Post-Cancer Comeback

Oops, sorry Rick. You didn't say it was your wife. Little brain glitch there ... I was typing my response and in my mind I was certain your post had said "wife."

Reading comprehension has been one of the long-term casualties of my chemo. I have to remember to read slowly, re-read, think, then look it over again to be sure that I know what I read.

Running and Life, or, Running versus Death

Sub-8 Mile's Battle-o-Rama

(maybe this story will, in some way, help someone you know; if so, that's cool. oh, and F Cancer.)

Chapter 24

mid November 2016

It’s morning. I’m in the hospital room. This is where I will be for Extreme Treatment.

The staff enter. They hang up some bags on a metal pole next to me, and connect them to the rubber tube embedded in my chest.

As one bag drains, they add another. Then another. And another … it takes all day.

Sometime after lunch, the hospital’s social worker stops by, along with a lawyer. They help me write a will. I specify where my remains are to be buried: on a favorite knoll, overlooking a field, surrounded by the woods, dirt roads, and trails back home where I grew up.

The chemo is finally done just before dinnertime. They unplug me from the metal pole, and I devour my hospital dinner. Gotta get calories and nutrients while I can. Within a few days, I won’t be able to eat.

*****

It’s morning again, early. Nothing has happened yet; I feel the same: woozy, weak, disconnected from this reality.

Soon, they will come to pour stuff into me, all day again. But first --

I get out of the bed and pull on the hospital pajama pants, and a pair of non-slip hospital socks. I stand and cinch the gown around me. Donning the mandatory mask, I step out the door into the hallway …

and I go for a run. This is badass, and I effing know it. Jogging around the 150-meter-ish oval hallways of this Extreme Treatment wing, I steadily complete a lap.

Going around, I pass three different nurses’ stations. The staff’s startled eyes widen and they reach for the phones on the desks. I wonder if someone will stop me. This has to be against the rules … nobody stops me. They gape in shock as I keep it up, lap after lap. After about 10 minutes, I go back to my room, take off my mask, socks, and pajama pants. I get back into bed, where I wait for breakfast and chemo.

I’m pretty sure I just did close to a mile, on high-dose chemotherapy, while full of cancer. F*** yeah.

*****

Another morning, another run. Everybody stares. I am alive, m***f***ers.

Breakfast, then chemo starts.

A doctor stops by. Apparently there has been a vigorous debate on the subject of me, the jogging Extreme Treatment patient. Technically, there is no rule against it, because it is impossible for patients to run around the hallways. It would be like having a rule against flying. Nobody has imagined this ever happening. The doctor tells me that the Extreme Treatment Head Doctor thinks it’s awesome, so, as long as I’m not falling down, I have a green light.

*****

Morning again, run again. I’m dizzy. Doesn’t matter. Running anyway.

Breakfast.

Stuff gets dumped into my tube all day. It’s getting bad.

*****

It’s morning again. No more running -- I am still capable, but now they have me attached to the tubes on the pole all the time, day and night. Meanwhile, the Extreme Treatment is starting to take me on the descent into hell. It’s … there are no words. It’s hell.

The team has to constantly infuse me with stuff like antivirals, antibacterials, and antifungals, since my entire immune system is dead. This fortifies me from the everyday specks and minor germs that, normally, nobody notices or cares about. Right now, those little nothings would wreak havoc and possibly kill me. So, I’m hooked up all the time.

Anyway, I can still stand. I determinedly grab the damn pole (it has wheels), march with it out into the hall, and start walking as rapidly as I can -- tubes attached to my chest, bags of whatever concoction swinging wildly on the corners as I zoom around.

I do my best to pretend that I’m not half-delirious with poison and pain. Don’t want them to stop me.

This is going to be on my terms, goddammit. I furiously storm around the loop and get in my 5 or 10 minutes of defiant workout.

The staff can not believe what they are seeing. As shocking as my morning runs were, this high-speed powerwalking, after several days of Extreme Treatment … this is something else.

Yeah, F Cancer.

*****

Late November 2016

No more getting up. They have activated an alarm on my bed, and if I try to get up, staff will enter and forcibly strap me down. I’ve been warned. If I attempt to stand, I would collapse instantly. So don’t try it.

Many times each day, I drench my entire bed, pillow, and clothing with a foul-smelling excretion from my skin. My mouth tastes like the heavy metal that is in the process of killing me. I can’t make the 10-foot journey to the bathroom. I have to be cleaned by others.

