I did it! Yesterday I finished my first post-glioma triathlon, a short but long triathlon. The day was beautiful, the event was awesome and my mood could not be better as I got my brother to join me on his first triathlon.
While scared to swim as seizures are always a ghost to haunt a glioma patient, once I was in the water I felt good. My brother followed me for the first five minutes and then I took off - nothing like a swim-suit to provide comfort, speed and safety!
While not as fast as I used to be I was really happy with the results, not bad at all for an untrained body in the middle of a chemo cycle. For comparison here are the results below (pre-glioma Jackie Kallal tri on June 11th 2011; post glioma Trofeu Brasil on May 12th 2013):
Swim:
Pre-glioma: 18:08 (750m)
Post-glioma: 15:34 (750m)
Bike:
Pre-glioma: 28:57 (15km)
Post-glioma: 45:35 (20km)
Run:
Pre-glioma: 21:59 (5km)
Post-glioma: 25:51 (5km)
As you can see we can run with glioma! Now I really believe that Temodal helps exercising if you are lucky like me and do not to have side effects from it. After every triathlon I would feel a little bit of lactic acid, an absolutely normal post-race condition, but not on this one: no pain whatsoever, I would not be able to tell I raced if I did not know it, aside from a slight knee pain as I have not been running regularly.
In any event the most important victory in all this is to restore an unprecedented sense of normalcy, a feeling that I can finally live a normal life and leave my last ghost behind me: I swam without problems, biked in peace and ran a very happy race, knowing that my brother and I could give our mom the best Mother's Day gift, our lives!
Of course it is scary to have a glioma, and my life or my family's will never be the same after it, but reestablishing pre-glioma life in every aspect of it provides a sense of normalcy that fuels me with more life than ever.
My next MRI is next month, I hope that it comes clean to prove that the combination of exercising and chemo are the magic solution for glioma, but if not no problem, I will continue to live a normal life like we all should, taking one day at a time and enjoying every second of it, there is no time to waste!
Hi Patrick - congratulations on your tri! I just found your blog and love what you are writing about. I was diagnosed with a grade 2 brain stem glioma in Oct 2012. I have been an avid runner for years and had started doing triathlons a few years ago but stopped swimming last year because I was getting dizzy in the water. I've given up tris for now but am back to running and actually ran a marathon this past March (my 19th) on the week after I took my round of Temodar. I truly believe that exercise is helping me physically and mentally with all of this. I'm a much slower runner now but feel alive and healthy when I'm out there working out which really makes a difference for me. The side effects from the Temodar seem to lessen each month too. It could be a coincidence but I wonder if its from my body getting stronger from getting back into the physical shape I was before surgery and my workout hiatus. I blog over at monikaruns.blogspot.com if you're interested. I look forward to reading more about you!
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