) chemotherapy.

This was a bit more to get my head round – chemotherapy hadn’t really been mentioned before, other than in passing, and it was now looking like a real possibility. I really did need my run home to think about this one. I knew that if chemotherapy was suggested I would take it – I’d been really cross a couple of years previously when a friend had stopped their chemotherapy and opted to try using diet and supplements instead. She died in 2020.

April 2023

Surgery

The second lot of surgery was even less of an issue than the first, no problems at all and back to exercising really quickly.

May – September 2023

Chemotherapy

Well, this really was an unknown and scary part of the journey. I vividly remember my nerves as I climbed the stairs to oncology at City Hospital, stairs I would become very familiar with over the next few months.

I was scared climbing those stairs. One of the things I was worried about was how the people I saw there would affect me. Let me explain, for me, one of the worst things about the whole process of diagnosis was the people I would see in the waiting room. It absolutely broke me that there were young girls in there being given the same diagnosis as me, or worse.

I expected the oncology department to be a sombre place, but I was so wrong. It was full of people chatting and supporting one another. They all had reassuring smiles for me as an obvious ‘newbie’.

Pretty much the first thing I noticed when I went into the clinic was a poster for 5k Your Way. I’d seen a group before at Ashbourne parkrun, but hadn’t fully appreciated what they were about. That poster changed my whole outlook about chemotherapy: here was proof that it was possible to still be me while undergoing treatment. It sounds really corny, but it felt like I’d found my tribe.

My run home from that appointment was amazing, I felt lighter than I had in ages and couldn’t wait to get home to tell my partner, Martyn, all about it. He was probably surprised to see how happy I was when I got home, the news that I was going to have 6 sessions of chemotherapy very much took second place to the fact that I’d found 5k Your Way.

Within half an hour of being home I’d signed up on the website and ordered my running vest – I was very excited for my first parkrun which would be at the end of May 2023. Martyn must have been fully baffled by this as I’m not a joiner of groups, and I really don’t like running 5K.

I was nervous about turning up for my first parkrun, but I really shouldn’t have been. I was welcomed by Lizzie and Lucy and introduced to many people, including the fabulous Roger, who it has to be said was a genuine inspiration (and I really don’t like that word). His belief that you would always feel better for having got off your backside and done something kept me going through some of the weeks and months ahead. Thank you Roger.

However – I’ve skipped ahead a bit here, between my first oncology appointment and the end of May I had a call with an oncology nurse to give me more information about the treatment I would receive and its impact. The main focus of this call was the fact that I would almost certainly lose my hair, and how I would cope with this. I mentioned several times that losing my hair wasn’t a concern for me, it would grow back, and I’d always wondered what I’d look like bald. However, this remained the focus of the conversation, it was all about wigs and cold caps, neither of which interested me. What I wanted to know was how I could keep my fitness up.

I explained that I see myself as functional rather than decorative, more about what I can do than how I look, but the nurse didn’t seem to get this. Her advice was all about taking it easy and resting throughout the treatment, it was mentioned that if I felt strong enough I could try a walk to the end of my garden. I accept that I was lucky and remained reasonably well throughout my treatment, but I do feel that painting such a bleak picture of what will be possible may turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy, actually preventing people from doing things they will be capable of doing.

My decision was to keep doing what I’d always done, if this was too much of a struggle then I would try something else. Was it Bon Jovi who released a song during lockdown called ‘Do What You Can’? The chorus being ‘If you can’t do what you do, do what you can’. That. That was what I was going to do.

Shortly after my first parkrun Martyn went off on an adventure, Le Jog, Land’s End to John O’Groats on foot, so I had around six weeks on my own. Strangely, a couple of days after he left I saw an advert for a virtual Le Jog – this would be the ideal thing to aim for during my treatment. I worked out that if I could cover 10 miles a day I could do the whole distance during my treatment. That felt like a plan.

So, all signed up I started my challenge and I can honestly say I breezed through the first 3 sessions of Chemotherapy. Apart from some sickness after the first session (entirely my own fault – I decided I didn’t want to take an anti-sickness drug that would remain in my system for 5 days) I felt well and was able to be out and about getting my mileage in every day.

Then came the change of chemotherapy drugs. Oh boy. This was not nearly so much fun. The first weekend after the new drugs was fine, I actually felt amazing, I got in around 26 miles over the weekend and was absolutely buzzing (I now put this down to the steroids I was on). Things also went fine for the first few days of the week, then a strange thing happened on the Thursday. I was out for my usual walk/jog and was about a mile from home when the soles of my feet started to hurt. I hadn’t done anything different, I was wearing the same shoes as usual, I’d been on one of my familiar routes, but something was clearly wrong. 

