From morphine pump to half marathon

Happy Anniversary to me. Two years tonight I was on a lot of very good drugs. Legal ones of course – but very good ones. I’d undergone six hours of surgery. My plastic surgeon described the operation (a mastectomy with tram flap reconstruction) to me beforehand as follows: “we’re essentially cutting you in half. It doesn't come much bigger than this”.

I had the easy part of course, sleeping through the entire thing while anxious friends and family waited.
The next day my two surgeons came to see me and asked how I was. “Grrrreeeaat!” I replied and wondered why they grinned at each other. Looking back it must have seemed an odd answer as I lay there unable to straighten my body (the operation leaves you unable to stand straight because of the work done on your abdomen), four drains and a catheter coming out of various parts of my body and a cannula in my veins hooked up to my new best friend – a morphine pump.
But I did feel great. It only hurt when I sneezed or laughed. Tiredness was a big issue – the day after the operation it took me an entire day to read one story in the local paper. A lack of appetite was another issue although that could have been because I was only allowed a cloudy looking substance they called broth...I had my doubts as to its actual identity.
But here we are two years on and I can stand up straight, the only drug I now take is Tamoxifen (around 550 tablets down, about 1275 to go). As I recovered from the operation I used to day-dream about running again even though at the time a mere 500 metre walk resulted in me taking to my bed for the afternoon. Now I’m able to run half marathons again and part of me is contemplating a full marathon.
There is no way I want to be back in December 2008 but if hadn’t been through cancer treatment I’m not sure I’d see the beauty and possibilities in everyday life that I now see. When I was diagnosed I said to my surgeon (quite possibly the sweetest man you could ever hope to meet) that he had an awful job telling women they had breast cancer. But he smiled and insisted it was the opposite – he told me I was forgetting he also saw women come out the other side with a new appreciation for life.  I held on to those words. Next time I see him I must remember to tell him he was right.