exercise – June's Jottings

So, I’m going to start a short weekly series where I write a very short blog about the things which mean the most to me in life. As tomorrow will be 11 years since my second of three cancer surgeries, today I am going to focus on health, but subsequent months will include my Christian faith, my family, my PhD, happiness, my extensive book collection, music (particularly my love for everything from Iron Maiden to Mozart), charity work, my community (particularly my wish to support those going through tough times), and things like that.

Today, though, we are finally at the last day in January. Man, it seems to have lasted for-e-ver. I’ve mentioned on social media in the past just how much I dislike January and February, so to have got through one of these months is at least something! In relation to this post, though, 1st February sees my 11th anniversary of the middle cancer op I had – a little victory – before the biggie in June 2012. But, I’ve blogged all about it before – you can find posts about it in the Alternative About Me category on my page. —->

It seems appropriate, therefore, that today I celebrate the fact that, 11 years on, I am in very good health. Yes, I have aged and am not quite as agile as I used to be. Yes, getting up out of the sofa sometimes needs a second attempt. Yes, the grey hairs are becoming more plentiful (but thanks to my amazing hairdresser are not often in evidence). And yes, the old visage contains a lot more lines. But instead of shying away from growing older, I have learned to embrace it. What does it matter if I’m 51 years old, but I’m actually still 21 at heart? I think after having the three cancer diagnoses I have had in life, it really does put another perspective on life; I’m actually really blessed to still be here, so I’m going to celebrate that fact!

I am very conscious to follow a healthy lifestyle, although I’m the kind of person who only needs to look at a cake and put about 5lbs of weight on. After a few years of basically being a slob (mainly thanks to COVID lockdowns and a sedentary job writing my thesis), I now practice Intermittent Fasting, which has been brilliant for me physically and mentally – I feel much sharper mentally, my energy levels are on the up, and my jeans are loose again (woohoo!). I started off with the 16:8 programme, but am now up to 20:4 (most days – the odd day I will slacken a little). I now feel that I can sit for extended periods and research/write my thesis; prior to this I was struggling to concentrate. My resting pulse has come down by 7 bpm within the last month and, overall, I’m feeling great. How long I will continue this for, I don’t know, but at the moment it is helping me a lot. A feeling-good June is a happy June.

I don’t drink alcohol, nor have I ever smoked, but I do take very regular exercise, walking the dogs (who may be tiny, but boy they walk fast!), climbing the numerous hills in the town where I currently live, and bonding with my rowing machine – which has been the best investment we have made. As I’ve written before, I am allergic to sport, although I like watching other people doing it. I’ve injured myself running: my knee dislocates all the time so things like tennis are out of the picture too, team games scare me, cycling on open roads freaked me out so I stopped doing that, mountain biking is…… no way Jose……, and I can’t swim (my parents did take me to swimming lessons when I was a child, but I never took to the thought of being in water with other people whose hygiene may not be the best. Plus the co-ordination needed to move arms and legs at the same time was, well, beyond me). Despite this reluctance to do anything other than walk or row, I still manage to average about 13K steps per day, even if sometimes I end up doing laps around the house to increase the number on my fitbit (or wave my arms a bit……ssssssshhhhh don’t tell!). However, I do find exercise tricky; although I am fit, I do get breathless very easily because I have fibrosis/scar tissue in the lung which was affected by HL and it doesn’t function as well as it should. It’s really frustrating. When I am at the University and have to go to the 12th floor of DHT, I make myself take the stairs. I’m a wheezing wreck at the top, but you get the best views from the stairs! I just need a few minutes to sort the breathing out, and then I’m fine. There have been times when I have had to stop a gym workout through breathlessness and light-headedness but again that clears after a few moments. My usual saying whilst recovering from strenuous exercise is “Just give me a minute”. It’s one of the legacies of my medical history that I just have to live with.

