Sheffield woman finds strength in nature and outdoors during breast cancer diagnoses
Strength in Nature, by adidas and Breast Cancer Now, aims to highlight how the outdoors has helped people through treatment and diagnoses. “It felt like a perfect fit because I really do feel like being outdoors is one of the things that gives me a bit of strength and some grounding,” Emma says.
The 41-year-old is a fan of snowboarding and sailing, but even something as small as walking her dogs in the park or Peak District, she has found to be beneficial.
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Hide Ad“Sometimes it’s an opportunity to switch off from everything and focus on the immediate task you’re doing... Sometimes it gives you the opportunity to work through what’s going on as well. There’s a lot of emotions...Being able to go out and process all those thoughts is really helpful.”
She adds: “Sometimes you just have to walk up a big hill to remember you’re alive...I may be slower than I used to be. But I can still decide on a random sunny day I want to do it and go do it. And given everything my body has been through in the last five years, it feels miraculous that I can.”
Emma noticed a small, painful lump in her breast in summer 2016. After finding out she had breast cancer, she underwent treatment including a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Just eight months later, she turned to her oncology team after experiencing pain in her bones. She was told in February 2018 that the cancer had spread to her bones and lymph nodes. Whilst it is treatable, secondary breast cancer cannot be cured.
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Hide AdEmma says: “When I got my primary diagnosis I thought do you know what, I can do this. It’s going to be a year of my life that’s really rubbish and I’ll have to have all this treatment but I can do this and then everything will go back to normal.
“The secondary diagnosis has a lot more emotions with it... Since that time I’ve seen a lot of people I’ve become friends with die. I’ve also seen quite a few new drugs introduced that are giving people better odds and helping people live longer but also I know there’s still so much to be done...You want to be hopeful and do as much with your life as you possibly can but also you need to be realistic and knowing the facts and what the odds are is also powerful.”
Emma has received treatment for secondary breast cancer, but it has twice begun to grow again and she is now on her third treatment option – a targeted chemotherapy every three weeks.
“I realised quite early on that having lifelong chemotherapy meant I couldn’t work full time,” she says. “I still work, I work in marketing part time and I’m really grateful but it does bring up a lot of emotions when your friends and family get promotions or are building careers and you know that’s not something possible for you now.
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Hide Ad“You go to treatments every three weeks knowing it’s going to make you feel terrible for a while. You have to plan and mitigate and you can’t always do things. I’ve found myself cancelling a lot of plans.
"But on the flip side, you want to try to do as much as you possibly can because you know your life is limited...I think everybody living with incurable cancer also realises that at some point you aren’t going to be able to do the things you really love so to do them whilst you can is the best option.”
Emma is one of the faces of the adidas Breast Cancer Awareness collection, a range of footwear and apparel selected to help people spend more time in the outdoors. A total of £15 from each full-price sale is being donated to Breast Cancer Now to support the charity’s work.
“I hope the campaign will make people going through a breast cancer diagnosis or any sort of really tough time think let’s just get outside,” Emma says. “I also hope that it raises the profile of the fact that whilst people have cancer they can still live a relatively normal life."
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Hide AdEmma also hopes her involvement will raise awareness of secondary breast cancer. “Once the cancer has spread, it is incurable and that is the type of cancer that kills people,” she says.
The adidas collection is available until the end of October through adidas.co.uk/breast_cancer_awareness