Helen Spencer

Day 3 - Holyfuckingshitballs. WHAT. A. DAY. There was laughter, hugs, tears, fainting, mountainside diarrhoea & vomiting, & liberating decisions. Shortly after the sun had risen we started day 3 stretching at the bottom of the valley looking at what lay ahead. Way up high, ant sized figures soared on thermals as they paraglided from one of India’s best take off spots. THAT was our lunch destination. Stretching, chatting & laughing, we had no idea what was to come between stretching our glutes & eating our Indo-Chinese spicy rice & noodles. IT. WAS. TOUGH. We trekked through rhododendron forests & oak woodlands, crossed rivers & streams, & scaled steep inclines on rugged terrain. One of team @angelascanlon fainted & another had a horrible bout of D&V. With no way off the mountain, other than going back down or continuing up, they had to put one foot in front of the other & keep going. 6 long hours later we made it to the top. We were elated. However, no sooner did we have our backpacks off & a plate full of carbs, the trek leaders were telling us we needed to hurry up so we could start our decent & get back before it got dark. Hungry & exhausted emotions ran high. We were told that if we didn’t think we could make the decent down, now was the time to say so we could go back to camp in one of the trucks. Before we left that morning, I checked my JustGiving. A friend had kindly sponsored me & left a message, ‘…ride through the uncomfortable but know your boundaries.’ I knew I COULD make it down, ridding through the uncomfortable, but at what cost? Having lived as a cancer patient since the age of 26 I have had to ride through lots of the uncomfortable &, after 15 years, I am tired of it. Yes, I COULD push myself to walk down that Himalayan mountain side, but, knowing that the next day was going to be the toughest terrain we would be facing and having a few niggles, I didn’t WANT to & I didn’t NEED to. We were all tested in different ways that day, for me, choosing to get in the truck and not to push through felt squiffy, liberating & entirely necessary. #CoppaTrekWithGi #CoppaFeelPeople #CoppaFeel #Cancer #BreastCancerAwareness #BrCa

Day 2 - Mangrolia to Bir. The ‘easy day’! After very little sleep, a 5:30am wake up call, some anaemic looking boiled eggs and a stretch we all piled into cars for a short transfer to the start point. Our driver, who rallied his way around the narrow hairpin bends, set the tone for the day with his party tunes. My legs, which had spent 5 weeks hooning around India in Rikshaws, had quite the shock when the ‘easy day’ started with a rather steep incline that went on for much longer than we had been led to believe. Putting one foot infant of the other, we meandered through ancient pine forests, hiked along the mountain ridge and met a Sadhu at a Shiva temple. We then dropped down into a village and along a train track. Seeing our slight concern for our safety, our local guide reassured us, “Don’t worry there are only two trains, first thing in the morning and then again in the evening.” Phew. 10 minutes later, “TRAAAAAAAAAIIIIINNNNNN,” was yelled from the back. We lept over the boggy sides and on to the banks as the train honked and passengers waved. Our route then took us straight through a Buddhist monastery before our final couple of miles walking between paddy fields. As we returned to camp mummers of concern rippled through the trekkers, if this was the easy day, what was install for us tomorrow?! The mood was lightened with the in-house entertainment from the CoppaTrek’s double act @mrsgifletcher and @pollywest11 where they treated us to some improv of the train and bus journey to camp, followed by a rousing speech from @saradaviescc The night ended with Team Sara’s Indian inspired chant which was mega! #CoppaTrekWithGi #CoppaFeelPeople #CoppaFeel #Cancer #BreastCancerAwareness #BrCa

Day 1 - 10km orientation walk around Bir Having travelled over night and arrived at breakfast time, we were eased into trekking with a lovely sunny 10km walk around the village, Bir, where our camp was situated. During the walk we had the privilege of going into Buddhist temples and monasteries. We spun gigantic prayer wheels in one and walked through another whilst listening to the rhythmic chants of the monks. We ended by sitting in a third temple where the monks banged drums, smashed cymbals and blew horns, and I felt the power vibrate through my entire body. That evening people donned their cat related paraphernalia to celebrate the birth of the one and only @howtoglitteraturd Gi gave a rousing pep talk (breaking the code of conduct 😂) and then we sang happy birthday to Kris and Mar which was all the feels. I then ate chocolate cake after I had brushed my teeth because I’m rock’n’roll and YOLO! It was a beautiful and emotional start to the week, creating the perfect mix to cement us as a group. #CoppaTrekWithGi #CoppaFeelPeople #CoppaFeel #Cancer #BreastCancerAwareness #BrCa

