3 Little Ducks - Park Run

"222; Three little ducks!" said the man giving me my time tag at the finish line this morning. It doesn't sound an impressive placement in a race, and indeed, I was 3rd from last in the Park Run at Wimbledon Common.  But I was so proud to have finished my first 5 km run since my cancer diagnosis, and I didn't walk any of it. Or crawl. I was even faster than my only other "official" 5 km timed run which was a Race For Life in Battersea Park almost 20 years ago. On that day, I remember a supporter yelling helpfully "come on, you walkers!" and I had to point out to him I was actually a runner.

Today's run was in a snowstorm and piles of mud, which, although it made things very difficult, means that hopefully in drier weather my time will improve. One unavoidable puddle reaching the top of my trainers brought to mind the old English nursery rhyme Dr. Foster:  Dr. Foster Went to Gloucester, in a shower of rain; he stepped in a puddle right up to his middle.....

One thing I do like - on the web page for the results, you are classed as an athlete.  At the end of the run, your time tag is matched to your unique barcode which you print out in advance by registering on the website.  In this way, you can be tracked at any run you do anywhere and watch your progress.

My friend, Miranda, has various strategies to help her to get round the course, mostly involving distracting herself with poem or song lyrics.  Luckily for her, she is good at remembering them; I suggested a poem (Ozymandius) then couldn't even remember who wrote it, let alone any of the words! Must try harder. Most of my distractions involved being lapped by the runners at the front who finished just as I reached the half-way mark. At one stage, I could have slipped in front and "won".  But of course that sort of thing didn't cross my mind.

Capital C

I attended a "Capital C" event today run by SWARM and Macmillan, an experimental project designed to ask cancer patients and carers about how they cope long term with the effects of a cancer diagnosis and treatment in London and how their experience could be improved.  Everyone came up with loads of ideas relating to physical and mental health, finance, work, community support, etc. which will be taken and discussed by Macmillan to be collated into a London-wide strategy to be written this year.

It was great to be part of such a useful project and to meet some new faces.

The above is a photo taken from the Swarm website of the last meeting at Impact Hub, York Way, Kings Cross, London.

The day focused on understanding how the existing assets, communities and spirit of London can be utilized to bring about changes for the better and maybe a more cohesive approach in providing support for those who need it.  Let's hope to see some positive progress later in the year.  Watch this space.

I took the opportunity while I was in the area to enjoy the beautiful day and check out Granary Square by Regents Canal. London continues to surprise.

Unfinished Business - A Light Bulb Moment and the Zeigarnik Effect

At the start of the New Year we are surrounded by media stories of resolutions, diets, get fit regimes, etc. I like to have these all in hand before January so tend to ignore them, but being stuck indoors feeling ill this Christmas and New Year made me realise I am surrounded by a lot of small jobs and projects to be finished later. When, exactly, is later though? 
A quick look round and I came up with the following:
An anglepoise lamp inherited from my nan (ages ago), has never had a light bulb and has never been used;
A wall-hanging I was making while learning to weave; almost finished but abandoned;
A large hall cupboard full of stuff needing to go to the tip/charity shop;
A half-sewn tablecloth I was going to have ready for the Summer to use in the garden;
A pile of filing;
A pile of stamps I've been collecting to send to a charity;
A pile of ink cartridges to recycle that have been sitting there for weeks;
A T-shirt I am designing and printing for my dad - all ready to go but not printed.

I can't decide if this is a psychological blockage, plain laziness, loss of interest or reaching a difficult point in all the projects - e.g I couldn't find a light bulb due to the full cupboard,

wasn't sure how to finish the hanging, the tablecloth was a tricky shape due to a patchwork of odd material scraps I chose, etc.   They all seem like small tasks, but I see most of them every day and thus have brief thoughts about them too.  

There is actually a psychological effect on the mind called the Zeigarnik effect, a phenomenon named after Russian (Lithuanian-born) psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, who discovered in 1927 (never let it be said my blog is out-of-date!) that the mind tends to remember and fixate on unfinished tasks rather than ones that have been completed.  In this way, the mind tends to fill itself up with lots of to-do lists, making us feel overwhelmed at times.  It can lead to a loss of focus and a feeling of not being in control or particularly productive or having time (breathing/thinking space) to be creative. Basically, your mind has a limited capacity for attention - you can only fit so much into your active memory at a time (I knew it! Well, I did once but then forgot I knew it...).