I’m determined that I am not going to get a fourth Big C diagnosis, and thus am trying everything I can to be able to “grow old gracefully”. I want to be a “cool granny” one day. Medical research is so important – not only I have benefitted from it, but many people I know have as well. Diseases previously considered to be fatal now may not be, thanks to these clever people who spend their days working in labs striving to find effective treatments for everything under the sun. In my days as a pharmaceutical research nurse I could see this for myself – so many medicines are produced for everything you can think of. Some work, others don’t. But without this knowledge, middle-aged me wouldn’t be here now, sipping at my tea, and contemplating getting a sweetie from one of the boxes I got for Christmas. I will go into medical research more when I talk of why charity work/fundraising is important to me, on another Tuesday.

So yes, keeping healthy is important to me. Every day I am thankful that I can walk about, go out, and feel well. I trust things stay this way for a looooooong time! Here’s to good health.

Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi on Pexels.com

Anyone who knows me knows that exercise and I haven’t ever really got on. Ever since infant school it has meant running about, doing things that give you pain (I’m thinking the rope burn from sliding down the ropes too fast), fear (in my case of heights from the top of the ‘apparatus’), and discomfort (hockey and lacrosse in the pouring rain or sleet). I was in one school hockey team – quite an achievement for me – but never made the lacrosse one; probably because my aim was to run away from the ball that was hurling itself at me through space at great speed, instead of catching it in my stick net thing. I hated swimming, and I just wasn’t ever a runner. Ever.

However, since then I have made an effort to join gyms and keep fit. As a nursing student, I went to weekly step aerobic classes but gave up after a few months as I didn’t have any co-ordination. Stepping on and off the step was easy, but start throwing in arm movements…… completely lost me. Then, due to most of my 20s either fighting illness or expecting my children (the first baby we lost early on, sadly), my exercise was minimal.

Over the past few years, I came to like the two gyms I have been a member of. During my nursing days, they were a godsend after all the stress of a normal day. On days off, I’d be at the gym for 6.30am so that I could have it to myself before the ‘rugby boys’ came in and posed, looking at themselves in the mirror whilst pretending to lift weights. I loved exercise so much that, for several years, I took part in several charity fundraiser events: a couple of sponsored cycles for Marie Curie Cancer Care, and several years of Cancer Research’s ‘Race For Life’ – strictly the 5km run only for me. 10km was just a bit too much. Often some of my friends would join me, and once or twice my daughter, and we would have a fun time punishing ourselves whilst raising cash in order for other people to have the happy ending to their cancer diagnosis as I have had. I think, in total, I’ve raised about £5,000 for these charities – not a huge amount, but money which I hope has been used to help these people.

Then, about 3 years ago, whilst out running, I injured myself which put pay to my running days. I was quite sad about this as I loved going out with my daughter and the area where we live is an ideal outdoor gym – especially in the early mornings.

Other than walking/hiking – which I do a lot of around here, in a town surrounded by hills – and cycling, which I’m not a great fan of (because the roads are busy) – I needed another form of cardio exercise. After trying Clubbercise once (really not for me, even with the whole waving lightsticks thing), I took up rowing at my local gym. Finally, a low impact sport which I really enjoyed. And I’ve done it ever since. The local gym only has two ergo machines (rowing machines) and I was getting grumpy at having to tire myself out on the treadmill or bikes while waiting for countless other people to finish on one or other of the ergos before I could put in my daily 10km stint…….so we ended up buying our own. Now I have no excuse to shirk trying to keep fit. If I do, it sits there and makes me feel guilty.

I have been a bit lax recently with my rowing though. Tutoring every evening, as well as thesis-writing, and doing the house up for selling has taken every spare minute of my time. However, I signed up for DoddieAid and am trying to make up my walking miles with some rowing ones too. It’s not one of my beloved cancer charities this time, but the cause is equally as important; someone we knew locally passed away a couple of years ago with MND. It is a dreadful illness. So, although my effort for Team Edinburgh is pretty meagre, I’m doing my tiny bit to help. (Team Edinburgh isn’t doing great in the Inter-District league…..come on, folks!).

I went a bit OTT with my rowing today, especially after not having done it much over the past couple of months. It also didn’t help that I hit the wrong Spotify playlist on my phone and so I ended up trying to keep a steady 25spm whilst high energy tunes were bursting out of my earbuds. Not recommended. I’m going to be hurting tomorrow……..