This post was supposed to be an account of how my cancer came back, how I went through chemo, and how I came out the other side. Followed by a request for sponsorship (in aid of Cancer Research UK) for my latest act of folly, which is to try to get fit enough to run the Robin Hood Half Marathon in six weeks time. My hope was that the post would be informative, honest, informative, and amusing in places… you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn… that sort of thing.
It was going to feature such gems as that time the ceiling (tile) collapsed, and nearly hit the healthcare assistant changing my hospital bed. About the chap in the bed next to me, whose otherwise pleasant conversation took a weird and somewhat fascist turn. The family member of another patient who took one look at me and told me that I was too young to be in that ward. My children, who found – and continue to find – my lack of hair a source of amusement. The expression on another parent’s face when my child proudly announced that “daddy has to have a special medicine that’s so powerful that it makes all his hair fall out.” Feeling so fatigued and tired that I couldn’t stay up even for the exit poll on election day. That day when I was so far gone with fatigue, I just sat staring into space, unable to do anything. Nausea. My corrupted sense of taste.
But this post isn’t, it turns out, going to be like that. The above paragraph is probably as close as it’s going to get. Except for the begging for charity sponsorship. You better believe you’re getting that bit.
Why isn’t this post going to be like that? Well, it turns out I’m just not ready to write that post yet. Maybe that tells you something about the whole experience. It certainly tells me something.
The good news is that I’m almost certainly going to be fine. I had testicular cancer a few years ago, and it seems that some of it somehow escaped the surgical procedure known as a “radical orchidectomy” and fled to my abdomen to set up a new home. These (along with the rest of me) have been carpet bombed from orbit via the medium of chemotherapy, and are now gone. Hopefully.
One reason I’m almost certainly going to be fine, of course, is research. Seems that testicular cancer of the kind that I had/have is… in research terms, it’s done. No trials for me to volunteer for. Testicular cancer… well… it’s low-hanging fruit. But you don’t need to me to tell you that there’s a lot of work still to be done on other cancers, because everyone knows somebody…. everybody probably knows multiple somebodies.
Another reason I’m almost certainly going to be fine is the medical and healthcare staff. Everyone involved in my treatment, at all levels of seniority, has been nothing but lovely to me. The consultant who co-founded Move Against Cancer, which reminded me that while I can’t run my normal distances or my normal speeds, I can still go and complete a Parkrun, however slowly, when I’m feeling up to it. The oncology outpatient nurse who, recognising my anxieties and the Lowness of my Ebb, made a point of getting her top canulator to plug me in, so I only had to go through it once. The healthcare assistants with breakfast and tea and coffee and a kind word for everyone. And the quiet solidarity of – and with – other patients, most of whom have things far harder than me.
Last year, the day after the Robin Hood Half Marathon, I entered this year’s Robin Hood Half Marathon. I’ve run it (or the full marathon, when it existed) every year since 2014 apart from the COVID years. When I entered the 2024 race, I was hoping for a good training year and a faster time, maybe even a post-pandemic PB.
I wasn’t expecting to be six weeks before race day, and struggling to complete a super-slow 5k training run. But here we are. Here I am. But I’ll get round, even if I have to walk some/much/all of it. It’s my hometown race, I absolutely bloody love it (except that nasty early climb through The Park) and I’m too pig-headed to drop out.
And so… even though I am a veteran of many distance runs (including ten marathons), I am asking for sponsorship. I’ve decided to take advantage of the weird cultural thing we have where we’ll only give money to good causes if someone does something difficult, unpleasant, or arduous. Or when we can pretend to think that, when in reality we’re subsidising someone else’s leisure activity. Though I should say, in the interests of transparency, I paid my own race entry fees.
So if you’ve got money to spare and if anything I’ve written over the years has been useful to you, please think about donating. Either through sponsoring me, or if there’s another worthy cause that’s close to your heart, by supporting that instead.
Thanks in advance. I really appreciate it.
Adam.
Proud Womble, and possessor of the average number of testicles for a human being.