Wednesday and I wake up with little time before I need to up and out. I have time to take my morning meds and down a Lemsip to ward off the end of my cold and to get ready to drive. Eventually I get away about 09:45 and arrive at my friends house a few minutes past 10 o’clock. Staunton Harold is our final destination where my friend and I head for the café. I order breakfast and a drink and then spend hours talking with my friend about how we are and what is going on for us an our families. This person is one of the few people who is able to ask the difficult questions about the relationship between me and my cancer. Some of the questions are difficult but they make me think and I always find that useful. We have more drinks and pastries and of course more conversation. Eventually we went to the garden centre and looked around at what was there. For me the big find was the type of watering can I’ve been looking for, for a long time, so I left with an unexpected find.
My unexpected find.
Once home I rest for a while and then begin to read the book that my friend had given me earlier. Orbital by Samantha Harvey is the Booker Prize winner in 2024, interestingly it is a novel about peoples response to living in space. The themes and the issues are remarkably similar to the Swedish poet who wrote a poetic odyssey of people set adrift in space, written in thirties. The evening continues with some TV and I finally draft the blog before taking my night meds and putting on my finger splint before going to bed. Today has given me much to think about and new reading to feed my brain, so a good day.
Its a Tuesday and that means I wake up to a training day, and this Tuesday I wake up to an evening at the opera. I make my partner a tea and we check to see how we are before getting up. We both grab some breakfast and my partner goes to the gym. I do some life admin and pay some bills so I can finally put my hand operation behind me as far as the surgeon is concerned. With that done I head for the garage and the rower. Today it has to be an hour, I need to push myself to do the longer rows, speed will come later. So with some opera in my ears I set off. Its seems a long time but I finally get to the end, not quite up to my normal standard bit its okay for a work out.
Over 11k and over 700 calories, that will do for today.
Big effort required today
By the time I have recorded my session my partner has returned and we have lunch. I go for a shower and then my partner and I go off to the next village where I try to open a Nationwide ISA, it turns out to be a fools errand, I will not bore you with the details but the supposed advantages of technology are grossly over rated and pale into insignificant compared to the good old days when you went into a bank or building society, slapped money on the counter, filled in a form and Voilà you had an account. The upshot is that at the moment I have a myriad of codes and identifiers, account numbers and security codes and in theory have a current account and an ISA, except the current account is nowhere to be seen on my and but a defunct ISA account is, and if I go in via internet banking the same defunct ISA account is showing and there is no current account. No money has been able to be moved so at the moment its been one waste of time. I am assured by all those around me that it will all come good. Bah humbug!
The evening has been a far more enjoyable experience. La Traviata is one hell of an opera and it has the additional benefit of having two intermissions, which tonight meant two ice creams! I was struck in the final act, (spoiler alert), that when Violetta sings about her disease she has a line in which she says ” this disease robs me of all hope” and it struck me that my cancer diagnosis seemed to do that to me, it was assumed that I was incurable, the language of the medics was and still is all about containment and palliative care, in a nutshell “when and not if”. I note that I feel differently now, less overwhelmed by a sense of hopeless imminent death. I am not exactly bouncing around like a new born lamb but I do feel less constrained. I’ve held off this disease for over five years now and I continue to have a quality of life that many would envy, I do not feel a shadow or any sense of helplessness hanging over me, I do not feel that I have been robbed of all hope any more. I feels like I am moving on. On that thought I take my evening meds, don my finger split and go to bed. Tomorrow I have coffee with a friend booked.
Easter Sunday and I wake up to find that someone has given me an Easter cold, bastards! I wake with a streaming nose and a general blocked upness. I check my vitals and the good news is that they show no fever or decline in other functions. So it will be my standard approach to a cold, breakfast and then a training session followed by a lot of rest. Breakfast goes down and stays there then I am off to the garage and the rowing machine. I cant face an hour but I reckon I can do forty five minutes. This turns out to be a good decision as the session is a real flog. By the end I am knackered. I do not make my 9 kilometre standard but I do manage 8+ kilometres.
Not bad for a man with a cold
I record the session and then get changed into lounge gear lunching on chicken soup that other well know cure for a cold. After that I read Night Watch by Terry Pratchett inspired by the fact that a friend is also reading it. After a while my cold can no longer maintain focus and I slide into a bank holiday sports fest of rugby and football until I can take no more and I return to reading.
