Battling Cancer and Turning Up
Everyone knows someone who has/had/is having a cancer experience. It might be a friend, a spouse, a child, a parent. They might even have had a brush with the Big C themselves. The older I get the more people I know with cancer. The ugly thing seems to be swimming closer and closer to my boat. I hate cancer for a number of reasons. It’s a big factor in the increasing number of funerals I attend. No, it isn’t the death sentence it was even a few years ago but getting better is so painful. Your body is poisoned with chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells but it hurts you too. And you have to watching closely to make sure it doesn’t come back. Research has come a long way the odds of recovering much better but I hate that paralysing dread and feeling of utter uselessness that threatens when you find out someone has cancer. I still don’t quite know what to do or say when someone tells me they have cancer. I didn’t know how to tell my wife it would be okay when her father died from cancer. I couldn’t bring my friend’s wife back for him and his daughters. When an old family friend died last year all I could do was turn up to mourn with his sons. Those in the know say that just being there, just turning up is most important. So when Lawson, the coach/owner at Crossfit East Rocks, suggested that the box enter a fitness event fundraiser called Battle Cancer I really wanted to turn up. It’s all I thought I could do. Not much, not a cure for a cancer but something.
Of course you have to get there first. When you have five kids within six years of each other, broaching the subject of going away for a week-end requires some tricky negotiating. People are more than willing to donate something to help you raise money for a cancer charity, helping to arrange childcare so you can actually do that? Not so much. So once I had convinced my better half to let me go to Manchester (for a weekend, leaving her with five kids, at the end of the summer holidays) it dawned on me that this might be challenging in more ways than one. I haven’t really travelled that much, I’m an introvert, the train is going to be busy, everybody is going to be fitter than me and Manchester is a big city. I’m a country boy. Big towns are a challenge. When the day came around I was sitting on the train listening to people talk through the WODs thinking this is way out of my league. Arriving at Manchester’s Victoria Warehouse the next morning didn’t set my mind at ease either. It was wall to wall muscle with me trying to suck my stomach in and look fitter than I felt. I didn’t really have a clue what I should do I just turned up.
After WOD 1 I wished I hadn’t. It was hot, close and it was a miserable performance on my part. But I turned up for WOD 2 and I would turn up for WOD 3, even if I crawled out of the arena at the end. Somehow it got better. Body, mind and spirit decided to work together to help me do things I didn’t think I could do. Watching my teammates do “Fran” (21-15- 9 thrusters and pull-ups) at a weight they thought impossible inspired me to keep going. It was a quasi-spiritual faith building experience! I ached the next day but I was happy. I hadn’t cured cancer but I had done something to help make the lives and deaths of those in hospice care at St. Richards more dignified. I had been bent but I wasn’t broken.
My participation in Battle Cancer hasn’t miraculously eradicated cancer or conjured a cure but it has given me pause to reflect. Watching people go through the bar-house brawl that is the road to cancer recovery incites thoughtfulness. About life, love, the hereafter, about what kind of human being I want to be remembered as. Battle Cancer challenged me but it also showed me that I am capable of doing the things I’m afraid of. Many movements in Crossfit appear intimidating, more so during an event. It’s not doing well I found fulfilling it was turning up anyway. Beyond that it reminded me again that life is fleeting and unpredictable. I do Crossfit to live healthier but it’s no guarantee of a trouble free life. Crossfit Games level fitness still won’t stop a bus, unemployment or a divorce. Bad things happen, how we choose to respond to them defines us. Like getting through a WOD, it’s often putting one foot in front of the other. Personally, Crossfit’s best aspect is the culture of cheering the strugglers and stragglers the loudest. If there is anything we can apply to our communities and families outside the box, that’s probably the most rewarding thing we can offer. You know, I was a whole lotta sore the next morning but I felt a lot less powerless too. I had contributed, however small that may be. Will I do it next year? My spirit shouts “Bring it on!!” You might have to give my body a few weeks to come round to the idea.
A big thank you to Crossfit East Rocks for getting behind us and raising close to a phenomenal £7000 for St. Richard’s Hospice. Big shout out to all the teams and families participating and supporting us. And a massive Thank You to Team Scots on the Rocks – Liz, Andy, Rhian and Coach Jones. A great experience participating myself made better watching you surprise yourselves during the WODs.
