You gotta accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mr In-between
Accentuating the positive has been tough this past few weeks. Work has been busy, and a slog, and created some crappy moments for most of us. Fran has been completely wiped out by chemo. The training walks are getting tougher and longer, the blisters more common, the aches more painful. Emma has taken the brave but wise decision to only walk half of the 100k with us due to her back.
Since my last post we have walked 24 miles overnight without sleep on the Brampton Valley Way, and 20 miles from Braunston to Stoke Bruerne on a muggy, humid summer's day. Fran's white blood cell count has been so low that her consultant is considering a blood transfusion. It would be easy to latch onto the negative.
But that's not Fran's way. And so, it isn't our way either.
Our night walk was hard, but we had a blast. We laughed, talked, supported and fed each other every step of the way. When things flew out of trees at us in the pitch dark we grabbed onto each other, shrieked, giggled and carried on walking. Fran sent us a clip of the Scooby Doo theme tune just before we walked into a 700 metre pitch black tunnel at 2am. We celebrated with a big fat breakfast and a high five. We'd reached a milestone.
On last week's longest, muggiest, training walk there were plenty of positives to accentuate. A cafe that served cream tea, where the owner took pity on us and only charged us what Shelly happened to have in her purse - telling us to pay it forward (we will). Baby ducklings, as tiny as they were new to the world, paddling alongside us. Majestic herons, trying to fool us into thinking they were plastic and then swooping up into the trees just as we reached them. Fish and chips for lunch. Why make it harder than it needs to be?
Speaking to Fran, it is so reassuring to hear her latching onto the affirmative. She celebrated her birthday this week and managed to get away for a few days with loved ones. She's focusing on creating the perfect days. Frankly, she's a lesson in accentuating the positive. She's determined for us to raise as much money as we possibly can because she believes that she has been lucky. Lucky to benefit from the research and hard work of Cancer Research UK and funded by the people who walked before us. Lucky that when her surgery to remove the tumour became so complicated that a 3 hour operation turned into a 7 hour operation, her surgeon had a network of cancer specialists to call on. Lucky that her nurses have been trained to understand both the medical and personal impact of cancer. Lucky that other people blazing a trail before her have been brave enough to share their fight with cancer, and therefore raise funds and awareness to pay it forward.
Tomorrow our training walk will take 10 hours - approximately 32 miles. On Sunday we will walk another 5 hours. We'll need to dig deep and I'm not going to lie; we are nervous. But if Fran can accentuate the positive every day of her fight with cancer, we are determined to savour every tea break, appreciate every heron, get excited by every tiny duckling and latch onto every positive along the route.
Your support is essential to this - the messages we've had so far mean everything. Your money goes towards 'paying it forward' so that future 1 in 3's can consider themselves lucky. Please do share the love.
Have a great weekend - don't mess with Mr In-Between!
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