I struggled home using every mental trick in my armoury then collapsed through the door and crawled to the sofa. The soles of my feet had huge blisters, like nothing I’d seen before. Under both my heels and most of my toes. I couldn’t walk properly, or at all really. 

I called the hospital and they asked me to go in. Turns out this is actually a known side effect of the drugs I was on, probably exacerbated by the amount of walking I’d done over the weekend. So, it was a few days of enforced rest for me and a reduced dose of the drugs for my next session.

Once my feet healed I was relieved to get back out and get on with my challenge, I had some catching up to do and was determined I would complete the challenge by the time my treatment was finished.

Around this time I saw an advert for a charity event: Move was organising a Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge that would take place in September, the week after my treatment was due to finish. That felt doable, so I signed up and tried to up my mileage a bit. I was still playing catch up from being off my feet for a while and I needed to be a peak fitness by the middle of September.

Of course, things didn’t go to plan! After my second session with the new drugs I developed febrile neutropenia, and covid resulting in a few days in hospital. This was a weird experience as I felt reasonably well, but wasn’t allowed to go home, where I would have eaten and slept better I’m sure.

Anyway, cut to a few days later and I’d discharged myself from hospital, keen to get back to normal. Walking to the car from the ward I felt quite exhausted and worried about how much of my hard earned fitness I’d lost. I needn’t have been concerned, I was fine to be out and about the next day. Back to training for the three peaks.

Between my second and third sessions on the new drugs I had a face to face appointment with the oncologist. It was decided that my final session would be delayed to give me time to recover, and that I would have the dose reduced further given the complications I’d experienced. So far so good – the change in date of the next session would mean the chemotherapy would be after the three peaks rather than before. So that was helpful.

My next question for the oncologist was around the three peaks. Their immediate reaction was ‘absolutely no way, it’s not possible, you won’t be capable of doing it’. I explained how I’d been exercising all the way through my treatment and that I felt well – a little more breathless than usual – but still capable. The oncologist wasn’t entirely convinced but agreed that setting out would be ok – provided I was sensible and didn’t put myself in danger. It was on.

The weekend of the three peaks was amazing. I travelled up on the Friday with Martyn and stayed in a lovely cottage, fish and chips for tea, all my favourite things. The event itself was fabulous, lots of people all with their own stories to tell. It was a tough day, there’s no denying that, but the wonderful James looked after me the whole way round keeping me entertained with chat and force feeding me when necessary.

At the end of the event I felt as proud as I’d ever done about anything I’ve achieved so far. It proved to me that anything is possible, if you set your mind to it and work hard. 

My final session of chemotherapy came and went. I’d missed my deadline for completing my Land’s End to John O’Groats challenge and I didn’t think asking for another session of chemotherapy to extend the time available to do it was a sensible solution! I decided instead to aim to complete it before my radiotherapy started – a moveable goalpost is a wonderful thing.

I did it! On 21/10/2023 I finished the challenge and wore my t-shirt with pride. I’d liked having the motivation of a distance to aim for so I signed up for Jogle – the return journey.

I also signed up for The Wall 2024 – a 70  mile ultra marathon from Carlisle to Newcastle which would take place in late June. I’d completed this in 2013 and had started serious training in December 2012, so I figured I had just the right amount of time to be fully fit.

A week or so later it was time to start radiotherapy and I’d decided to take the week off work, mainly because Christmas was sneaking up on me and I wanted to get a bit ahead of the game. I asked for early morning appointments and planned to walk there and run home every day. This was a great week for me, I enjoyed the walk there and the run home got a bit easier each day. I was still doing a mix of walking and jogging, but definitely felt more capable as the week went on.

A week or so after my radiotherapy finished I started getting pain in my shoulder, it didn’t stop me from walking, but it made running difficult as the pain got worse when I tried to breathe deeply. As I’m not a ‘going to the doctor’ kind of person I had a quick Google and decided this was probably pleurisy. I took the advice I found online and soon felt better. Sadly I wasn’t well enough for the November parkrun, which I was a bit upset about. I’d been looking forward to it especially as my running had improved and I wanted to start improving on my times. I’d been relaxed about getting slower and slower during treatment, but now I wanted to start seeing some improvements.

