Laps

One of my first thoughts after receiving the GBM diagnosis was ‘even if I ever get back on the bike, I’ll never complete the Richmond Park 3-lap Challenge ever again’. It was a curious thought: the ‘Challenge’ is no Tour de France. It simply involves cycling around the park three times in under 60 minutes, a completely arbitrary marker. Surely more important: the medical-death-sentence and bike-laps-game is a bizarre juxtaposition. 

Why think it? Maybe because cycling makes me happy. Maybe because I’ve done so many bloody laps of the park (249 anticlockwise timed ones). Or maybe I see that magic hour as an expression of life itself, in the form of a capability close to my heart. In any case, I attempted the Challenge last week with my brother, and experienced a few lessons along the way: it ain’t over till it’s over; the inches are all around us; we = power (thanks JD for playing domestique!).

Yes, they’re cliches, but they’re powerful truths that will be valuable in my race with the tumour; a race in which I completed another lap today. Four months ago I had the MRI scan which revealed the tumour’s presence. Today, I had my first post-radiotherapy scan. For those of you who haven’t had an MRI: it’s the perfect torture for a pained head, as it metronomically shrieks, roars, thumps and clatters. Nurses offer to put on music in the background but this is, at best, offensive to the artist (I ‘listened’ to some ‘My Way’ during the first scan. Sorry, Frank). As your head is violently shaken like maracas by a zany madman high on dexamethasone (a steroid that fights inflammation but makes you hyper—one of the first medicines I was prescribed) you want to run, but of course you’re told to hold deathly still in the most claustrophobia-inducing of chambers. The punishment if you don’t: restart the whole thing.

The doctor will give his verdict on the MRI on Wednesday. But symptomatically: my November MRI hurt so much that I knew something was very wrong. Today, I forgot to press the elevator button as I smugly ruminated on how peaceful the experience felt this time round. The elevator doors opened on the wrong floor, the chemotherapy floor, where I’d had a contrast agent injected just before the scan. I was sternly asked to step out as a body bag was rolled in on a stretcher. A bystander burst into tears. I was too shocked to react. May they rest in peace.

A Godly and Fortunate reminder that the race is still on, will always be on, and it’s going to have its hellish moments. But that’s just life, and I’m still in it, surrounded by an incredible team, with every opportunity to give every pedal stroke everything. My Richmond Park time? 59 minutes and 58 seconds.

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