Breakthrough Breast Cancer

Breakthrough Breast Cancer Walk photographs

The Barnet Busters
The Barnet Busters were a group of people whose lives had been affected by breast cancer.

Each member of the Barnet Busters had been scarred by breast cancer, either directly or indirectly as a:

• breast cancer survivor


• tribute to a family member who is a breast cancer survivor


• way to build the strength and courage needed to support a family member newly diagnosed with breast cancer


• means of building up the strength to support a family member undergoing treatment for breast cancer


• way of coming to terms with the loss of a family member to breast cancer


• means of paying tribute to a friend, lost to breast cancer.

Starting from the beginning
I saw the advertisement for Breakthrough Breast Cancer sponsored walk in January...

A close and much loved relative is a breast cancer survivor.

I had been planning for years to do some charity work for Breast Cancer. I had however never got round to it. The advertisement gave me an opportunity to fulfil a long self-promised act of giving back.

Breakthrough Breast Cancer offered a group meeting for would-be walkers and volunteers. I went along to the meeting on a cold January evening.

The meeting room was full.

The Breakthrough Breast Cancer trainer showed a film of a Canadian Breakthrough Breast Cancer walk. People taking part in the Canadian walk in the film spoke of their pain and deep sense of loss of their loved one to Breast Cancer.

Many people in the meeting room cried throughout the film screening.

The elderly man who sat next to me howled silently into a white handkerchief. His grief and pain was palpable. While empathising with his pain, I was helpless and unable to offer any comfort.

After the screening, the light was switched back on, we furtively wiped our tears and avoided making eye contact.

Our grief, our pain and sadness were private, we had no wish to share them with the strangers in the room.

Many of us in the room signed up for the 60km walk.

I began to question my sanity as soon as I left the meeting room...

Meeting the Barnet Busters
On the way to my first training with the Barnet Busters, I twisted an angle.

By the time I limped to the meeting place, the group had left. I had no way of contacting anyone.

Dispirited, I limped back home and wrote Daniel a whingeing email about not waiting for me.

The twisted angle took three weeks to correct itself:-(

However, I was already on Daniel's email list. I received an email every Sunday telling me the start time and meeting place of the next training and the distance the group had covered in training that week.

I had no excuse to give up or not show up for the training once I was able to walk properly again.

Because new walkers were joining the group every week, Daniel and Laura decided to divide us into two groups.

The fitter group trained with Daniel and the ones on a "wing and a prayer", like me, trained with Laura.

Daniel's group continued to increase the distance covered during their weekly two hours training.

In Laura's group we walked leisurely for 1.5 hours, chatting and laughing.

We complained at the drop of a hat. We complained bitterly about ruined shoes when Laura accidentally got lost and we ended up in a muddy wood. We were precious and pathetic!!

Whenever we started whingeing, instead of dumping us in an unfamiliar area and walking away to teach us a lesson, Laura would apologise to us and feel bad about "letting us down".

Laura got her own back unintentionally when she remarked during our indulgent coffee at Starbucks (we had coffee after each training to ease our complaining limbs and for a chance to meet up with Daniel's group), that the people in her group are unlikely to be fit enough to do the 60km walk in September...

It was my wake up call. I was training to be fit enough for the 60km walk and the leader had just announced that I didn't stand a chance.

The following week, I joined Daniel's group. To my surprise, I found that I could keep up with members of the group. Daniel's group had grown.

Initially afraid that I may get left behind or slow the group down (I hated being bunched up at the back of the group, traipsing over other people), I started walking at a faster pace (my natural pace when I had been fit).

As soon as we became familiar with the different routes Daniel and Laura had selflessly mapped out and walked themselves on the Saturday in readiness for the Sunday training walk, another girl (Nadhira) and I walked together ahead (unintentionally, we were just naturally fast walkers) of the group, talking and laughing.

As I became more confident in my ability to keep up with the group, I was able to mingle more and walk (and talk) with different people.

Listening to other people's Breast Cancer story saddened and gave us the strength and courage to carry on with the training while raising funds for the sponsored walk.

Laura's Story
Laura's Grandmother had died from Breast Cancer and Laura's mother had been diagnosed with cancer.

Laura has just completed her Law degree when she heard about her mother. She had been planning to become a solicitor or a barrister.

