I have been asked to be a Media Walker for the Weekend to End Women's Cancer Walk in Toronto, on September 11th and 12th.
I was contacted week-before-last. I thought about it for a couple of days, and then I accepted the offer.
On the Walk news agencies and TV stations will contact me via cell phone and find out where I am on the route and then make their way to me and walk with Alex and I and ask us questions, and I am to share my story.
My story is in the margin on the right side of this blog...just click my photo and you can read the story.
I will admit to everyone that I am training well! But my life is not back to normal by any means. I still have nurses every morning to help me get my day started. Once I am rolling I am fine, but I do need a bit of help getting showered, and getting dressed. Once I am done with that I only need help again at bedtime, and my family is home to help me then. Alex joined my team to keep me safe, and to be a support walker who knows my medical needs and everything to do with my medication and my limitations. He trains with me so we know I have someone with me at all times. I could not do the walk without him. Where I am strong and able to walk, I am contrasted by a crazy shoulder injury that happened before the cancer surgeries that has hampered my recovery. The training has kept up my morale while I have been lame to be able to accomplish anything else except the walking!
Obviously most folks would have not even tried to train for the walk. But for me something inside me was like a voice telling me that if I don't train to do this walk and make a serious effort with the training, my mind and emotions would not survive the sense of entrapment I have as a result of my frozen shoulder. I have never been so beat down by a physical injury and the recovery from surgeries in all of my days until now. So I grasp hard at my daily accomplishments in the training!
We are now doing 10kms a day in our training, and all of it is on residential streets in Newmarket, with impressive steep hills along the trek. We basically perimeter a major part of our town. You can find us walking the Perimeter of Yonge St to Main and boundaried between Green Lane and Eagle Streets on the North and South. This Saturday folks can find me walking all over downtown Toronto starting at Union Station around 11AM, while taking part in a social walk with some friends for the whole day..... I will FB and Tweet where I am walking to next on Saturday....
I am agile on my legs for sure, and my breathing is so amazing, and my heart rate is so even all the time. I have gone down two clothing sizes so far, and I am now losing weight at a fairly rapid rate! ....All positive ends. I am not so disappointed by not being able to use my right arm too well, and I am not saddened at all by my inability to do too many chores, or work in the studio much at all these past 10 months because I have the training. I have also been able to cut my pain medication doses in half. Plus my diabetes is quite under control too! This is exactly why this walk I am doing is FOR ME...with the benefit of raising money for a charity that has already funded research to help me stay well in my future.
It is not easy to juggle the recovery and the training and I feel very fortunate that I am well enough to do it, and I empathize with those who just cannot try because they did not luck out as well as me with their diagnosis, surgery and recovery. I will take you all in my heart with me on walk day and if you see me cheering on the news and walking and knitting my way through Toronto..Please know that on Walk day I am cheering for YOU.
A few weeks after the Walk in September I will have my 6month examination after surgery. I feel confident that I will screen clear of the cancer, as my post op pathology was clean.
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To address something that has occurred in Toronto with fraud over cancer survival:
There has been a young woman arrested for frauding folks out of their money on the internet by saying she is a cancer patient. I am sure this all is making everyone wary, so I have taken scans of mine and Alex's official participation letters so you can see we are official numbered participants of an official numbered Canadian Charity event. The two photos below are shots of our official letters.
Also I just wanted to let you know that if you support us by clicking on the icons in the margin that donation goes directly to the charity through their official site, and you get a receipt in email right way, and I believe you get your official tax receipt in the email as well. Nothing goes into mine or Alex's personal account, and your privacy is protected, and we cannot see your credit card number etc.
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