How walking helped Rebecca after she was diagnosed with bowel cancer
Thursday 11 April 2024
The #OneThing that helped me after my cancer diagnosis was walking.
I started walking when I first returned home after two major lifesaving, life-changing surgeries requiring a month in hospital, even though initially I could only shuffle round the garden leaning on my husband’s arm, and I was wiped out just walking up the stairs.
I walked every day very slowly, doing a little more, then a little more, until I could get to the end of the road, then round the block, and eventually onto the common nearby.
I walked when I was so fragile and weak that I was worried that if a dog jumped up at me, I might fall over and hurt myself. (There are a lot of dogs on the common!)
I walked when I was on chemotherapy and felt weird and poorly and couldn’t breathe in without a scarf over my mouth because of the reaction to the cold (I was on Oxaliplatin at the time).
I walked every day to get out of the house, to enjoy the fresh air on my skin, and to feel my body healing and getting stronger again.
I walked to enjoy the beauty of the views near me, the changing of the seasons, and the daily joys and surprises of nature — sometimes I saw a muntjac deer!
I walked by myself, and with friends, and with family, in new places and many times around favourite places near where I live.
I walked more and more in the first six months after treatment until I was able to do a 50km charity walk along the Cotswold Way to raise money for Bowel Cancer UK.
I walked so much that I felt confident and strong enough to try running again, and I now regularly run as well.
I walked to escape cancer and feel like me again.
I still walk every day and feel that it gives me so much: improving my physical health so I can endure the chemotherapy treatment, and helping me through some of the most difficult times emotionally. This includes when the cancer came back in March 2020. A lung metastasis was discovered during a regular scan, and I had surgery in August 2020 to remove my upper left lobe. Then in November 2020, following discovery of a metastasis on my right lung, I started what became three years of palliative chemotherapy, with the expectation that I would be on treatment for what remained of my life.
But I kept on walking throughout the years of chemotherapy treatment, and the cancer stayed stable, so I was able to have radiotherapy in the summer of 2023 (on the right lung met) and was then able to take a three-month chemo break starting in October last year. I had another PET CT scan in February 2024 which was “essentially reassuring” so I’m now able to carry on for another three months without chemotherapy! This is fantastic news and I really believe that the walking has helped me to reach this stage, as well as making the journey here much more bearable and enjoyable.