El Capitano and The A Team Before I go into my days of trekking let me introduce to you my team captain, the one and only @angelascanlon Angela had been asked to do a couple of treks before but confessed that she had made all excuses under the sun as to why she couldn’t go. When she got the latest call from @mrsgifletcher she decided to carve out time for herself and @coppafeel A mere 8 weeks later she joined hundreds of trekkers on the red eye flight to Delhi where she was the first to admit that she didn’t have a fucking clue what she was getting herself into. However, you wouldn’t have known it. From the moment Angela donned her walking boots she lunged right into the role of El Capitano and made it her own. And weren’t we delighted that she did - not only is she absolutely hillaryballs but she made a cracking captain! She hyped us up, brought the joy (and the craic), put a positive spin on things from the ‘shovel of shame’ to ‘difficult days’. She marched at the front, mingled in the middle and motivated at the back. She sang, danced, jigged, laughed, lunged and listened. She gave hugs when they were needed and wiped tears from cheeks. Scanlon you did yourself and Rich’s bitches proud. Thanks for all that you gave during that week in the Himalayas. I will forever think of you shouting, “Talk to your arse cheeks lads,” whenever I’m tramping up some spicy climbs! (Angela Scanlon and Emma Willis as a double act will be coming to your TV screens soon - we saw it in the Hims first!) #CoppaTrekWithGi #CoppaFeelPeople #CoppaFeel #Cancer #BreastCancerAwareness #BrCa

Trek travel ✈️🚂🚌🌅🏕️ 🙌 When I leave Ahmedabad my good friend @kusum_72m always does my henna. This year there was little addition to her art #CoppaTrekWithGi 💛 Seeing @karlas_lifes4living arrive at Delhi airport filled my heart with joy and my eyeballs with tears 👙 A few hours of pure luxury before a night of travel 🚂 CoppaTrekkers taking over Delhi train station 🧳 A train station porter carrying my bag on his head (it’s not my first rodeo in an Indian train station and why struggle when I can pay a smiley fella over the odds to weave his way through the crowds, up and over bridges, and be deposited on the correct train platform?! 6 days later he sought me out on the return journey!) 😴 In totally, I have probably spent a week of my life in one of these train bunks. The last time I ‘slept’ in one I swore I would never do it again. Only for @coppafeel was I back here again 9pm - 3:30am listening to a local man snore THE ENTIRE WAY!!! 🚾 Very grateful to @rdajosh for all the leg work he got me doing in order to hold a squat position on a high speed train whilst completing one’s ablutions 🚌 6 hours on the back of a bus going up, up, up the Himalayas and round, round, round all the hair pin bends 🌅 Seeing the sun rise through the steamy bus windows 🏕️ After a brutal journey we made it to the most glorious camp where we were well and truly looked after for the next 5 days #CoppaTrekWithGi #CoppaFeelPeople #CoppaFeel #Cancer #BreastCancerAwareness #BrCa

‘What is your motivation for supporting CoppaFeel! and why do you want to take part in CoppaTrek! with @mrsgifletcher ? (A CoppaTrek Application question Nov 2023) My answer: ‘“You’ve got to get me to 41.” That is what I told my oncologist when cancer snuck its way back into my life in 2014. You see, 41 is the age my mum was when she died from breast cancer and is the milestone I’ve had firmly etched in my mind for decades. Despite having stage 4 cancer, I thankfully have no evidence of disease but, with the dodgy BrCa gene, the threat looms. How ever many years I have left on this planet I am determined to LIVE and live well! One of the most significant things to help me to start living well was doing the Pembrokeshire CoppaTrek! It was a monumental turning point in shaking the cancer related chronic fatigue that seeped into my body and my brain. In September ‘24 I will turn 41 & one of the things on my list to do is the overseas CoppaTrek! When I saw that it was in India I shed a tear. I have spent a lot of time teaching in India & it is the place and people I returned to when life became overwhelming. I have wanted to go back the country I love for a while, however, something was holding me back. Now it is time. 41 is my year. I am ready to push myself that bit further whilst supporting a charity that is pivotal in saving lives and is SO close to my heart!’ Fast forward a year and I’m in a hotel near Delhi airport having spent the last 5 weeks in India catching up with friends, who are more like family, and also spending some time horizontal on a sun lounger in Goa! I had fully intended on bringing y’all with me but it didn’t happen - so expect retrospective India highlights upon my return! That won’t be for another week or so because tomorrow morning I’ll be meeting 120 other @coppafeel trekkers before we get on a night train to the foothills of the Himalayas. I’ll be sharing that part of my Indian adventure because so many of you incredible folk have very generously donated! Please send me positive vibes as I fear that all of my training has gone out of the window with a distinct lack of walking and a significant amount of eating Diwali sweets!