After my illness, I have had a very poor memory which has been affecting my work life quite seriously.  I have had to set up new methods of working, writing EVERY LITTLE THING down and training my colleagues to remind me of the most mundane things (e.g. to check my to-do list!).  Other friends tell me of their experiences of "chemo-brain" (mild cognitive impairment) which can be a side-effect of chemotherapy or having cancer; the exact cause is not known but can have symptoms such as being unusually disorganised, trouble remembering facts, confusion and difficulty doing simple tasks.

Anyway, having had an unusual fit of activity and emptied the hall cupboard, I came across exactly the required light bulb for my nan's lamp and have been able to see the sewing machine better which has meant I sat down today in the grey of the afternoon to think about the next step for the tablecloth. The Zeigarnik Effect tells me that once I have started my task I am more likely to finish it.
Maybe it'll be ready for next Summer, thus freeing my brain for another task....
The Zeigarnik Effect is used often in our daily lives and in business; think of the TV Series with the cliffhanger ending....you automatically tend to want to tune in next time to know the ending.  Newspapers continue stories on another page, causing you to want to turn through the rest of the paper to find the ending.  Charles Dickens employed the technique of maximum suspense in his serialized tales.  A good public speaker will start an engaging story, which is interrupted part-way through, and then return to it at the end of the talk, thus keeping the audience alert and wanting to know, how did it end? Our brains do not like unfinished business.  On that note, I'd just like to add.................to be continued.

The Rising of the Sun.....

The rising of the sun....

And the running of the deer.....

The holly.....

....and the ivy.....

I've truly lived in a Christmas carol this year!

Happy Christmas to all my Facebook friends and all the best for 2015.

It's all abaaat faaaamily!

This week I have been so proud of my family. Firstly, I saw a lovely Christmas floral decoration that my talented cousin Teresa had created.

Then, on Sunday, my dad played his latest harmonica gig in a Soho pub. We were all very impressed. My IT skills aren't quite up to uploading a clip of the "harpist" in action, but hopefully I'll add that in the not-too-distant future.
My brother Max surprised me with a "missing you" message - unheard of! But much appreciated and he and his wife Helen sent a beautiful box of chocolates in the post; another lovely surprise.
Then got an unexpected invitation to another lovely cousin's (Elise's) Birthday dinner next week. Looking forward to catching up with her.
It's easy to get caught up in being "busy" but I really appreciate my family, they are a unique lovely bunch and we all get on well and enjoy having a good laugh. I hope some of them read this too!!
Finally, the new addition to our own little faaamily, Kizia, a local stray.  She makes me laugh all the time too.

I'm a bit scared to hang any of my beautiful glass Christmas baubles due to the unnatural fascination she has with the Christmas tree (also a local stray, rescued from a neighbour's recycling last year - Scrooge has nothing on me in this austerity Christmas; however, I prefer to call it being "green").
Have a great week,
Kelly

Flinging myself off a cliff

Venue: Babadag Mountain, Turkey
Date: Oct  29th 2014
Occasion: Celebrating 5 years cancer-free by throwing myself off a cliff

I didn't intend to go paragliding.  I briefly considered it as I investigated my holiday resort, but then dismissed it as something other people do and definitely not something that I do. But I'm not me anymore, or not the person I used to be at any rate. I survived cancer, for God's sake, so not much else should scare me. So when I got to Olu Deniz (means Dead Sea, not the most auspicious of names) and saw lots of people paragliding onto the beach, I started pondering, why is it always other people doing amazing/fun things and not me? So I didn't think about it for too much longer and booked the experience.
Early in the morning, the bus arrived at the hotel.  The windscreen had a huge crack running down the centre of it. Did someone land on it? Try to escape before reaching the top of the mountain? Neither option allayed any fears. My mum at this point had gone for a panicky lie-down by the pool with a few cocktails (still 9 am), to wait for my return.
Babadag (Baba - "Father" and Dagh - "mountain" in Arabic) is HIGH. Imagine the highest mountain you can think of, then double it. In my fear, which was focusing to a point, it loomed even higher. 2 km to be exact, and very close to the sea (less than 5 km).