Between bouts of I-don’t-know-where-or-what, I entertain myself by convincing the staff to help me stand next to the bed when I have to pee. Two nurses, one on each arm, hold me up while I urinate between them into a jug. Whenever I have to go, I hit the call-button and yell “Team Urination!” into the intercom. Everybody seems mildly annoyed, but I think it’s funny.

*****

This new depth of hell. All my insides are shredding. Seconds are hours and hours are weeks. It’s interminable. Days and nights and days and nights and days and nights. Increasingly excruciating --

-- and then it’s not.

At some point, infinite pain means it’s beyond what the mind can know. This new, numb nothing is pierced only by the searing sores on the inside of my intestines. I can feel my digestive tract disintegrating within me.

It cannot be endured. I plunge through the bottom of hell. My mind shuts.

... and opens, elsewhere. There is golden sunlight, trickling water, and a blade of grass. A forest surrounds this place.

Back at the Extreme Treatment Place, they dump half of my stem cells back into me. For days, I emit pungent sulfurous odors from my pores and from my breath.

But I am somewhere else.

*****

*****

*****

I am near the blade of grass. I am small. There is more grass, but I am just here, by this single blade. It waves slightly as the air mildly shifts. The sun softly shines on this placid opening in the quiet forest. Nearby, a brook gently babbles and there is a lush carpet of moss on the log across the stream. Beyond that -- nothing, endless twilight.

There is no time in this place. I am here, and the blade of grass is here, in the eternal now of this place.

Quiet and small, I am here. My body is not here. I am here, by the blade of grass. It is peaceful. It is quiet.

There is no fear or hunger, no happiness or sadness, no want or need. There is … is.

The brook babbles nearby. The breeze softly sways the branches above, and I am here, by the blade of grass in the gentle sunlight that trickles through the trees.

I could stay.

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I return via the doorway in my mind, reentering my destroyed body. They discharge me and tell me to come back in a week. I go to the charity cancer house and sleep for days.

*****

Early December 2016

I return to the Extreme Treatment Place. I do it all again. The morning runs, until they permanently attach me to the wheeled pole; then, the furious morning speedwalks; then, no leaving the bed except for Team Urination.

I must repeat it all. The bags of poison, the now-familiar descent into hell, the intestinal lesions. The pain beyond what my mind can comprehend.

But this time, I know where I can keep myself.

I exit.

*****

I am here, by the blade of grass, in the soft sunlight of the forest glade. The water peacefully flows in the stream nearby. It is quiet, and I am small. I am here.

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Late December 2016

I return. The hospital -- the world -- this physical reality -- feels strange. Sensations of warmth and cold feel foreign. My body is feeble but alive. I am not deaf or blind. My organs did not shut down. My brain did not hemorrhage into oblivion.

They discharge me from the Extreme Treatment Place. I go to the charity cancer house.

You will always recover. These words echo in what's left of my obliterated mind.

I don't know about getting back into running after cancer, but I got into running after my cancer. 16 years ago my brain tumour was resected, after radiotherapy and a few months of speech therapy (it wasn't really about speech, it was relearning my words) I got back into capoeira and got back into fitness.

6 years later I decided to run the cancer research 10k to thank the people who made life after cancer possible, and raise some money for them. While training for this (I'd never run anywhere near that distance before) I discovered parkrun. And while a little drunk, signed up for the Great North Run (for Cancer Research), the rest is history, I ditched capoeira, started running.

I'm not the quickest runner, but I have managed a couple of bits of silverware (as a team and one 2nd place in a 10k) and over 250 parkruns (just under 18 minutes)

Lost my dad to bowel cancer 5 years ago, he was a keen runner and athletics coach to a couple of international runners. I remember him running the Paris to Versailles race when it was first run, so I ran it three days after his death (I'd signed up hoping he'd still be hanging on, so we could talk about it) to raise money for bowel cancer research (~£3000).

I'm 16 years free of cancer, and fitter than I've ever been. I'm not a good runner, but better than I would have been without cancer. I was lucky, many others don't survive but we can beat it, and the survival rate is now over 50%.

Not sure if this post really answers the original post, but thought I'd give my story.

Jamaica blue -

Thanks for sharing that story. I appreciate what you said about being a better runner than you would have been without cancer. Glad to hear about how you bounced back and recovered.

Sorry to hear about your dad. Cancer sucks.