If you haven’t watched this BBC documentary, I encourage you to do so. For me, there were so many emotions packed into these 59 minutes. I felt a deep sense of sadness, waves of anger but mainly an overriding sense of joy and gratitude. Thank you Kris and Maren for allowing us in. Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do, for the lives you have saved and the awareness you have created 🙌💛✨ Living Every Second: The Kris Hallenga Story is available on BBC iPlayer. #CoppaFeel #CoppaFeelPeople #GlitteringATurd

I have SO many words I’ve been wanting to share about the Queen of turd glittering and all round wonderful human-bean Kris Hallenga. Despite them all whirling around in my head, they are still very much stuck there. They will come. For now, some of the things I learnt about myself from Kris sharing her life: 1.) That I no longer wanted my reconstruction implants and that, for me, being tit-less is really fucking liberating 2.) That I actually quite like cats (or maybe Lady Marms did that) 3.) That I can and should question my oncologists 4.) That integrative oncology is a game changer 5.) That the CoppaTrek family is immense 6.) That I would love living in Cornwall 7.) That it is empowering to think, talk and plan my death 8.) That mushrooms are a magical medicine 9.) That everyone has a book in them #Glitteringaturd #CoppaFeel #CoppaTrekWithGi #Cancer #Grief

Asking my @coppafeel family for help. Tomorrow past CoppaTrek with @mrsgifletcher trekkers are doing an alumni hike in The Yorkshire Dales. These beauts were meant to be doing the full marathon whilst I, just about recovered from a sprained ankle and STILL having a dodgy back, had resigned to doing the half marathon. Again. With the news of Kris’ death rocking the cancer community, to say I felt wobbly was an understatement. So, putting my big girl pants on, I sent my girls this message… “Asking for help is something I struggle with, but, this is me, messaging through tears and snot, to ask if @curlyparsley18 and/or @myrightsidedbrain would be up for doing the half with me? I know @chaddersjk and @karlas_lifes4living you have been set on doing the full from the get-go. I am falling apart at the seams physically and am teetering on the edge emotionally, I would really appreciate having someone that I feel safe to fall apart with. Big love always,” Within seconds the replies came flying in… “I’ll do the half,” “We are all with you,” “We will hold you no matter what,” “You haven’t got to ask me twice,” “All for one,” I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed some more. As Kris said in her FUNeral speech, “The CoppaFeel! community is immense. It is not just a charity, it is a family, a beacon of hope, and a testament to the power of love and compassion and life grabbing.” These women are my beacon of hope 💛 If anyone has a pound, shilling or pence to spare and would like to help me raise the £250 I’ve pledged to raise for @coppafeel the link is in my bio. Muchos love and gratitude 💛🥾🏞️ EDIT: whilst I have been eating my dinner and sitting in the hot tub with these beauts and some other #TeamMegan legends, I have reached £250! Wowzers!!! THANK YOU! 🙏 I’m not stopping there because in November I will be doing another 5 day hike in the Himalayas for CoppaFeel! so I am going to change the fundraising link in my bio 😘 #CoppaTrekWithGi #CoppaTrek #CoppaFeel #CoppaFeelPeopl

Swinging back into the gram! Hi-de-hi campers! It has been a hot minute, ey! Usually my silence on here is synonymous with life being out of kilter. Alas, I’m pleased to report, that is not the case! Hurrah! In fact, over the last 18 months I have felt the best I have felt since pre-cancer 2010. Double hurrah! So, why the Insta silence? Three main reasons: 1.) Remember I said that I was having a bash at writing my memoir? Well, I have been bashing and chipping and slogging and huffing and puffing away (and I’m still fecking going!) As a neurospicy, menopausal, cancer medicated human bean, it requires ALL of my cognitive function and leaves me extremely cognitively fatigued (something I shall dive deeper into in a future post). 2.) I find that I have got SO much I want to share here, that I get overwhelmed, and, what little brain power I have remaining, short circuits, leading me to share sweet FA, and with a backlog of photos and musings! 3.) THEN I think what is the point/the purpose of my instagram shares in the first place?! Why do I post? Do I enjoy it? Is it for me? Is it for others? Am I doing it for a little endorphin hit? (I think I am figuring that out and it will also feature in a future post!) Anyhoo, that is a small insight in to the inner workings of my brain 🤪🙃🫠 Muchas gracias to you bloody lovely peeps who have checked in on me during my radio silence 🙌💛✨ (Last pic is a card my Aunt sent me. Written inside was, ‘Saw this and thought of you’. I do love a swing! Yeeeeeeooooo!) #getoutsideformentalhealth #happyplace #ropeswing #wildwomen #wonderandwander #intothewild #explore #connect #create #TheShire #BrCa #cancer#neurospicy #menopause

