Ciara Mageean

And listen, I'm hopeful.

I...

I randomly jumped on a support group call, which was the first I had ever done.

Heard from a lovely lady based in Scotland who was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in 2016.

And I had tears in my eyes listening to her because 10 years later, she's still obviously going through the toughness of monitoring and treating cancer.

But that was 10 years, not two to three.

Are you scared?

Am I scared?

I don't know if I'm scared.

I don't know if fear is the thing I feel.

Just complete sadness that I don't get to have what I had before where I

like everybody and all of us, where we just are like planning our lives ahead, where I was like, brilliant, I'm going to finish my career.

And then me and Tommy are going to move out of our wee semi-detached and maybe we'll buy a nicer wee house.

Maybe I'll convince him down the peninsula to Port of Ferry that we'll start a family and I'll have kids.

And...

that they'll go through school and then university and then I'll have grandkids and I'll get to be a granny and I'll be bringing them to, as a parent and a grandparent, to all their sporting events, that I'll get to watch Tommy grow old and that I'll have so many celebrations with my friends and family throughout the years.

And I get emotional thinking that I don't really have the luxury of thinking that anymore.

that it might be a reality if this treatment works and I'm hopeful that I get to live into my old age, but the odds are stacked against me and it's unlikely and that's really, really hard.

I'm more in the loss of things that I never had.

I'm more in the loss of being able to retire from my sport and having that farewell race.