Walking keeps me strong to face MY OVARIAN CANCER
Istarted walking after I’d had breast cancer to raise money for charity, and it was during training that I noticed tummy pains. It was 2019 and I was still taking breast-cancer medication, so I put it down to that. Then I started gaining weight and my tummy felt bloated – I looked five months pregnant.
I saw my GP, who echoed what I was thinking – surely, I wasn’t unlucky enough to get cancer again. But I was. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
Fortunately, it was another primary, not secondary, cancer, so it was treatable.
I felt ravaged during gruelling chemotherapy and after surgery, but walking helped. At first, it was a struggle making the 30 steps to a bench outside my house but what a sense of achievement. I then began to go further and felt better in the fresh air, and seeing people.
I’ve found a great four-mile walk, which I now do daily, means I clock up more than a marathon a week.
I set up a countrywide walking group for women with ovarian cancer, called Walk with Me (Instagram @walk.ntalk2021), and we support each other with WhatsApp messages and photos of where we’ve been.
Walking has soothed my mind, body and spirit – it helped me think, ‘I can do this.’
Even if you catch ovarian cancer late, like me, it’s not a death sentence. My treatment has been successful so far, and I have scans and tests every three months, to check it’s not returned. When I’m outside with the rain and wind on my face, it’s hard, as is the struggle of living with ovarian cancer, but I’m doing what I can, like the other women in our group, and it gives me great strength.