I wouldn’t get away without mentioning the reason we had a party this weekend, I must have married young to make our silver anniversary already. That may have brought the week to an end Shaun opened it with a new addition, little Lewis, obviously the parents were happy but it was good to finally see Steve take his mind off his recent cancer treatment.
We had a few friends round for a bit of a knees up, maybe it’s the wine with the combination of the weeks events, but I think it’s next weeks windsurfing4cancer that really made me appreciate the years we’ve had.
I’m sure Steve would confirm, but once you get told you have cancer, your world feels like it’s falling apart. Sure others have had it, and despite the many survivor stories, yours is worse than anyone else’s. That’s feeling probably the same whatever illness you have, a broken leg isn’t that but, unless you’ve got one.
Your mind plays tricks on you; first it’s the fear of not being there to see your family grow up, but in reality that’s just thoughts about your own mortality. Once you get round to knowing the worst isn’t going to happen, even when the treatments over it still find it way to break you.
Windsurfing has given me everything, a life style I couldn’t even imagine is the obvious, but it’s woven into every part of my life. While the cancer couldn’t affect my windsurfing, the treatment bloated me up to over 130kg, which really made its mark.
Once back on the water one of my early trips was to Australia, bit of a dream trip. I’d hate to think how many miles we drove as we hardly sailed the same beach two times in a row. Most of the time it was wave sailing, I’m no wave sailor but its what I like to do most, being bigger it was making it that much harder but hell I was happy to be out.
Arriving late in the day at Esperance we got out for a last minute sail, the wave was small and relaxed, just the ego boost needed, but the following day was completely different as a big swell pushed in. In hindsight, I’d probably not make much of it today and it would surprise me if the outcome would be the same, but that’s the problem when you still have those cancer emotions lurking in the back of your mind.
I can’t remember how many steps down to the beach, but there’s enough to ensure you only want to do it once. We all headed out, I was on a 5.8 so it was windy, but I made any early mistake and snapped my mast on the inside. I’d like to say it was a quick change, but more like a tiring one, but just as I headed out again the boom went and I was washed up again.
I’ve talked before how the mind can play tricks, out here there was no finding my mum, so feeling one of those moments coming on I ditched the kit and went up for the video camera. Sitting on the beach in paradise it seems hard to be having a poor me moment, but watching through the lens I could see the others destroying every wave, it felt like windsurfing was slipping away from me.
I can’t describe those feeling of hurt, and even though it was the likes Josh Stone, Jason Polakow, Patrik diethel and Karin Jaggi who I watched through my lens I couldn’t get the irrational thoughts out of my mind, so much so it tainted my next trips down under. Today I’d love to relive that moment, even without the weight, or the cancer, I don’t think the outcome would have been different, but instead of negative thoughts, I would be happy to watch some of the worlds best.
