Back on track
04 Jul 2012
(Photo: Yes these rough planks of English oak will become a garden bench....eventually)
It's been a tough month but I think I'm beginning to get back on track. From talking to other cancer patients, I realise these ups and downs are to be expected and you just have to hold your nerve and not assume that the feeling of weakness or illness is because the underlying cancer has got worse. It can just be something else, as indeed it turned out to be.
It began with the previously mentioned Duke of Edinburgh experience when I got an infection after getting a chill at our village Jubilee event. This got worse and after starting on one course of antibiotics I had to go onto another, stronger, one. It's now cleared up but it has left me very weak and breathless. It has also - frustratingly - been a disaster for the key preparation period for my cancer charity bike ride, which is now only just over two weeks off.
I've also become very conscious of my weight loss. Despite relaxing my anti-cancer diet a little, I still cannot get above 9 stone (126lbs). But I don't want to go onto the high-glucose sugars and carbohydrates that the cancer cells love so much. I've found myself having to walk very slowly, needing to sit down often, and generally just being without energy. And I'm normally someone who doesn't like to do anything slowly.
Anyway, as I say, things are beginning to pick up again. Last weekend I hauled myself back on the bike for the first time for about three weeks. My friend Jonathan and I had a great ride along the Grand Union canal from Brentford - past the amazing Hanwell Flight of 19th century lock-gates and the Victorian asylum buildings - and then back along the Paddington Link. It was only about 17 miles, all pretty flat, but I was absolutely exhausted at the end of it. So there's a long way to go before I can take on the big Welsh bike ride. However, I still intend to do it -- or at least as much of it as I can. And any mileage I don't complete in the last week of July I will make up for later in the summer. So, if you'd still like to join the many other very generous sponsors, please visit my Just Giving site. So far I've raised over £3,000 for the cancer charity Yes To Life and would really like to make it a bit more.
And - in another step back to normality - I have managed this week to do a bit of work and also to attend a really stimulating trustees' meeting at the National Education Trust. Today I was chairing the Question Time panel at the Higher Education Academy's annual conference in Manchester (video available shortly from Policy Review TV). It was a good session with lively discussion about whether the new student fees system would turn undergraduates into consumers rather than partners in their education.
Before this a really valuable stage in my recovery was a three day stay at the wonderful Seren Retreat in the beautiful Gower peninsular of South Wales. Rex and Alaea run a fabulously restorative oasis set in 20+ acres of ancient woodland, with yoga, polarity treatment, and an Ayurverdic appproach to health. The food was fabulous and they kindly made it fit with my largely-raw food diet. I did little but sleep, eat, walk, do yoga and receive treatments and emerged feeling on the track to recovery. It was great for Chrissy too who has taken on a lot of the burden of looking after me this past month.
There's lots more to tell - and I haven't forgotten my promise to write a review of David Servan-Schreiber's marvelous book 'Anticancer' - but it'll have to wait for another time. I need my rest.
Oh, just one other thing...I've started my next furniture-making project: a large, very solid oak garden bench. Very exciting. More in due course.
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Edward Gamble - 04 Jul 2012
Baker in top form in Manchester
Great to see you today Mike and thanks for the plug in your post.
Good luck on the ride!
Mike: Thanks Edward -- and good luck with your Liverpool to London marathon charity bike ride too.
ALED - 04 Jul 2012
YOUR LATEST PROJECT
Mike
Please tell us how the three planks are held together
I really enjoy your writing. Keep it up
Aled
Mike: Hi Aled, I will do .. but I haven't got that far yet! It's just the photo that makes them look as they have been joined together. So far, it's been lots of machine-shop work, cutting to size, planing and thicknessing from these enormous planks (there's also another one which will make up the back of the seat). I took your advice and added in a ruler to give a sense of scale to the photo this time. Thanks for your interest.
Ian Nash - 05 Jul 2012
Education you can trust
Mike,
When you next see Michael Gove, can you tell him to put carpentry and cookery back on the national curriculum, including a requirement for all faith schools to toe the line? (The trinket box I made at school is not up to your standard but, hey, what the heck, the practical mastery was enthralling.
Also, tell him you think everyone should be required to cycle to school. That way, kids will see just how trecherous cars are, refuse to learn to drive and that way help us save the planet.
As a trustee of the National Education Trust, you can do it if anyone can. I'll give you further instructions for Gove once you've polished those off.
All the best on your bike ride. Don't be cruel to the car drivers you confront; it's not their fault, they are victims of society like the rest of us.
Cheers,
Ian
Adrian Everitt - 06 Jul 2012
The bike ride
Hi Mike,
I sent a message yesterday, but forgot to include my email address, so I guess that's lost in a cyberspace black hole!
So here we go again: I think you should seriously reconsider the upcoming bike ride.
If you could barely cope with 17 miles on the flat last weekend, I don't see how you could be anything like ready for Welsh hills within just a couple more weeks. And it's not simply that you might not make it and have to give up before the end, but rather the very serious damage you might cause to your own body. You really shouldn't underestimate the strain of such an intense exertion - in your present condition, cycling over hills could badly mess you up.
I know everyone tends to be very supportive and upbeat here, but on this occasion I think a warning is not out of order.
As I mentioned yesterday, you could perfectly well withdraw but still participate: go and cheer everyone on, give out Gatorades and energy bars, write a piece about the event for a local paper, and so on.
But don't screw up more than a year's hard work and advances for the sake of this one event, no matter how much you've been anticipating it. To do something detrimental to your health (potentially very detrimental)would surely be foolhardy, especially as the focus of the event is on improving people's health? (That's not an irony I would enjoy.)
Anyway, get advice from a doctor, I'd say.
Take care!
Ade
Mike writes: You're not alone in saying this and I appreciate the underlying sentiment. But I feel I am getting stronger. I plan a test ride this weekend to see how it goes. I remain fairly determined to at least start the Welsh ride. There is back-up vehicle and I promise not to push myself to the point of doing damage.
All best,
Mike
Sue Littlemore - 09 Jul 2012
On Yer Bike
I worked with Mike for many years. He is one of the formative people in my life and I count him as a dear friend even though quite a lot of time passes between our catch ups.
Why am I not surprised by Mike's response to anyone who politely suggests he's ever so slightly bonkers for planning to cycle up some Godforsaken mountain ?
"I'm fairly determined to " writes Mike in a masterful expression of understatement . For "fairly" read " absolutely, definitely , completely , outta my way " .
That's Mike .... A man of many many qualities .... Taking advice not one of them.
Now , must get round to sponsoring you ............
Love Sue
Mike writes: Spot on, Sue ...guilty as charged. But thankyou ... I think!