Runners

I'm not normally one to use this space for personal updates, but the net these days is full with negativity so I thought I’d tip the scales a little.

It is six years, almost to the day, that I was cured of cancer. The cure involved a gruelling 9 hr surgery that replaced a good amount of the bones in my right leg with a science fiction's worth of chromium and titanium and in the process removed a sizeable chunk of my quadricep – nasty to be sure, but I can walk, I am healthy and, more importantly, I am alive.

Originally the technology gave me about 25 years of use and then I would lose my leg. A shitty prospect for what would be a 63 year old me. Last year however, while getting my 5 year all-clear, I received news that the tech had progressed and, barring an accident, I would never lose my leg. 5 years clear of cancer was good enough news, but no amputation? That was just fantastic.

So, I won’t lose my leg. This changes things. Looking back now I realize how much I was limiting myself and, in many ways, how much smaller my world had become - not without justification to be sure, but the technology’s limitations were only part of the story – the rest was on me. And Even months after this great news I was still holding back. Until, that is, I was given inspiration (a small spark) to think bigger, to allow myself to think bigger. 

So I decided I would do something I have only dreamt of doing for over six years. I would run.

I gave myself 4 or 5 months.

Turns out that prosthetic bone technology isn’t the only thing to progress massively over the last half a decade – physiotherapy has moved right along with it. And now, thanks to that beautiful spark, the support of my family and friends, Kate (my amazing physiotherapist) and a lot of very hard (and very painful) work I am almost half way there. Meaning, what I thought would take another three months will be done in less than three weeks.

I thought I had more time for running shoe shopping…