check up. and more cycling!

Getting off the Exe ferry with the bike – a bit heavy for stairs!
Pfft! Would so love to NOT have to have check ups – but I am sure I'd have a mental breakdown without them. Even the change from 3 monthly to 6 monthly almost gave me a heart attack…but I've got used to it now.

This next check up will be serious, as I feel like I need full MOT before I go to Kenya. For my mental health more than anything. Plus I am hoping everything is still ok and the CA 125 is LOW. Lots of problems with my tummy recently haven't helped my mind set, but I will see what they say. Hopefully it will be on the lines of: 'don't be stupid'.

Obviously I had to get a waiver for the travel insurance – another one of those hideous phone calls where I was talking to a person who is not trained deal with cancery types – plus they quite patently find the entire discussion repugnant. Well – ME TOO!! I so hate insurance companies. But I am stronger now, and can cope with it without bursting into tears afterward.
But you would think that an insurance company specifically chosen for this kind of event would have people who were a little more simpatico – trained or informed even?? Pfft! Well, that would be a NO. grr. Anyway.

I have been madly stuffing my brain with work and cycling in order to avoid having a brain full of cancery stuff. The cycle training is fabulous for this – you really cannot think about anything else but getting your butt UP THAT HILL when you're cycling. Last weekend we did a 50 mile [turned out to be 57 miles!] for Force. The FH and I were on our  mountain bikes – the road bike peeps kept asking us if we were mad [as they passed us at speed]…because our bikes weigh a ton compared to theirs, making it that much more difficult. But we did it in 5 and a half hours! brilliant – and the inclines were a pig, so we're well chuffed.

This weekend we did the Exe loop – turned out to be about 20 miles, and the track is amazing! Apart from one small glitch at Starcross, where the cycle path ends in a curb, as averse to a ramp…er – hello CRASH! My front wheel hugged the curb, I braked and flew over the handlebars. Even my best attempt at a commando roll didn't help – THREE grazes on my knee [how does that happen? surely one would have been sufficient?] a smashed back of the hand, plus an interesting shoulder wound. Thank goodness for gloves, or my palms would have resembled mince meat. I now need new gloves. Oh and a new knee might be nice ;)

So, here we have: insane blonde hair [what is that all about??], a grazed shoulder, knee and hand and a pained face!

The route is great – it hugs the estuary all the way to Exmouth.

We did home to Exmouth; in Exmouth we went to our favourite pub, the Grove [this is where we went after I was diagnosed – I always remember ringing my Mum and brother from there – it's my good luck pub! Views over the estuary are wonderful] then took the ferry across to Starcross because I love going on ferries ;) It costs £5.00 each plus £1.00 for each bike. But it was fun. And today was so hot! Amazing weather. I really need to get my lazy butt to the hairdressers too – my hair has gone blonde? Madness. Then Starcross to home.

From Starcross we made our [wounded and stinging!] way to the Turf Locks, where all they are allowed to give bleeding people is a 'non alcoholic wet wipe'. For which I was extremely grateful…but really! What happened to germolene or spray iodine? Health & safety patently put paid to sense. I put loads of ice on the bleeding bits and then had a lovely glass of medicinal [heh heh]  wine in the sun.

We then trundled the last 5 miles home against the wind [as usual!]from there and had a fab bbq in the garden, which was like Morocco – HOT!! What a lovely day! Look – lots of Hollyhocks on the path.

change…

This is from Ben McLean's web site.

I cut off all my fingernails today. They got so long that they were irritating – plus I tore one off at the quick yesterday lifting a bench whilst balancing a lamp…as you do. Ow. So. Chop with the nail clippers. Spang! [as they fly around the bathroom]. Goodbye. They grow so quickly I shan't miss them for long. Change.

It never ceases to amaze me – how fast things happen, how quickly they change. On TV in the UK there is a retirement advert [some insurance company  or other, grr – you KNOW how I love insurance companies right??]. Last year whenever I saw the ad, I would be on the verge of tears. Or, more often, in tears; thinking that all our plans for retirement, vague as they may be, would never ever happen. I envisaged my own death often. Er – like every day…and I felt too young to die. I FEEL too young to die!

Since the biopsy in February, I have felt differently. Instead of living each and every day [and night] in fear of my life, a feeling that many of you will recognise, I feel as if I MAY have got on top of this mind fuck that is cancer. I am not saying that this is a permanent thing [although it will be good if it is], but for the moment, I feel 'quietly' confident [tap tap on the wooden windowsill]. I listened to Gail on the BBC Radio programme we did – her point about ovarian cancer being a chronic, but nonetheless 'treatable' disease – well, it made me think.

Firstly; how lucky I am – I may have no job and thus no money. I may be scarred and have odd twinges every now and then. I may worry overmuch. BUT, I am alive. And I am SO grateful for that.

