Ciara Mageean

The sensation in my hands and my toes is not what it was.

The skin's coming off on my hands.

I'm very conscious I'm going to be doing book launches and shaking people's hands and I hope they're not grossed out by the fact that my hands are in bits because it just is affecting so much of my body.

But...

Look, I'm here chatting to you.

I'm feeling fit and healthy.

I'm a couple of weeks post-chemo and I'm over the side effects of that in the immediate term of feeling sick.

I'm hopeful.

I'm hopeful that my prognosis can be good.

At Christmas, I was told...

After my first 12 rounds of chemotherapy, that surgery wasn't an option and that radiotherapy wasn't an option.

That's how the MDT team felt.

That's the multidisciplinary team.

And basically, for the first time, I asked my oncologist, are we talking timelines?

And at that point...

he gave me the prognosis of probably two to three years.

So for many people who wondered, Jesus, how did you go and do Uncharted after 12 rounds of chemo?

I walked out of that hospital appointment on the 24th of December.

And I said, an expletive, bleep it, I'm going to Costa Rica and I'm having fun because if I'm going to die, I'm going to fit as much living into the years that I have left.

And that's how I feel.