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Starting Again: I Found My Strength In Moving

So many people living with cancer are told to rest, to slow down, to accept. I was told the same.
But I found my strength in doing the opposite, in moving.

This is my blog about how physical activity helped me through treatment, through recurrence, and through moments when I didn’t think I could keep going. I’m sharing it because I want others to know, you don’t have to be physically fit. You just have to start.

Growing up as a Muslim woman in a family that had moved to this country and worked incredibly hard to build a life here, we didn’t really talk about things like mental health or being active for our wellbeing. My parents were focused on making sure we had stability, and as children we didn’t have many opportunities to think about physical activity as something that could support our overall health. In our community talking about cancer can also still feel uncomfortable. Many people don’t want to talk about it because they still believe that a diagnosis means you’ll die from it. That silence can make it even harder to talk about things like exercise or how to live well after cancer.

But medicine has moved on so much in the last 30 years and I believe we can do more now to give ourselves a better chance of recovery and quality of life. Movement is one of those things we can do.

I was diagnosed with stage 4 incurable cancer in November 2021. From diagnosis to at least three months in I struggled; at first because I felt like I was being left to it and felt alone, and later because I didn’t have a plan past spending quality time with my two boys and my husband. I don’t see myself as someone who just accepts what’s happening to them, but in those moments it felt like the world was telling me to accept that there’s nothing to do about it.

My previous consultant, the one who broke the news, gave me a hug and told me to spend time with my family.
And?

A cancer support service told me to write letters to my boys saying everything I wanted to say to them.
And?

My family, my mum, my brothers, told me to rest.
And?

Everyone was well intentioned. But I’d look at my two boys and think, no, I’m not slowing down. That isn’t going to be it.

In my secret depression (I’d called it “rest” at the time), I spent a lot of time researching what I could do to help me through this moment and further into the future. It helped to think there was a future. Delving into the research around what I could do, I saw evidence saying that physical activity can help people with cancer. It was hard to sift through anecdotal stories versus solid analysis, but it did exist.

I was working for an Active Partnership as a Change Manager at the time, so it was easy to see the benefits of physical activity in communities first hand. The insight was hard to find but real. I wondered why it was so hard to find, and how people who weren’t internet savvy would find this information when it wasn’t being shared in the community I was in, or by any healthcare professionals I had met.

It was soon after this that I joined MOVE Against Cancer charity. If the message wasn’t getting out there to move with cancer, then I wanted to be part of changing that.

So I started to move again. I had to look back at what I used to enjoy doing. I walked anyway, but I wanted to run again. I was at my happiest doing that in my younger days. I walked more, then ran around the playground after my boys, danced with them in the living room. Nothing big, because it would feel too painful. But it gave me something that felt like control, a little strength at a time when I felt like my strength was being taken away.

I had immunotherapy and chemo over the course of a year, and as soon as I finished chemo I started to do a bit more. My bloods came back better so we stopped treatment there, but with the warning that I would need more again soon.

I ran more in 2023 than I had even in my younger days. But I’m not an athlete: I’m someone who doesn’t move much but wants to do more, so every run was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. Nearly every run I’d tell my husband how grateful I was that he helped me keep moving. But I’d also think about the people who don’t know about movement, or who don’t have someone like him. It made me more determined to help people see the benefits of physical activity after a cancer diagnosis. Movement made me feel mentally and physically stronger. I felt positive and I felt energised, and people close to me noticed the difference.

But like a lot of people over time I slowed down. Life took over: my boys, work, holidays, colds and flus. I didn’t prioritise movement as much. I thought I was doing okay.

Then earlier this year, in 2025, my consultant told me that signs of my cancer were starting to show again and that I’d need treatment this year. She wanted me back in six weeks to review our next steps. It hit me like a punch in the chest. I knew there was only one other type of chemo available to me, and I wanted to avoid having it for as long as I could because I didn’t want to rely on trials after that.

I knew straight away that I had to go back to what helped me before, to moving. I was low again, but my work at MOVE Against Cancer, my colleagues, and my family kept me going until I could get back to moving again.

So I started again. Slowly. I was annoyed with myself, because even compared to my post cancer fitness, I wasn’t as good as I was in 2023. I started walking every day again, then running on Wednesdays. I was tired afterwards, but my husband helped me recover by taking on the day for me while I rested. Some days I’d manage a run and nothing else. I felt a bit lonely in my thoughts around recurrence and was worried I’d get depressed again.

I started talking about movement more. I ran to my mum’s house on a Sunday, when the whole extended family gets together, and shared why I was sweaty!

I told my friends and colleagues I was moving more, which also felt like a bit of accountability.

Six weeks later my consultant looked surprised at my results. Things weren’t progressing as fast as she thought. In that one appointment I must have told her ten times that I’d only made one big change in my life: I was moving a lot more. She asked me to come back for an iron infusion because my ferritin levels were very low, and to return in six weeks to compare again. I had the iron infusion and felt superhuman. My runs got easier and more regular.

At my next appointment again she told me I didn’t need treatment yet. We could wait. She asked to see me in two months, which felt like a win.

In these moments I realised how hard it is to start moving, and how easy it is to stop. Life takes over and before you know it, you’ve lost the thing that helped you most. It’s because it helps the most that I want to help others get to, or find their way back to, movement too, especially when it feels hardest.

At that moment in the consultant’s office, and for many moments after, I felt like exercise was the reason I didn’t have to start treatment. It was so hard to start moving all over again after cancer, but doing it made me more determined, more in control, positive, hopeful, and physically able. Moving forward, I’m learning to accept that there will be setbacks, pauses, and new beginnings. And? Starting again feels like the hardest and most important move of all.

If you’ve never been active before please know that you can start, and if you have stopped moving please know you can start again too.

It doesn’t have to be far or fast or fancy. Just start.