Tae kwon do progress

My daughter needed to do a sport for her Duke of Edinburgh Award, and found and chose a local tae kwon do club, to which I had to take her. It wasn't a very salubrious walk however, so I would stay and wait for her. Boring!
Then I realised that Bytomic tae kwon do isn't just for kids; they were taking from six to fifty-six. I was then younger than 56 so I joined in. Years later, I'm still going, have attained first Dan black belt and know a lot more about Korea where this martial art started in 1956, than I ever guessed I would! And am I fit! From a health check I had a month or so ago my metabolic age apparently is younger than my chronological age by about 15 years. That means I'm metabolically younger than I was when I started tae kwon do.
I don't rate my skills highly though, so I need extra practice and training, probably more than the younger members do in order for me to keep up with them. Some ways I do that are to

• go to more than one class a week 
• cross-train with a variety of instructors, 
• attend the black belt sessions every six months
• aim to grade
• participate in tournaments

Now I'm so pants, so slow and clumsy that I have only participated in two or three tournaments. So you can imagine how chuffed I am that at yesterday's tournament I gained a medal for my pants patterns!
I must tell my daughter. And by the way, they've taken away the upper age limit, so if you're near or over 56, please come and join so I'm not the only older woman in the club.

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL is how you get letters addressed to you from an NHS healthcare provider. The NHS provided me with healthcare in 2011 when I blogged my breast cancer in I like it in the glory hole. I had cutting (an operation), burning (radiotherapy) and just in case therapy (adjuvant aromatase inhibitor - drugs to stop oestrogen, just in case any oestrogen-positive cancer cells remain). About a year ago, I made "a uni-lateral decision" (quotes because that is what my NHS GP wrote to the consultant) to come off the aromatase inhibitors, becoming one of the 36% who stop taking the drug by four years. Last week, five years after the BC, I had a write-you-off (discharge) letter,

"Thank you for attending for your recent mammogram. I am pleased to inform you that your mamograms (breast x-rays) show no sign of breast cancer."

So that's it then.  No more annual mammograms. Well that might be it.  I do have calcifications and apparently calcifications can lead to BC.  We'll see. In the meantime, I shall continue confidently trusting a private GP.