In the evening I become increasingly limp and watch a film on TV based on the true events of a hostage taking in Amsterdam. The ending was interesting in that the hostage ran out and was chased by the perpetrator only for a police car to run the perpetrator down and for him to die from his injuries the following day. Imagine the paperwork! By the end of the evening I am wrung out so take my meds and go to bed determined that this cold will be a single toilet roll cold. That’s the way colds get measured in this household.
Monday and I wake with my my cold intact as witnessed by my runny nose so I get up and make my partner tea and myself a Lemsip. I return to bed and sip my soothing potion and chat to my partner. whilst savouring the heady mixture of hot lemon and paracetamol I begin to wonder about indulgence. So I ask my partner what has been her greatest indulgence. Its a tricky question. I come up with two, the first being the Wolf, a Suzuki Jimny, a four wheel drive car that was a third car. Secondly a personalised Mont Blanc Meisterstuck classic fountain pen, which I either lost or was stolen from me. The car sadly had to go as it was an indulgence that started to be too expensive to keep. With the exploration of indulgence done and the Lemsip finished I get up and have breakfast, slowly, before drafting the blog for yesterday and the start of today. The day the Pope dies I am informed by my news feed. The plan for the day is to ease my way through the rest of the day and then the family are going to see The Penguin Lessons. I am fascinated to see if reference is made to the phenomenal frequency at which penguins evacuate their bowels! It will either be fun or dismal. Jean Reno made a film called My Penguin Friend based on a true story, which might be a better bet, a sort of Leon meets Pingu.
The afternoon is eating, reading and preparing for the trip to the cinema, which means more Lemsip and clean hankies. The Penguin Lessons is based on some true events in Argentina, the main character and the penguin actually existed and there is old cine film to prove it. The school also existed, as for the rest I think there was artistic license. What did I take from the film, two things, one; people like to talk to penguins and two; penguins are good listeners. After returning home I up date the draft blog and settle down to some reading and making last minute alterations to tomorrows Tesco order until its time for my night meds and retiring to my bed. The Lemsips seem to be holding off the worst of the cold, which is good as I do not want to be sniffing all the way through La Traviata tomorrow evening, and have people think I am a hopeless romantic.
Easter Saturday and I am up early so that I and my partner can go back to the garden centre to buy more turf for the front garden. I had miscalculated how much would be needed so extra was required. It was a fast in and out job and we were soon back home eating breakfast. After breakfast I return to reorganising the office. Eventually I am able to free up shelve space so that my partners music books are on a shelf of their own and at hand for when she has her singing lessons. Ultimately what is required is a longer term strategy to create space. So I order another Hippobag with the intension of clearing space in the garage storage space so that we can store more in the garage as well as getting rid of the piles of paper that needs to go. I get to the stage where I can do no more so my partner takes over the task.
I watch an inordinate amount of sport from then. The garden guy arrived and set about laying the turf we had bought earlier and mowing the grass. He works like a demon and by the time he goes home things in the garden are looking good. The new turf needs watering over the next few days and it will be weeks before it can be mown.
The new turf is down and will now need tending.
The evening comes around and I watch TV and do some more organising until its time to draft the blog and take my night meds. I have not trained again today so tomorrow it has to be a priority
Thursday and I wake up knowing I am going to spend the day clearing the end of the sofa and the office. I am determined to get what I can do to complete this task done by Easter. I do my vitals, which are good, and then get into “tidying” clothes before eating a healthy breakfast and then I am at at! I stay at it until gone six o’clock at night when I reached the point I can do no more and it is up to others to do their bit. The results are gratifying, the next phase is to get rid of the jettisoned mounds of papers, but that will grow as others rationalise there papers and “stuff”.
So far so good, even got empty shelf space!
The end of sofa office has gone! The lounge is now a lounge again.
By the time I reach this stage I am knackered, I have no energy spoons left at all so slump onto the recliner and stare into space until the evening meal. After that its a night of football which includes the most amazing extra time win I have ever seen. Eventually I go off to bed having downed my night meds, donned my night splint and hope fo ra good nights sleep.
Easter Friday and a wake to a partner who is awake and does not have a plan for the day. I have breakfast and when I go to take my morning meds I find my dosette are empty so I have to do the ritualistic fortnightly filling of them. Its a tedious job but one that keeps me straight in terms of medications.
The fortnightly ritual of filling the dosettes.
With the drugs sorted its time to prepare the car go and get what is needed to re turf the old flower bed in the front garden. With the car turned into a truck my partner and I go off to “Hagrids” one of our local garden centres. Its a flying visit for top soil and turf. I think I have measured up but I have not done the square meterage calculation the result being that when I get home and do them I think I have under bought. I will just have to wing it. With the goodies unloaded my partner and I go food shopping in the village shop before I settle down to do the days crosswords. While I am exercising my brain my partner and eldest daughter are busy sorting out their stuff in the office. I stay well clear and draft the blog until they can do no more and the evening closes in.
