This woman's journey

Fourteen days ago I had a double mastectomy. It took about seven hours to complete and I woke hooked up to the familiar morphine pump to relieve the pain.

My hospital bed was next to a window through which I could watch the world carry on its busy life! In the distance I saw trains regularly travel to London. I imagined commuters sipping their morning coffees absorbed in their laptops getting ready for the day ahead. A steady stream of cars, vans and bikes made their way around the hospital site all intent on getting to their destinations. Occasionally the air ambulance flew past my window on its mission to collect and deliver patients safely. It was a hive of normal activity.

But not for me! I’ve had to step aside from the whirlwind of life for a while – from the ‘fast cycle lane of life’ to the ‘slower walking lane’. Cancer does that! It rudely interrupts the normal rhythms of life and introduces its own! 

Since then I’ve been thinking about the different seasons we experience throughout our lifetime, each with their differing speeds. In June I once again completed the Race for Life raising money for Cancer Research. But this time I experienced it from a very different perspective. In the past I’ve either run the full 5K or run/walked it, but because the weather was so hot and I had had a biopsy two days before we had to walk most of the way. As a result we were nearer the back ‘in the slow lane’.

The differences between running and walking were stark. When you’re running you have the crowds at the sides of the road cheering you on and a clear route marked out in front of you. By the time the walkers come by, the crowds have melted away and the roads are no longer cleared so we found ourselves weaving around shoppers, tourists, scooters and bikes. One guy humphed his disapproval as we tried to get past him. We were in the groups of people with children, with injuries, some just out of cancer treatment and those like me, with cancer. I heard one man say to his friend, ‘I can understand why they run but I can’t understand why they’d walk!’ That shocked me! We weren’t in the group of lean fit runners but made up of cancer survivors, cancer patients and younger children all committed to raising money for research to be done by cancer scientists like Vishal pictured here. That was the cause we were walking for, and these little setbacks just kept me more determined to complete the walk and raise the money needed.

Back to today…..I came back home after four days in hospital and have been struggling with pain, sickness and blocked gut. These last two weeks have definitely been a hugely challenging part of this trek and has included another trip to hospital by ambulance! But in the last two days, there has been a change. I know there have been an army of people out there praying for me and I thank each and every one of them. They have helped carry me through. One thing I’m being reminded of again, is that we can’t do these journeys alone. I’ve had my husband and daughter with me day and night, family and friends nearby and on the phone, and our wider church family continually praying me through this tough valley time.

Over this last year I’ve been learning Psalm 139 by heart. It speaks about God knowing everything about us and about him guiding and holding us even in the darkest of times. I am so thankful for God’s closeness throughout this ‘walking’ time.

‘You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.’

Psalm 139:5