Living to tell the tale

All of this put so much strain on poor Alan. When I started slowly getting better, friends would say, 'Lynn you look really well. Alan, you look terrible.'

He felt angry that he couldn't make me well. Then, when I started to feel better I sometimes had a go at him because I felt he was watching me all the time, waiting for other signs of illness. However, good came out of this: once I'd got over the chemotherapy, we thought about living and what was important to us. You don't realise how essential love is and how much family means to you until something like this happens.

I had three more years of feeling normal, and then four years ago, the cancer returned, this time in both my lungs. I had chemotherapy again, went into remission, then last year it returned in my left lung. I finished my chemotherapy last December and now, touch-wood, a year on I'm back in remission.

I feel strong again and I'm in training for another half marathon. Cancer doesn't like oxygen, so the fitter you are, the better you do. I run every other day. I have healing sessions, weekly massages, reflexology and I'm careful about what I eat. I don't eat any dairy products, and I take a high dosage multivitamin.