From one adventure to another...

1 & a half stone heavier & fatigued after Chemo
(Photo: Jo Clarke)

This time last year I was recovering from having Chemotherapy for Hodgkin Lymphoma. The battle against cancer was won but I felt utterly broken. Any sense of feeling attractive had gone. I was emotional, fatigued and couldn't imagine ever functioning as the old youthful Kat again.

52 miles at the London Bikeathon
(Photo Kat Howells)

Since then I have slowly improved. My energy has returned... enough to cycle 52 miles and walk 20 miles at two charity events less than a week apart in September; I have lost a stone and a half since my treatment (it may be more but I haven't weighed myself recently); and most dramatically I took voluntary redundancy from the BBC where I have worked for nearly 12 years.

I write this blog from the other side of the world. In January I set off on a very big adventure of a more positive kind than the one that I went through with my health.

Not a bad place to relax!

I started off in India, traveled to Thailand, Vietnam and now Malaysia. It hasn't quite been two months so I still have three and a half months and several more countries to go. I have met lots of interesting people, seen some fantastic sights, eaten delicious food and had life changing experiences. Most of all, I feel like I have turned a page. I still feel the shadow that cancer has cast on my life, not to mention the positive outcomes it brought. But I now have something more interesting and positive to talk about.

So after a couple of months of constantly moving from place to place, I am sitting in a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia writing to you about this new adventure I am experiencing. 

Koh Samui Spa retreat

Thanks for you joining me!