My pilot, Hasan, "chose" me from the other panicky-looking people on the bus.  Thankfully, I wasn't the last to be chosen, bringing back awful thoughts of school PE sessions.  I didn't have much time to think about anything, no instructions apart from "just stand up" which was something I thought I could manage.  As soon as the chute rose above our heads in the wind, our feet came off the floor and we swooped off the top with a sickening sideways slide of my stomach.  I couldn't think of much apart from "God this is high, I'm not sure I'm going to like this.." but as I shuffled back to sit in the "seat", it was comfortable and I began to enjoy the beautiful feeling of freedom in the air with no turbulence and just the slight rushing of the wind.  The views of the Blue Lagoon and the coastline with it's 12 islands were breathtaking.
I begged the pilot "no spinny spinny" but we had to do "something little bit extreme" (wasn't this extreme enough????) to drop down to the beach after approx. half an hour in the air.  While we were above the sea, the horizon suddenly lurched at an unnatural angle and then again.  We then floated smoothly down to land on the walkway by the beach in front of a cafe called "Help". No comment.  While the pilot joked with his mates, I used my kneepads and sank gratefully down on the grass, unfortunately looking like I was praying to Allah.  He didn't take offence and just said "Ok, that's fine, you lay down". 

Slightly fake/nervous smile before take off.

When I returned to the hotel, my mum had finished her cocktail and half of the one she had got for me, bless her!
Fabulous experience, so glad I did it.

Raising Awareness (2) - Early Cancer Symptoms

I like to raise awareness of early cancer symptoms when I can.  Many of my friends in the Young Women's Ovarian Cancer Support Group (held the first Wednesday of every month at Maggie's Centre, West London) tell me that their GPs dismissed cancer as a diagnosis at first because we/they were "too young".  To that end, I subscribe to Macmillan Cancer Voices which is a very useful resource to find opportunities to help people working in the cancer field with research, or to join hospital or other focus-groups to help patients and carers.  

I volunteered to give a talk to a group of GPs in Bexley, as that is my original home borough.  I spoke to about 20 GPs and practice nurses and the feedback was great; they found it very useful to hear about things from a patient's perspective.
Curiously I also found it felt good to talk about things to a captive audience (!) and (maybe) make a small difference to future doctor/patient interactions in difficult circumstances.

Some of the feedback the session received:

Dear Kelly,

The South East London Cancer Network would like to thank you for taking part in the ‘Improving the Earlier Diagnosis of Cancer' event at Holiday Inn Bexley yesterday.  The event was well received and GPs really enjoyed listening to your journey.

Here are some of the delegates' comments:

'All brilliant, thank you!'

'Very good meeting.'

'All of it was valuable. Overall excellent.'

'Excellent event. Very informative and useful. Please keep doing it.'

'All presentations brilliant and very useful to bring patients.'

'Please continue with these meetings.'

Very satisfied.'

'Learnt a lot from patient's viewpoint'

June 23rd 2014, I arranged to meet a strange man in Whitechapel.  He told me to look out for "a bald man reading a Kindle, hopefully there aren't too many of me!"  I had offered to relate my experiences of being a cancer patient for some research being carried out by Macmillan, in order to improve the whole experience for other patients.  There are so many small things that could make you feel a lot less stressed, and that's before you think of the big improvements that could be made.  Hopefully some of my less fun experiences will be taken note of.

Macmillan at St. George's held a Health and Wellbeing meeting on 23rd Sept 2014 for people who are coming to the end of their cancer treatment.  I was pleased to be able to present my experiences, and we also had useful sessions with a dietician from the hospital, a physiotherapist and Patrick, a lovely hypnotherapist who I originally met on the Coping With Cancer Stress course.  He lead a very interesting hypnosis session, where we all decided that we had only had our eyes closed for about 5 mins but it turned out to be 20 mins. 

I ended my talk with a final motto, which my friend in France taught me recently; he swears that no Frenchman ever suffered from stress, so maybe we can all learn something from it.

"Doucement le matin, pas trop vite dans l’apres midi "–

Take it easy in the morning and not too fast in the afternoon.

Have a lovely weekend!