Training log for last week. 5 miles total.

Mon 4 Jan - Grassy field with small rise, 1 mi 9:38 (tired from last week)

Tue 5 Jan - Grassy field with small rise, 1 mi 9:22

Wed 6 Jan - Grassy field with small rise, 1 mi 9:11

Thu 7 Jan - Grass athletic fields (flat), 1 mi 8:27

Fri 8 Jan - off

Sat 9 Jan - Artificial turf field, barefoot shoes. 1/4 mi warmup, 2 x (5 x 80m drills), 5 x 80m strides @ 15, 13, 12 (too hard, decided to back off and keep it a stride vs sprint effort), 13, 13.

Sun 10 Jan - off. Knees a little sore after yesterday. Not sure if this is going to be a problem.

Goals for 2021:

Sub-60 400m

Sub-6 mile or 1500m equivalent

Gonna do it.

Good goals. Keep it up.

Bloody hell man. Reading Chapter 24 and then reading about 12s 80m and the goals for this year. Unbelievable. What are you made of?

Yeah, it was quite a striking juxtaposition for me too, having just written & posted Chapter 24 and then doing those strides. There were a couple of college lacrosse guys practicing on the field, and after I ran that 12s 80m I heard them commenting on the "speedy old guy" ...

For the 80m strides, I was doing a slow/careful accel for the 1st 40m and then cruising steady with focus on lifting & form for the 2nd 40. So that 12 (which could really be a 12.0 or 12.9), the 1st 40 was probably 7s and the 2nd 40m 5s. Not really fast fast ofc, but not terrible for where I'm at.

Back at the "Extreme Treatment Place" the hallways were completely empty all the time. Rarely there might be a patient walking hunched over a walker or hobbling slowly with a helper assisting.

I don’t want to beat my chest and say "look at me". Certainly, these posts have been cathartic and therapeutic for me. But the main thing that I want to say is that if I can do it, maybe someone else can do it too.

I'm not whole, and I'm not as I was. Hell, the other day I got dizzy on the stairs and fell. Today, I have been forgetting words mid-sentence and waving my arms around in frustration and annoyance. But I am here, because I chose to be here.

F cancer. Choose running.

Today was my chemo oncologist annual. I have two annual oncologist visits, chemo oncologist and radiation oncologist. Anyway, three years ago tomorrow a lump appeared on my shoulder the same day I ran a 2:59 indoor 800 meters at age 67. Felt perfectly fine until I was diagnosed with lymphoma two days later. After six rounds of RCHOP chemotherapy and a month of radiation it was hard to run 100 meters. Over the past week I have run 40 miles, spin bike 2 hours, swim 2,000 yards, walked four miles, and lifted weights for two sessions.I am etting my strength back.

CAA wrote:

Bloody hell man. Reading Chapter 24 and then reading about 12s 80m and the goals for this year. Unbelievable. What are you made of?

seconded.

I came here from the eddie izzard post, strangely.

Chapter 24 is some of the scariest, most powerful, most humbling writing i have ever read. amazing. terrifying.

its going to take me a run and some serious thought to get the strength to read the thread from start to finish.

Sub8mile - sorry to hear all your problems, thanks for sharing and all the very best.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Today was my chemo oncologist annual. I have two annual oncologist visits, chemo oncologist and radiation oncologist. Anyway, three years ago tomorrow a lump appeared on my shoulder the same day I ran a 2:59 indoor 800 meters at age 67. Felt perfectly fine until I was diagnosed with lymphoma two days later. After six rounds of RCHOP chemotherapy and a month of radiation it was hard to run 100 meters. Over the past week I have run 40 miles, spin bike 2 hours, swim 2,000 yards, walked four miles, and lifted weights for two sessions.I am etting my strength back.

Great progress Igy! 3 years is a big milestone. Keep it up man ?

Training log for last week. 5 mi total.

Mon 11 Jan - off. Slipped on the stairs yesterday (was dizzy/disoriented), strained my patellar tendon. Taking a day off to recover.

Tue 12 Jan - Grass athletic fields, 1 mi 8:11. Faster than planned, but didn’t seem too hard.

Wed 13 Jan - Grass athletic fields, 1 mi 8:17. 10 lunges ea leg -- felt mild strain in left hamstring/adductor, probably from that one too-hard 80m on Sat. I’ll have to pay attention to this over the next few days to make sure it doesn’t become a full injury.

