Targets and milestones

When I think back to that horrendous day, Tuesday 9th May 2017, when I received a telephone call from my sports injuries Doctor to tell me he was 99% certain I had prostate cancer, it’s fair to say that I had no idea what lay ahead. I was absolutely terrified and within another ten days of tests the terror became mixed with horror when all the subsequent tests confirmed that I had stage 4 prostate cancer that had spread to my bones and was incurable.

Now, it’s bad enough being told you’ve got cancer but when they add “incurable” into the equation, it’s indescribable.

At my first appointment with a very blunt Australian urologist, Tracey and I were told that my cancer was incurable and he followed with the immortal words “And I guess you want to know your prognosis?”. I think my flippant response of “Does that mean I won’t be running Comrades in two weeks?” didn’t go down too well. Joking apart we were both shocked and devastated when he told us that I might only live 2-3 years. 

It felt as if our world had fallen apart and I really couldn’t think further ahead than my next medical appointment let alone think about targets for the future. All I could think about was the milestones I was likely to miss. Ethan my only grandchild then was only 3 and we doted on each other. I remember the first time I picked him up from nursery and they asked his Mum how they would recognise me and she said “It won’t be a problem, you’ll know as soon as Ethan sees him”. I turned up and he spotted me across the room and just put his arms out and ran straight over to me.

It broke my heart that I wasn’t likely to see him become a teenager, so upsetting. Well, here we are, 21st August 2026 and today he’s 13 and, amazingly, I’m here to see it. A brilliant milestone. He’s now taller than Tracey as you can see from this picture at Wilmslow parkrun with Finn making his parkrun debut!

I feel very blessed to still be around even if he is away on holiday at the moment. 

Incredibly, I’ve had the joy of seeing 3 more grandchildren come into my life and they are a massive incentive to stay as well as I can for as long as I can, they all light up my life.

The other thing that broke my heart was the thought that I probably wouldn’t get to walk my daughter down the aisle. A massive milestone that I was not likely to see. Well, that was another milestone achieved on 30th August 2021 when she married Rob on the same date as four generations of Tracey’s family were married including ourselves. It was an incredibly emotional and wonderful day and another that I’m blessed to have been around for. The photo really says it all about how emotional it was but the tears were tears of happiness.

As you’ll have gathered, the 30th August is our wedding anniversary and it will be 46 years since these two youngsters married in a few day’s time.

A very unexpected milestone came in late 2019 when I found out I was to be awarded a British Empire Medal in the Queen’s birthday honours for my work in the community in Altrincham and my small part in the town’s regeneration. I believe that I was nominated before my diagnosis. Finding out about it when I was really struggling after two years of treatment gave me a massive lift.

Part of the BEM award is attending a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, the Queen was unwell but that meant that the current King and the then Lady Camilla stood in. It was a horrible day weather wise but still a great thrill and another amazing and unexpected milestone.

After my diagnosis I carried on working but I was only 60 and with a short prognosis, never thought in a million years that I’d see retirement age and start drawing a pension. Well, I reached state pension age, another milestone, but carried on working part time until a few days ago when, on 14th August, I finally retired from professional practice 53 years after joining the accountancy profession as a 16-year-old junior clerk. I really didn’t think I’d see the day but, goodness me, I have and isn’t it wonderful?

The final milestone I wanted to write about is a running one which is a surprise given that my running is utter garbage now thanks to 9 years of treatment and being 9 years older. When I was diagnosed in May 2017, I’d only done 24 parkruns. It really hadn’t featured in my life because I was always training for marathons and so Saturdays were easy run days not for racing round a park. If only I’d got the message that parkrun was whatever you wanted it to be! Since my diagnosis parkrun has become very special to me and I’ve completed them on three continents and in 6 different countries, if you count England and Wales. During September I’ll hit 324 parkruns, 300 post diagnosis. It’s not an official parkrun milestone but it feels significant to me!

I’ve written about some of life’s milestones that have been achieved, but not about targets. Initially, post diagnosis my only target was to get through each day a day at a time. I couldn’t think much further than a few days ahead, couldn’t and wouldn’t plan holidays as I wasn’t going to be here to see them, was I? Really struggled to think about any future that didn’t see me dying far too soon. It’s still a struggle but my cancer has remained stable for well over 8 years and the experts tell me I’m going nowhere anytime soon so, yes, I’ve got some targets.

I’ll be 70 in February and that’s a target I expect to get to. Our Golden wedding anniversary on 30th August 2030 is a target that should be feasible given a fair wind and the advances in treatments that I know about. It will also be an amazing milestone to reach and celebrate with Tracey, our family and friends. Tracey has had to cope with so much in recent years and has been a real rock for the family so she deserves a bit of a fuss don’t you think?

I’d like to see much more of my grandchildren’s lives. They really mean the world to me but I can’t set targets for their lives, I just want to spend as much of it as possible with them.

When I was diagnosed, I really struggled with setting targets for the future but I’ve come to realise that it’s so important to have aims in life because without aims we are aimless!