Today I did my first successful yoga class in 3 years. I’ve been doing yoga all my adult life but only dabbled in the last few years due to illness and surgery, never really feeling the benefits I was accustomed to pre breast cancer. Today I feel I have come full circle, having started my yoga journey back in the 90s in a community centre, gold coin donation kind if thing, during leukaemia treatment – I fell in love with it. Mind you I also fell asleep everytime during relaxation. Today a yoga class has started down my street in the Fulham community cente, so in walking distance, affordable and perfect for what I’ve been searching for.
In saying this I don’t believe I would have been motivated or had enough energy or flexible movement to have appreciated the benefits as much as I have today, if it wasn’t for my Ayurvedic massage I had on Thursday (more a poke, prod & torture than a massagae) but healing none the less. From everywhere from my neck, shoulders, stomach, hips, lower back, knee down to my heel pain, I feel better. Yes I had chronic pain all over my body and felt 100 years old.
So with Russell’s help (he calls himself a masseur, I call him a healer and wise life coach) and my yoga yoday, I feel the age I should feel….47….I’m hoping by 50 I’ll feel 30 again.
Celebrate your bodies people. All they want to do is let your soul live the life it deserves. Dont be trapped by it. Let your mind be the master not the slave. Be kind to your body physically, emotionally, mentally & spiritually and it will reward you with freedom of movement, health and vitality. #healthyhappywhole
I was 21 and I was planning a wedding, buying a house and had a job interview for the job of my dreams on my 22nd birthday. You see I was being made redundant and had to find a new job by August. Especially with the new mortgage now. It was April. I worked for CML and my new job was a done deal. All I needed was a medical. And with that, just like that....my life was turned upside down and I was diagnosed with CML, ha ha, I know the irony. My hematologist had a laugh at that too. I had Chronic Myeloid Leukeamia, which was normally reserved for 70 year old men. Quite rare for a young adult to get, so how would they treat it? I underwent two separate trials until finally it was decided my best chance of survival (all be it only 50% chance), would be a MUD BMT (matched unrelated bone marrow transplant), now known as VUD Allograt (volunteer unrelated donor). I was told 21 years ago the chance of finding a match was 1 in 20,000 (and that is everyone was on the bone marrow donor registry). Scary odds. So being the risk taker I am I said "go for it". They found a match and that was my first miracle in this journey. The second miracle was, it worked - new blood type, two different DNA profiles and the miracle of medicine was reborn inside me. The third miracle is my son.
25 years on, I now face a new challenge. Breast Cancer. Certainly not the first person to have cancer, to have invasive ductile cancer, hormone receptive and HER2 +, or to even have a dual diagnosis. But this is not another Webiste about a cancer survivor, this is just my excuse to finally publicly write. Along the way I am hoping I can share some insights I have learnt over the years and at the same time, give you a good belly laugh.
View all posts by Debra Mesecke
Healthy, Happy & Whole 