Pen to fucking paper. Last October I was on @thegailmuller ‘s writing retreat in a secluded part of the Cornish coastline. As the autumn sun gently warmed my back I sat with a pen in my hand and a new note book longing to be filled. A budding writers dream. For me it was crippling. Every ounce of me wanted to write. I felt I had the words in my head and a story to tell. If only they could find their way to my fingers and on to the blank page that stared back at me. I wrote a sentence then promptly scribbled it out. I huffed and puffed and shifted in my seat as I doodled. I got up, paced about and sat back down. I wrote another sentence and scribbled it out. I can’t do it, I thought. I wanted to do what I had done at school. Fuck it. Give up. Throw in the towel. Accept I wasn’t at school. This time I felt safe in my neurodivergent vulnerabilities. Full of frustration I marched myself straight up to Gail, blurted out how I was feeling, warned her that I was about to cry and with a wobbly bottom lip asked her for some help. (The very fact that I was able to do that is a testament to Gail and how she holds the space on her retreats.) We sat together, I allowed the tears to fall and, ever so gently, she coaxed some words out of me. When we started the Wild Words and Water retreat Gail asked us all what we wanted to get out of being there. I said that I wanted to take a sledge hammer to the block that was preventing me from writing and be able to put pen to fucking paper!!! In just a few short days that is EXACTLY what was achieved. A year on and I’m well into writing my memoir. Each time I start a new chapter and see that blank page staring back at me, I have a fleeting moment of panic before the words tumble from my brain onto the page. I shall be eternally grateful for those magical few days & to Gail, her oodles of patients, empathy, humour & goddam passion & talent for teaching. There are a few spaces left on this years retreat, 6th - 10th Nov and, much to my absolute delight, I will be there running a breathwork session! Check out Gail’s website for more info: I hope to see some of you there ✍️🌱🌊 📸 @tinandcoppermedia

Holyshitballs! What an absolutely incredible few days I had helping @thegailmuller on her ‘Unlost’ retreat. On Friday evening a group of 16 women came from near and far (like really far, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Seattle kind of far!), and gathered in the Cornish countryside. The nervous and excited energy buzzed about the room as we all exchanged small talk, “How are you?”, “Have you come from far?” Fast forward 24 hours and despite still not quite knowing each others names, we had shared part of our soul, our stories, our vulnerabilities, our interests and passions! There had been morning yoga, a kit talk with Gail, a breathwork session with me, we’d eaten a freshly made traditional pasty (and tried a not so traditional but very tasty kimchi pasty), hiked for miles along the beautiful rugged coastline - which included interesting nuggets of local history and geography from Gail along the way, another yoga session, eaten a nutritious and delicious dinner and ended the day with Gail reading part of her new book ‘Do Hope’ (which does EXACTLY as the title says and is available to pre-order now, FYI). And, we still had more to come! Sunday started with a fun mobility and injury prevent session with @joshfromtheliftinglounge an energising sea swim with Gemma from @sheswimsfalmouth another kit talk followed by a gentle yoga session. Then over a cuppa we were captivated by Gail’s amazing documentary where I spotted my pal @thesaltyseagal had another sumptuous feast made by Lynney and Jas before the weekend was drawn to a close with a fire pit where we fucked things into the flames that no longer served us! Yeeeeeooooo! What a weekend! People arrived as strangers and left as friends (trite but true!) Those few days were transformational, inspirational, captivating, motivating, fun and freeing. It was an absolute honour and privilege to be helping alongside @foodbytor & be amongst such incredible and resilient women. I look forward to our paths crossing again, ladies! If any of the above sparks an interest, follow Gail & keep your peepers open for the next one! If writing is your bag then check out her Wild Words & Water retreat - I hope to see you there!