She took a gap year job with Breakthrough Breast Cancer and Daniel decided to do the Breakthrough for Breast Cancer 60km walk as his way of supporting Laura and her mother.

Daniel and Laura trained and prepared over 70 Barnet Busters members for the 2005 Breakthrough Breast Cancer 60km walk.

Sylvie's Story
Sylvie was a 15 years breast cancer survivor. In addition, Sylvie had major back surgery and was doing the walk to prove that people who had had major back surgery could walk 60km.

A few weeks into the training, Sylvie's 33 years old daughter, Danielle, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

We were enraged and determined that we would not lose Danielle. We rallied around Sylvie.

We became more determined. Laura and the remnant of her group joined Daniel's group. The Barnet Busters became a force.

Training Seriously
The training was becoming longer and harder. We knew we had to walk 60km in two days over unfamiliar terrain on the actual walk.

To avoid injury on the day of the walk, Daniel was determined to toughen us up.

We gave Daniel endless grief with our moaning. We complained if he took us on a route without lavatory facilities. We complained if the lavatory facilities did not meet our exact standard.

Despite all the whingeing, Daniel was determined to toughten up our body and our dodgy limbs in preparation for a 60km walk on probably unfamiliar and certainly unknown (at the time) terrain.

Injuries
There were injuries during the training despite the stretching excises we were taught and did before and after each training session.

Aches
We talked about our aching limbs. Some talk about losing weight, we talk about our thighs, our tummy and our bums.

To encourage us when we became tired and dispirited
Sylvie's husband suggested that the Diana Ross song, Chain Reaction was good for matching.

A group led by Sarah McCardie, an actress, who trained with us while auditioning for parts in plays and films wrote the lyrics to the Chain Reaction melody.

The lyrics were words of Barnet Busters fitness struggle. Words like "sweating like pigs" while we talked about thighs, tummies and bums. The song made us laugh, it was our courage signature song when we were tired.

The 2005 Breakthrough Breast Cancer Walk
We had a Barnet Bursters tee-shirt designed and George, one of the "Greek Goddesses"'s husband had the t-shirts made and sold them to us and our families at cost.

[The "Greek Goddesses" were a group of Greek girls, young women really, who were walking in memory of a friend who had died from breast cancer.

There were about seven of them and to save time and probably to avoid having to remember their names, someone decided to collectively nicknamed them the "Greek Goddesses".]

Wearing a unique T-shirt meant that we could see each other from a distance. It also meant that our family would recognise our group member's families.

On the first day of the walk, unsure as to how I would cope with 35km, I decided to walk on my own. I was miserable.

On Sunday, the second day of the walk, Daniel thankfully asked the Barnet Busters to walk together. I walked with the Greek Goddesses and George. We had so much fun.

Someone mentioned that a Barnet Buster member's Grandmother had died on the Saturday and that the girl was debating pulling out of the walk.

Pulling out of the walk was tantamount to treason, especially on the Sunday, the last day of the walk.

I wanted to give my condolence and check that the girl was somehow coping...

I knew the girl but I wasn't sure that I could find her in the crowd, I also knew that she was walking with Emma (Emma was walking in memory of her mother, who had died from breast cancer).

I could spot Emma in any crowd. I soon saw them together and walked with them for a while, Emma's friend seemed to be coping.

Memorable Moments
The Barnet Busters as a group had lunch together at a designated pit-stop in a Park.

Maria, George's wife had limped into the Park and went off to the medical tent straight away. There was a rumour that she was considering giving up.

One of the most fantastic sight of the walk was coming up a flight of stairs, seeing and hearing most of the Barnet Busters let out a roar in welcome as I emerged from a tunnel and into the sunlight.

The other was welcoming all the Greek Goddesses and George back into the fold a few minutes later...

The defining photograph of the walk was of Emma, walking tall, arm-in-arm with her Dad.

Thank you for reading the Barnet Busters story. I wish you joy and courage in your own fund raising.

Secondary cancer means that the cancer cell has spread and may be growing in the lungs, bones, lymph nodes.

The cancer cells may have spread to one or more of the above location in the body. Treatment for secondary cancer is more demanding on the body...

For more about secondary cancer and treatments, see http://www.squidoo.com/secondarycancer