Another Camino!

The time is right!

I finished the Camino Frances back in October 2014, thrilled with the funds raised for Breakthrough Cancer Research.  In my final post I mentioned that our family had been struck down once more with this threatening disease, but didn't elaborate.  Shortly after my return our youngest daughter, a GP and mother of three young children aged eight months, three and six, was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer which had spread extensively to her liver.  Our world fell apart.

But Sarah is not a girl to let something like this slow her down.  She knew that one of the best colo-rectal cancer medical teams worked in some of the hospitals where she had trained in Cork, and together with them she developed a strategy to fight.  There followed two years of intensive chemotherapy, surgery and radio therapy, partaking in revolutionary medical trials, while maintaining her busy GP practice in Cork, and looking after her wonderful family.  In 2017 she underwent five sessions of state-of-the-art SABR radiotherapy in Dublin's Beacon Hospital, and she is currently attending there again.  All the while she has been writing an inspiring blog which is full of humour and courage, a must-read for medical professionals as well as cancer sufferers and their families and friends.  She is living proof of how modern medicine combined with determination and positive attitude, and the support of a strong family and group of friends, can prevail against even the deadliest cancers.  This makes our commitment to research even stronger than before.

So now that life is coming more or less back to normal, it's time for me to don those walking boots and shake my tin can once more.  I had in fact planned to go last Easter and attempt three weeks of the strenuous Via de la Plata from Seville to Santiago.  I had psyched myself up and contacted Breakthrough Cancer Research to tell them of my plans, but fate intervened.  Shortly before I was due to head to Andalucia two of my husband's brothers died within four days of each other, one completely unexpectedly, the other at the end of a battle with Parkinson's.  It was a time of huge loss and sorrow, and my camino plans were shelved.  But now another year has passed, and the desire to head back on the Way is becoming stronger, particularly since seeing the inspirational film I'll Push You .  Two young American fathers, friends since childhood,  tackle the 780+km Camino Frances,  The French Way from St Jean Pied de Port  to Santiago.  Justin has a life threatening progressive congenital neuromuscular disease and is without the use of his limbs.  With a specially modified wheelchair and Patrick as pusher they achieve the impossible, and make it all the way, including the grueling climb over the Pyrenees.

With such example it is impossible to stay comfortably at home, and so I am getting fit and adjusting my sights to a second attempt at the Camino Portugues, which begins in Lisbon:  I will commence outside Porto, which is 240kms from Santiago.  It was the second camino I ever undertook, back in 2009, two years after my brother's untimely death from renal cancer.  However, nine years later knees and hips are giving a bit of trouble, so walking days will necessarily be shorter: hence the change of route from the more demanding Via de la Plata. There will be more opportunities for comfortable pit-stops in bars and cafes en route, and shorter distances between hostels.  I will carry my small backpack as before, and promise to give it my best shot over a relatively comfortable two weeks.  Once again I will be looking for your support, and will let you know when the donation site is set up, and when the walk begins - hopefully early in September.  Many thanks for following this blog.   En camino!