This time three years ago I went to the doctor about a strange feeling in my abdomen.
This time three years ago I started the process that led to major surgery and an ovarian cancer diagnosis.
This time three years ago my life changed. Suddenly I was vulnerable. Suddenly I felt mortal.
Three years ago, I'd spent the previous six months on a kayak journey, paddling the length of the Danube before settling for the winter in a small ramshackle house in Bulgaria. I was in the best physical shape of my life - while unknowingly growing a huge tumour.
It was an incredible shock to come to the UK for a Christmas visit and not go home again; because I had cancer.
I'm far away now from all the fear, from the physical pain of treatment and from the pure uncertainty of illness. Cancer hovered in front of my face for months, blocking my vision, my thoughts, my feelings about anything else. My thoughts focused inwards, down into my pelvis, thinking about growths, about jostling of organs, blood supplies, cell division.
I remember going for a walk one day, the sun of May was starting to warm the fields and I could appreciate the beautiful surroundings of my new home, my new beginning post illness. I came through a small piece of forestry, just a thin track winding through the trees and out into a field of long grass where I lay down under the blue sky. I rolled up my top to allow the sun across my scar in a gesture of healing and positivity but soon found my hands running across my belly and my thoughts disappearing into the worry within and realised that that was where I'd been for months, the cloud of fear surrounding me, living with my thoughts turned inwards, the sun just bringing me out of it for a short time and showing me another, lighter way of being.
I was very lucky, in a cancer way of speaking. Just one tumour, encapsulated, three months of illness and a quick recovery. Not the dragging slow poison of chemotherapy but a quick sharp slash of a wound to recover from.
It feels a long way away now, the way trauma fades in the passage of time. I'm strong now, physically and mentally. Not only has my body healed but I know I can push it again, I know I can use it to take me out into the world, to survive in tough condidtions, to walk over mountains in wind and rain.
When it aches and stiffens, when I collapse and groan at the end of a day it's because I've walked miles, with only a rucksack and a map for company. I can make a tent in a field and not feel vulnerable. I can walk thousands of miles.
I'm not sure what I want to say about this. Am I telling you about the experience to warn you about ovarian cancer or just marking how far I've come.
Maybe I'm just marking how far I've come. A year of illness, a year of working, a year of walking and here I am, out the other side, myself again. How neat.
This time three years ago I started the process that led to major surgery and an ovarian cancer diagnosis.
This time three years ago my life changed. Suddenly I was vulnerable. Suddenly I felt mortal.
Three years ago, I'd spent the previous six months on a kayak journey, paddling the length of the Danube before settling for the winter in a small ramshackle house in Bulgaria. I was in the best physical shape of my life - while unknowingly growing a huge tumour.
It was an incredible shock to come to the UK for a Christmas visit and not go home again; because I had cancer.
I'm far away now from all the fear, from the physical pain of treatment and from the pure uncertainty of illness. Cancer hovered in front of my face for months, blocking my vision, my thoughts, my feelings about anything else. My thoughts focused inwards, down into my pelvis, thinking about growths, about jostling of organs, blood supplies, cell division.
I remember going for a walk one day, the sun of May was starting to warm the fields and I could appreciate the beautiful surroundings of my new home, my new beginning post illness. I came through a small piece of forestry, just a thin track winding through the trees and out into a field of long grass where I lay down under the blue sky. I rolled up my top to allow the sun across my scar in a gesture of healing and positivity but soon found my hands running across my belly and my thoughts disappearing into the worry within and realised that that was where I'd been for months, the cloud of fear surrounding me, living with my thoughts turned inwards, the sun just bringing me out of it for a short time and showing me another, lighter way of being.
I was very lucky, in a cancer way of speaking. Just one tumour, encapsulated, three months of illness and a quick recovery. Not the dragging slow poison of chemotherapy but a quick sharp slash of a wound to recover from.
It feels a long way away now, the way trauma fades in the passage of time. I'm strong now, physically and mentally. Not only has my body healed but I know I can push it again, I know I can use it to take me out into the world, to survive in tough condidtions, to walk over mountains in wind and rain.
When it aches and stiffens, when I collapse and groan at the end of a day it's because I've walked miles, with only a rucksack and a map for company. I can make a tent in a field and not feel vulnerable. I can walk thousands of miles.
I'm not sure what I want to say about this. Am I telling you about the experience to warn you about ovarian cancer or just marking how far I've come.
Maybe I'm just marking how far I've come. A year of illness, a year of working, a year of walking and here I am, out the other side, myself again. How neat.
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