I hope it doesn't recur. I really do. But IF it does, every day there are new advances in treatment. New drugs, new insights, new methods.  New hope. There are people out there like Simon and Ben raising funds for research which enable this – we are so lucky to have them. They do the things that we can't. Cycle round all the lighthouses of Britain? RUN all across the Sahara? Run?? Well, I couldn't do either even before I had cancer!! These men are a little crazy – but they must have really BIG hearts to do this for us…and they should  know how grateful we are. They should know that what they are doing, the torture they will go through – well, the funds they raise will save lives. What better? And what they should also know is that we will be there, watching over them every step of the way.

Thanks boys!! ;o)

sign the LIVESTRONG Action petition

Insurance companies are a pet hate of mine ever since being so brutally treated by SAGA when I told them about my diagnosis – they were so rude/thoughtless/horrible that I was in tears for hours after I spoke to them. Shame it's not NOW, as I would have A: coped far better, and B: abused them right back!!

 

So, I shudder to think what it must be like to have to deal with that day in, day out in the States. The fact that people in America can be left die just because they don't have insurance? Incredible!! Everyone in the UK is always whining about the NHS [whine away, but NOT in my hearing thanks] – but at least we have the assurance that no-one, ever, no matter who they are or how much money they have, will be turned away from a hospital if they are ill.

 

I still find this completely mind boggling, and actually, barbaric. Sign the petition below, lets help people in the States not be murdered by paper pushing, greedy insurance companies? Quite a good idea I'd say.

 

Lance Armstrong was denied insurance when he needed it most. Sign the petition and tell Congress that no one else should be.

Today is LIVESTRONG Day. Thirteen years ago today, my doctor told me I had advanced testicular cancer. What most people don’t know is that at the time, I didn’t have health insurance. In the following weeks, I received letter after letter from the insurance company refusing to pay for my treatment. I was fighting for my life - but also for the coverage that I desperately needed.

The legislation currently being debated in Congress is not just words on a page - for many cancer survivors, it’s a matter of life and death. Now, as this debate enters crunch time, I need your help to ensure that what happened to me doesn't happen to any other American:

http://www.livestrongaction.org/campaigns/healthcare

No matter what side of the healthcare debate you're on, I believe we can all agree on two things:

No American should be denied health insurance coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

No American should lose their insurance due to changes in health or employment.

Will you sign the LIVESTRONG Action petition to make sure any legislation includes these two critically important reforms? We’ll deliver these to Capitol Hill this month as the debate reaches its climax and make sure our voices are heard in the debate:

http://www.livestrongaction.org/campaigns/healthcare

When I received my diagnosis, I was between cycling contracts. My new insurer used the diagnosis as a reason to deny coverage after the new contract was signed. Fortunately, one of my sponsors intervened. At their insistence, I was added to their insurance company and was able to continue my life-saving treatment. If my sponsor, a powerful company, had not gone to bat for me, I may not have made it.

19. insurance companies? disgusting people...

Wednesday 19th March:
Woke up this morning feeling really grumpy – I keep waking up at 3.00 and 4.00 in the morning - it’s freezing cold here in the UK and me, I have a personal heat wave! Lucky me... I don’t mind the heat so much as the perspiring – it makes for more housework that I can’t do myself, so it’s a bit frustrating. Might have to sleep in the bath?? Apparently this is a ‘hot flash’ – flash?? Hah. Who comes up with these idiotic names? Anyway, back to the reason I decided to do an update today.

The day didn’t improve at all. That’ll teach me to be grouchy in the first place. First I still haven’t been paid by the people I work for. Great, just what I need right now, a ‘chase me for money’ scenario. Grr. Second, the car cost about £1000 for the service repairs. As usual everything is going wrong at once. Hmm. Pass the wine, pass the wine [oh, of course, THAT’S gone up too! Thank you the government]...oops, can’t yet, it’s only lunchtime. Oh well, later then, after I have a good old bitch here. This is like self help; free therapy!

Lastly, [for today anyway!] I have discovered [well, Aj discovered it actually] that it seems to be acceptable for people to abuse you if you have cancer, or have had cancer. They wait for you to be down and then...YES! Kick you! For my job, I have to travel on a regular basis. Therefore I have annual travel insurance. It seems that once you have cancer [or ‘have had’ it - let me stress this past tense here!], you are a pariah. God forbid, but the insurance companies might have to PAY some money out if you are taken ill somewhere. How confusing for them.

It seems that they either refuse to cover you or the cost is really extortionate. So now we will have to do a major investigation into insurances - we will have to go through ALL our insurance covers etc and check that I am still covered and various other details. What fun. Bad enough to have this to deal with, and then you have to deal with petty squabbles from insurance companies as well? What’s that all about?? This really, really upset me actually - I was so shocked that anyone would want to add to my existing problems that I just lost the plot. Took about an hour to calm down - I suppose it''s just another thing I'll have to get used to.

One good thing happened at the last minute! Someone saw my post on the Ovacome site, and got in touch offering support. She’s already been there, done it and got the T-shirt. Had ovarian and endometrial cancer, went through the chemo and radiotherapy, and a year down the road she is ok – so now I have someone else to ask a million questions of, and it’s touching that she was kind enough to contact me. So the day was not a total loss after all! Whoopee!