On Sunday 12th May 2019 I will be taking part in Race For Life at Hopetoun House with my bestie of 23 years Shiela.
In 2016 when her little boy Harry was 8 months old Shiela was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. After 8 weeks of chemotherapy, 3 weeks of radiotherapy and countless appointments, tests and scans in May 2017 she was told she was in remission. She’ll remain under the care of haematology team at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh until January 2022. By which point 5 years post treatment her chances of getting Hodgkin's Lymphoma again will be the same as the chances of anyone else getting it for the first time (less than 0.2% for women in the UK)
Throughout her treatment Shiela remained positive and carried on as normal looking after Harry and working full time. It was only after she was told she was in remission the enormity of what she had been through hit her.
With the help of Maggies Centre she began to find how to live her life post cancer treatment and took up Yoga and running and set herself a series of challenges to take her to 2022. Including 500 days of Yoga, Pentlands 5 Peaks Challnge, 50k John Muir Way Walk and a series of 5K runs (all the challenges are on the theme of 5 taking her to the 5 year mark)
So at this year for her 35th birthday in February I decided to gift her my companionship on one of her 5K races and raise money for her chosen charity. I didn’t run and wasn’t sure I’d be very good at it but keeping to the theme I had just over 5 weeks to get myself up to 5K, Fortunately I managed my first 5K, 5 days before her birthday (I love a theme) She seemed delighted with her gift of my company and we chose to do the Hopetoun House Race for Life for Cancer Research UK (I also treated her to a very lovely Race for Life vest)
The work done by organisations like Cancer Research UK means that Shiela and other people affected by cancer have a higher chance of survival than they would just a couple of decades ago.
Having lost too many family and friends to cancer, including my mum in 2012, I hope that the vital research done by charities like Cancer Research UK will mean that one day cancer will be cured or at least more easily treatable.
Disclaimer: some of what I’ve written has been blatantly plagiarised from Shiela’s JustGiving pages as she’s much better at writing than me and I can’t spell words like haematology!
