The High Road

For Janette Walker, completing her Munro round was about far more than bagging peaks

- by FIONA RUSSELL

INTENSIVE treatment for cancer left Janette Walker too weak to walk the length of her own home. Even a year later, the previously fit and active massage therapist was left fatigued by only light forms of exercise.

Yet she refused to give up on the hope of returning to hiking in the hills and mountains, and now 62 years old, Janette of Lybster, Caithness, is celebrating the completion of an impressive mountain challenge.

This summer, she reached the top of 988m tall (3,244ft) Sgurr Ban, her final summit in a round of 282 of Scotland’s Munros.

“I went from being as fit as a fiddle to the weakest I have ever felt in my life due to cancer,” Janette explains. “Back then, I couldn’t imagine being able to walk out of my own house, let alone climb a hill again. I can hardly believe what I’ve now achieved.”

It was in December 2013 that Janette received the shock diagnosis of breast cancer.

“I had no symptoms, and the lump in my breast was so small that I couldn’t feel it myself,” she says. “I’m very lucky that it was spotted early thanks to a routine mammogram. I had surgery to remove the tumour and then I needed both chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which lasted many, many months.

"This really knocked me physically and I lost all my fitness and my ability to do the activities I enjoyed before, such as walking, kayaking and going to the gym.

"My balance was also affected, and I suffered a peripheral neuropathy in my feet, so they felt numb," Janette adds. "At this point, if I wanted to go out into the garden, my husband Vince needed to carry me."

Despite describing her mood as "low and hopeless", Janette knew that the road to recovery was to build up her strength again.