Pear Team Tri Blogs: Elisha Silcox - From Cancer to Triathlon

PART 1 - ​Rehab To Function

Why rehab?

Cancer. One word I was not expecting to hear so soon after the birth of our first child, Eeva. I had noticed a pea sized lump just under my chin, near where you would find swollen glands with a headcold. At the time, I was 8 months pregnant and thought “I’m pregnant, I’m tired, I’m probably just rundown”. Fast forward 6 weeks postpartum and I was off to QScan for my first appointment, of five. It was a long 4 weeks, being told by my GP that they didn’t find anything of special note but because of my history of melanoma, we better continue the search. I was referred to an ENT and she noted a nodule on my thyroid which we had biopsied. It was thyroid cancer. We made the decision to have surgery as soon as possible so that I could proceed with my treatment. 

Barriers to exercise

The first couple of months of recovery were difficult. Not only did I just have major surgery, but I was also dealing with the trauma of diagnosis, coding on the post op ward and an ICU stay. Not to mention, I was waking up every 3 hours to pump with the goal of storing as much breastmilk for Eeva before weaning for treatment. I was tired, really tired. No amount of sleep was helping and I found myself going through the motions to get through our day. Somehow, I managed going to mum’s group and baby sensory classes. I did not want Eeva to miss out! But this meant it was difficult to find time to exercise. I would steal moments whilst Eeva was sleeping or jump down on the floor with her and do my postnatal rehab exercises. But with everything going on, I did not put enough time into rehabbing my neck and shoulder

What got us back to function?

Booking an appointment at Pear with my team was the best thing I could do for my recovery. Although I knew what to do and how to do it, I needed the accountability to focus on myself. I’ve now been able to complete my strength training program via physitrack twice per week and am back to doing long walks and jogs. I’ve also benefited from our reformer pilates classes. I’m so looking forward to starting swimming in a couple of weeks to really put my neck/shoulder rehab to the test! Bring on the Team Pear Tri!