Thu 14 Jan - Grass athletic fields, 1 mi 8:16. Legs tired from lunges yesterday.

Fri 15 Jan - Grass athletic fields, 1 mi 8:10.

Sat 16 Jan - off

Sun 17 Jan - Artificial turf field, barefoot shoes. 1/4 mi warmup, 2 x 5 x 80m drills, 5 x 80m strides @ 13, 12, 12, 13, 12. Faster than last week, but not quite smooth yet -- strides are a little choppy and forced. After, when walking up the hill off the field, my right patellar tendon felt a little sore. Felt like it’s still from last week’s injury. I'll see how it feels tomorrow, and also I'll see if my knees are sore tomorrow (again) after today's session.

Felt like crap most of Sunday, including warmup and drills. Started feeling ok just as I got into the strides, but was slightly dizzy so it was a bit weird running strides. Not too bad though. Felt ok for an hour or two, then back to feeling beat-up and crappy.

Dizzy today, more than usual. Sitting here and the room is spinning ... except it's not really spinning, and I can walk in a straight line. I just feel dizzy.

Phantom dizziness, phantom pain, phantom screeching sounds in my ears. I'm not too down about it right now, but it's pretty annoying and it impacts my ability to get anything done.

Anybody else experience anything like this, long term after cancer treatment?

I get phantom radiation burn rash on my stomach after a hard run. That was where my tumors were largest and where I underwent a month of radiation.

Whoa, that's crazy

Funny no radiation burn during treatment. Stress causing latent reaction was the oncologist diagnosis.

Sub-8 Mile wrote:

Goals for 2021:

Sub-60 400m

Sub-6 mile or 1500m equivalent

Gonna do it.

Good luck to you! Will you try to go longer than a mile in your daily runs anytime soon?

I appreciate the training advice you have given me on other threads. Thank you.

CCB - I hope your training is going well!

Yes, I do plan to increase my mileage, slowly & carefully. Maybe sharing this will help someone in a similar situation ...

I have learned that the biggest challenge to my post-cancer “comeback” isn’t my frustrating lack of fitness; it’s recovery.

At this point after treatment, I am now capable of walking or biking for hours, or I can put in an OK run or workout (well, good for me at current fitness), but I may likely be wiped out for days afterward. So the challenge for my post-cancer self seems to be how to re-develop strength, aerobic fitness, and speed without triggering tremendous exhaustion. This has proven tricky, because:

1) Stuff that I don’t think is hard, turns out to be hard. For example, doing a few drills may leave me tired & sluggish for 2-3 days. Or running just 2 miles per day, if I do it for a couple of weeks with just a day off in the mix, can end up wearing me down and forcing a few days off.

2) I can actually do stuff. And then, a day later, I am completely wiped out -- much to my surprise. Right now, I could probably do a 4 x 800m session at 3:30 per repeat, with 2 min rest. (That’s slow ofc, but just a few months ago I huffed and puffed thru that session at 4:55 per repeat.) If I were to do this, it would feel like a normal workout, but then the next day I would find myself shockingly tired for the next 4-5 days or so.

3) Everything is hard. Running with faux dizziness and phantom pain, every step is difficult. So everything is pushing through it. This makes it tough to discern between pushing through stuff I can ignore, versus ignoring my body telling me that I need more recovery.

I won’t pretend to absolutely know the solution to this. But here’s my idea-in-progress -

Weekly Microcycle:

4 days, aerobic mileage

1 day off

1 workout

1 day off

I have started mileage at just 1 mi/day. Every 4 weeks, I will increase just a bit (e.g., 1 mi to 1.5 mi). I don’t intend to go at it hard enough to require planned/periodic down weeks, but if I start to get worn out I’ll dial it back and then build up slowly again.

“Workouts” will start out very simple, working on basic fundamentals. I plan to gradually add volume and intensity, but very gradually. I am thinking of this almost like physical therapy. Small incremental steps.

As I become stronger & more resilient, I will try to add bodyweight strength exercises. For now, just a little jogging plus weekly drills & strides seems to be sufficiently working my muscles.

At some point later this year, hopefully with increased mileage and a more intense weekly workout, I would like to add drills & strides to the aerobic days. I hope that I’ll be able to do this without falling into the non-recovery vortex.

I don’t know what I can do or what to expect in terms of results, but I aim to find out.

OK, that’s the general plan. Thoughts, anybody?