To begin with, everything was good. In fact, better than good. My phone was going crazy with texts from people who'd seen my Stiff Guy Yoga book on the BBC's One Show, as demo'd by Ed Balls. Then, in the same week I was made a yoga ambassador for WW (formerly known as Weight Watchers) teaching online classes not just in the UK, but globally. So, I was packing in classes, as many as I could manage around my litigation work. And, as I said, all was good... until without so much as a warning, my shoulders froze. Yes, both of them!
My movement began to resemble a penguin. My left arm quickly became my good arm as I could lift that almost to shoulder height, but my right arm I could only lift about a hand's width from my hip. And I'm right-handed.
A period of rest just made them worse. A doctor via Zoom suggested I had Adhesive Capsulitis - Frozen Shoulder Syndrome. A subsequent scan confirmed it, but hospital delays due to lockdown meant I'd lost valuable healing time. My surgeon said it was as bad a case as he'd seen. Apparently, I'd been unlucky, as the thing with frozen shoulders is you must start treatment immediately.
We kicked off with steroid injections which brought some relief, and then hours and hours of physio. Long story short, after a year I could finally dress myself, and kind of dry my hair if I rested my elbows on the dressing table to hold the hairdryer aloft.
I embarked on a series of private osteopathy, sports massage, acupuncture, and yet more physio but in the end, I still couldn't lift my arms above my shoulders. My surgeon wanted to operate but I was not keen. Ironically in the end, despite my determination to avoid surgery, I ended up going under the knife, as around this time I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Nothing prepares you for the shock, particularly if like me you had no risk factors, no family history. Added to which, the tumour was like a faint cobweb which had lain undetected for nigh on 5 years, despite regular mammograms.
I told Sally, New Energy's yoga studio manager, the day after my diagnosis. I don't think either of us will ever forget that day. Shellshocked doesn't cover it. And Sally has continued to be a great support throughout (and she actually suggested I write this post, as it might resonate with others.).
I stopped teaching hot yoga immediately on medical advice, but I decided to keep teaching my other classes for as long as I could keep going. There were days when it was tricky, but I needed some sense of normal. My surgeon did an excellent job disguising my lymph node scarring, by burying them in an existing crease of skin, so it wasn't visible in class. And I adapted how I taught, so no one was any the wiser.
It was a tough year, but I was lucky, as I had good friends and family to help me through it. And as is often the case, it turned out to be a real turning point for me, for 2 reasons.
The lymph node removal surgery had caused what's called cording, in my right armpit. Essentially, a tight rope like tendon was now restricting my arm movement even further, and the only way to free it was to stretch it out 3 times a day with some pretty eyewatering physio. I'd been here before of course, so I knew the drill; and consequently, I was less than confident that I'd get my full range of movement back with physio alone.
I'd exhausted all the NHS and private sector options, so I started researching trauma recovery in other countries, and the British missing piece of the jigsaw seemed to be yoga therapy. To be clear, we're not talking about yoga classes but instead specialist targeted therapy. So, I signed up with a leading therapeutics organisation in the USA and was then training full time as a Yoga Therapist - taught by experts such as the Nike therapeutic team, Harvard professors, and leading surgeons.
To date I've sat through hundreds of hours of anatomy lectures, surgical dissections, and practical applications of therapeutic yoga techniques. It's been a total game changer for me both professionally, and personally, enabling me to help clients address specific needs or concerns, as well as it also informing my class teaching. And the result is that I'm now a qualified yoga therapeutic practitioner, as well as now being well on my way to my 1000 hours teacher accreditation, and [drum roll] ... my shoulder range of motion is back to 100%.
I've not practised law since my diagnosis. It had made sense to hang up my court gown for good, and significantly reduce my cortisol levels. I continue to teach my yoga classes but by day I now administer yoga therapy to private clients under the moniker The Doctor's Daughter, to distinguish my rehab work from my yoga teaching. If you're interested, you can read more about this at https://www.thedoctorsdaughter.co.uk/
I said there were 2 reasons why my diagnosis was pivotal, and the second twist, I could not have foreseen. As most of us know cancer now affects 1 in 2 people, but what you might not know is that Winchester has no holistic cancer support. And I mean none. Other Hampshire towns and cities have cancer centres, but the good people of Winchester are left to fend entirely for themselves. Put simply, Winchester has good clinical cancer care at the hospital, and we have an excellent hospice, and nothing in between.
If you're wondering what exactly these centres do, they provide vital counselling and treatments like lymphatic drainage massage, acupuncture etc, but crucially there are people on hand who have been through it - who will know exactly how you feel. Essentially, all the support you need to help you recover from or live well with cancer, all under one roof.
As is commonplace with cancer drugs, I suffered side effects, and I still do to some degree. To get help I had to travel to cancer centres in London, Southampton, and Romsey's Jane Scarth House. On the face of it that might not sound too bad travel wise but imagine doing that on days when just getting out of bed is a major achievement.
So, I have set up the Winchester Cancer Sanctuary, and we launched our fund raise event at St. Cross Hospital, which you may have read about in the local press. If you want to know more, check out our ever-growing website and social media https://www.winchestercancersanctuary.org/
The support we have received has been overwhelming, including local cancer surgeons and nurses volunteering to work in the centre, but we need residents help to make it happen, as we need to raise £500,000.
That sounds like a lot but here's the thing, if every single person in Winchester gave us the cost of a cup of coffee or tea [£4], we'd reach our goal and be able to provide free support for every adult in need, in the Winchester area. So, it's entirely doable.
And finally, in other news... I'm now in full clinical remission. Miraculous, given I'd been harbouring a tumour for half a decade, and it had not spread to other areas. I asked my surgeon whether my frozen shoulder had protected me, and she replied, possibly but yoga supports the lymphatic system, so that may also have helped contain it. However, until medical research catches up with traditional eastern wisdoms, we won't know for sure.
