Life, and business, has been good since the New Year, so this is long overdue.
It’s a thank you note to all the friends who supported me and my family through my treatment last year. Whether you’re a client, a business contact or a twitter contact, to me you’ve become a very good friend.
Many of you said that the way I faced up to cancer was inspiring. Whilst those words were very kind, and extremely humbling, I still don’t think I was doing anything extraordinary. Simply a husband, daddy, son, brother and friend doing what he needed to do to make sure he was around to continue to share in the good (and not so good) times.
In actual fact, I was inspired by the way everyone else around me took on the emotional challenge, in particular my close family. I know it was a very, very difficult time for all of them, however positive the prognosis.
I was inspired by the daily updates twitter runners posted onto my timeline. Inspired enough to reach the start line of the Brighton Marathon on Sunday 15th April.
As I tweeted earlier in the week, the start of the Brighton Marathon is 214 days after I was diagnosed with stage 2 testicular cancer, and 144 days after my chemotherapy treatment ended. I went through 3 cycles of BEP chemotherapy, which was 9 weeks of back to back treatment.
Written down like that in black and white, it doesn’t make 26.2 miles all that far. I’ll certainly be running with a smile on my face.
I quote these statistics, not because I want a pat on the back – far from it. I post these statistics because I want people to see that it’s possible.
I’m running the marathon as part of the Cerebra team, a charity that my wife and I are Ambassadors for. This charity works with children affected by brain injuries, and their families.
I’m also running to raise awareness of CheckEmLads This charity was quick to provide support to me during my treatment. If you need to speak to a testicular cancer survivor, then you need to speak to this charity.
All I ask is that you visit, and bookmark their websites. You may never know when you need them in the future.
Thank you.