Emma, a friend of mine, had also signed up for The Wall and in early December we met up and did a nice long walk/jog together. We had a great time talking about how we were going to train and I shared some of my memories of 2013.

Fast forward 2 days and we’d both had a visit to A&E – Emma with a broken leg after her dog pulled her over on some wet grass, and me with a deep vein thrombosis (DVT or blood clot) in my left leg. To me this was perhaps the biggest blow of my entire cancer journey, just when my fitness was really starting to improve. I’d never had any kind of ‘why me’ thoughts after my diagnosis – it was more about ‘why them’ when I saw young women undergoing treatment, the woman in the radiotherapy department with her baby in a pushchair nearly broke me. This though, surely I didn’t deserve this? I’d done all the right things, kept active, didn’t smoke, didn’t really drink.

Also, this would stop me from exercising. I could barely walk across the kitchen let alone manage 10 miles a day. The picture painted by the doctors was really bleak, they advised not exercising beyond a gentle walk for at least six months. To be fair, at first this didn’t seem unreasonable, my leg was so swollen and painful I couldn’t even imagine being able to exercise again.

Still, Christmas was approaching and I had things to get organised so I started going out. My first walk I aimed for a mile, I made it, but had to stop multiple times on the way and was pretty much in tears by the time I made it home. I kept trying and managed to get a bit further each day, even though it never seemed any more comfortable.

I visited my doctor to ask if it was ok to exercise beyond the point where it started to hurt. I was concerned I might make things worse if I persevered but didn’t want to stop completely. The answers I got from the doctor didn’t fill me with confidence so I wasn’t keen to follow their advice about sitting with my feet up and only getting up once an hour to walk around the room.

I made it to parkrun at the end of December but had to drive there and only managed to walk a mile of the course. Through the confidence I gained and the contacts I made at 5k Your Way, I sought the opinions of other doctors about whether it would be safe for me to do more exercise. In addition I subsequently spoke to a vascular surgeon who is also a triathlete.

The advice I was given as part of this contact was transformative; the surgeon said the main reason I had been given for not exercising (that a part of the clot could break off and travel to my lungs or brain) was not well founded. He advised that I should exercise as much as I wanted to, wear compression tights and not spend any time standing still (being upright and moving was fine, upright and stationary not). I guess what this shows is that everyone is different and it’s worth trying to get a second opinion if you’re not convinced by the answer you’ve been given.

This gave me the confidence to get out and move. The pain was still there, but it did seem like the more I did the more I was capable of doing.

I decided to keep my place for The Wall and focus on training enough to get me through it. Again, I had a plan.

Things went well, I was starting to walk/jog again, and the periods of jogging were getting longer (although to be fair, I started out only running from one lamppost to the next, so ‘longer’ is very much a relative term).

In March I was given a birthday present of entry to the Belvoir Challenge 15, muddy miles – I know, people really need to work on their idea of what constitutes a present! I would never have signed up for this myself, but I actually really enjoyed it and it gave me confidence that I could be out there doing stuff again.

So, things were going really well, I’d had a couple of weekends where I’d run/jogged to my mum’s in Mansfield and back: things were looking good. Right up until the end of April when I dropped my Ipad on my foot and broke my toe. Why is it always my feet and legs I injure? A broken finger would have been so much easier to deal with!

Training slowed down again, but I was determined to make it to the start line, and ideally the finish line of The Wall.

I did it! I covered the 70 miles from Carlise to Newcastle on foot. I’m not sure how I got through the last 7 miles as I’d developed a real lean, but I did it. I was once again an ultra runner.

Going full circle, in October 2024 I visited the Shetland Islands to take part in a trial event where the length of the islands would be covered on foot. This was an amazing experience and a fitting place to end this story.

There are a few things that kept me moving through my treatment, I hope they are thoughts that might help someone else get through their journey

• I never felt worse for getting out in the fresh air and moving
• I always considered myself lucky to be able to do the things I did. I lost a brother to cancer in 2020, when things were difficult I thought about how much he would have liked the opportunity to do what I was doing
• I believe that being active made treatment easier to deal with
• Having goals made it easier to get out – whether the goal is to walk to the shops or to run a marathon achieving it feels great
• Set backs are to be expected, but they’re not a reason to give up. One bad day doesn’t need to lead to another
• This is not a rehearsal, we’re only here once. Make the most of it

To read more inspiring stories about how people got back to doing the things they love visit our stories page here: www.moveagainstcancer.org/articles-and-blogs/how-i-found-my-way-to/