I go jog­ging five ti­mes a week for about three qu­ar­ters of an hour at a time. I do stretc­hing and ot­her exer­ci­ses at home. I go swim­ming with my wife.

How come I am so ac­ti­ve?

I had lymp­ho­ma in 2014 and leu­ke­mia in 2015-2016. I had a he­a­vy cy­tos­ta­tic re­gi­me for both con­di­ti­ons and a furt­her stem cell transp­lant for leu­ke­mia. Cy­tos­ta­tic me­di­ca­ti­on made my con­di­ti­on go up and down. I was al­wa­ys we­a­kest two weeks af­ter the tre­at­ment. By the time I be­gan to feel bet­ter, I was soon due to anot­her IV ses­si­on. When my con­di­ti­on was worst at the be­gin­ning of the leu­ke­mia tre­at­ment, I unab­le to walk at all.

While in hos­pi­tal, I wal­ked wit­hin the li­mi­ta­ti­ons of my con­di­ti­on and the tre­at­ment sche­du­le. When in the iso­la­ti­on room, I wal­ked a short, squ­a­re rou­te along the wal­ls and the fur­ni­tu­re. When on a re­gu­lar ward, I wal­ked along the cor­ri­dors, and when I was al­lo­wed to le­a­ve the ward, I al­so wal­ked around the ot­her buil­dings of Mei­lah­ti Hos­pi­tal and the un­derg­round tun­nels.

As soon as I re­co­ve­red from the in­fec­ti­ons fol­lo­wing transp­lant sur­ge­ry, I be­gan to walk out­doors. When I was we­a­kest af­ter my disc­har­ge, I on­ly wal­ked on the yard of our con­do­mi­nium in Hert­to­nie­mi, Hel­sin­ki. On­ce I took a wal­king trail to­ward Viik­ki. I was glad to find that I was doing well, going most­ly down­hill. I then took a path that went up­hill at a gra­dient that a he­alt­hy per­son would not have even no­ti­ced. For me it was an or­de­al. I strug­g­led to get back to the pa­ved street and cal­led my wife to come and pick me up.

We mo­ved to Tur­ku in 2017, and I con­ti­nu­ed to walk. Last spring I cau­ti­ous­ly be­gan to run. I had re­a­li­zed I nee­ded some ae­ro­bic exer­ci­se be­cau­se going up the stairs or wal­king up­hill ten­ded to be a chal­len­ge.

I thought I would try to run the tra­di­ti­o­nal Coo­per test at some point. When we were yo­ung, we used the Coo­per test to me­a­su­re our fit­ness. For the test, you need to run for 12 mi­nu­tes, and the dis­tan­ce co­ve­red is me­a­su­red and re­la­ted to the per­son’s age to in­di­ca­te their fit­ness le­vel.

I gra­du­al­ly be­gan to run lon­ger dis­tan­ces and wal­ked in bet­ween them. In the fall I ran the Coo­per test at the Paa­vo Nur­mi sta­dium and did about 1650 me­ters. In ear­ly Ja­nu­a­ry I ran the test again in An­ti­bes, Fran­ce, and did about 1750 me­ters. De­pen­ding on the scale used, my fit­ness was mo­de­ra­te or ave­ra­ge for a man of my age.

Now that we have co­ro­na­vi­rus lock­down, I run along some qui­et streets from the cen­ter of Tur­ku to­ward the Tur­ku Cast­le by the sea and then back home. So­me­ti­mes I take a break in the Cast­le park, so­me­ti­mes I don’t.

I think that jog­ging is like a trip wit­hout a cle­ar­ly de­fi­ned des­ti­na­ti­on. The le­vel of exer­ci­se ref­lects my con­di­ti­on and my po­si­ti­on on my life span. My Coo­per score is a lit­t­le over what I had in high school. Se­ni­ors run in their own le­a­gue.

It is not pos­sib­le to es­ti­ma­te the full ef­fect of cy­tos­ta­tic me­di­ca­ti­on on my cel­ls. By this age I have lost the re­si­lien­ce of yo­uth. My cur­rent me­di­ca­ti­on pro­bab­ly al­so has an ef­fect. But I can still run. I am hap­py about that.

One day I no­ti­ced a yo­un­gish man run­ning about a block’s length ahe­ad of me. I tried to keep the dis­tan­ce cons­tant but found that I was get­ting out of bre­ath, which me­ant that he ran too fast for me. I slo­wed down, but af­ter that it was dif­fi­cult to re­ach my na­tu­ral speed again. Thus, when I tried to keep up with anot­her jog­ger, I lost my own rhythm.

The man soon tur­ned at a cros­sing and stop­ped to wait for the green light. I saw him bet­ter and re­a­li­zed that he was al­re­a­dy mid­d­le-aged with some grey in his dark hair. I al­so pau­sed at that traf­fic light. When I be­gan to run again, I found my na­tu­ral speed ea­si­ly. Run­ning was en­jo­yab­le again.

My cur­rent con­di­ti­on is what it is. With my backg­round, it is dif­fi­cult to de­fi­ne it as eit­her good or bad.

I be­lie­ve that our Cre­a­tor has gi­ven us all a de­si­re to de­ve­lop. We want to make prog­ress in wha­te­ver we are doing. Yet, I hard­ly find I am imp­ro­ving in lo­a­ding the dish­was­her. I gu­ess my at­ti­tu­de to­ward de­ve­lop­ment de­pends on what I am doing.

I do not know the length or the qu­a­li­ty of my re­mai­ning jour­ney on earth. But I will trek along. I will run the Coo­per test when I feel like it. I will get a re­sult. I can write so­met­hing about it in my blog.

Text: Heik­ki Hon­ka­la

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.