The evening is going to be a slow one of indulgence as befits a Bank Holiday. Some favourite TV, perhaps some reading and suddenly I am thinking a small glass of red wine as a treat. It’s been a simple day but tomorrow I need to train in order to keep my “Moving On”, moving on.
Wednesday and I wake up thinking about the continued organising of the office. I go through my getting up routines including my vitals (all good) and then I get up and get straight into my training gear. Of course breakfast comes first and then I get to clearing and reorganising the shelves in the office. Its full of old reports and assessments of services that I have done over the years. They included prisons, therapeutic communities and mental health units so I have to go through them all to take out everything that could identify the services or individuals, so that I can put some stuff in the recycling and set aside the stuff that I will need to have destroyed. It takes hours to do. Eventually I have done so much throwing out that I can once again refit two of the shelves that had been taken out.
The reclaiming of the office is coming along.
Eventually I am can do no more, I need others to sort out their stuff before I can sort out my filing draw and other areas. So having beavered away for so long I have no option but to finally get round to training. I get myself into the garage and onto the rowing machine. I am already knackered before I start my thirty minute session. Sessions at the end of the afternoon are always more taxing and difficult and this one was no different. As a result I do not make my desired 6 kilometre distance.
Not my best but I get it done.
I finish the session to find that the household has gone out so I get changed and prepare to watch a football match while eating my order in curry. That is basically it for the day apart from taking my night meds and donning my finger splint before going to bed. Tomorrow will be another day of office organisation and reclaiming, I am now determined to get this done before Easter weekend so I can start using it again and get down to writing people letters again and stop organising my life off the end of the sofa like I have been doing for the last five years.
Tuesday and the second day of moving on. I go through my getting up rituals and then have a hearty but healthy breakfast. Top of my to do list is to sort out the office so I gather up bins bags, the check the shredder is working and put on a CD and then start the clear out. That’s me for the day apart from a pizza and melon snack. I shredded huge amounts of old documents and anything with any of my details on it. I keep going at this task until gone four in the afternoon and then I am knackered. I’ve jettisoned large amounts of paper and lots of me but it feels as if I have made any real headway. This is clearly going to take time so I shall continue tomorrow.
The evening sees me eat tuna pasta watch a football match and the draft the blog. Not what I had in mind in terms of moving on but I guess all the past stored in the office has to be shifted first, but tomorrow I will have to train before I continue my clear out. Funny how things come together. I hope my shredder holds up and I can be brave enough to keep throwing the past away. Of course there will be somethings that are too precious to loose.
Monday, hopefully the start of a new phase, “Moving On”, its all I can do right now. I’ve successfully rebooted my chemo and so its time to move on and make the most of whatever I can. What better way to start a new phase than to be woken up by my youngest grandson looking bright and curious.
A great way to be woken up.
Having been woken up so wonderfully I get up feeling miles better than yesterday and head down for the the bacon sandwich breakfast. The family chat and play with the youngest grandson. Eventually its time to go home so I pack the car and I my partner and I are soon waving good bye to the family and driving home. For a change I drive home the slow non-motorway way, stopping just once for a comfort break. We get home, have a drink and a bun before I unpack and get into my training gear. Its the last thing I want to do but if this is to be a new phase of moving onwards then I have to make an effort. I go to the garage and get onto the rower and set myself an half hour session. Its tough but I am determined to reach the 6 kilometre standard, and I do.
The evening sessions are always tough but I got my target.
I am pleased I made the effort. Tea follows and then I settle down to draft the blog catch up. It takes a while but I finally get there. From tomorrow the sweets, buns, cakes and my sweet tooth have to go and I need to up my physical activity. Easy to write but this is a new phase, so onwards. Tonight it’s night meds and finger splint time. The dandelion life clock remains the same, as does the desire to spend my time with you.
Saturday and I wake up in the hotel bed and prepare for breakfast by downing my morning meds and climbing into jeans as the weather is cloudy and a bit nippy. My partner and I go to breakfast and dig into the full range while sitting almost alone in one of the dining areas. The staff seem a bit disorientated as one of them did not realise they had two breakfasting rooms. It feels like a continuation of yesterdays comic dining experiences at the hotel. Breakfast was adequate and uneventful apart from my partner nicking someone else’s toast that they had left in the toast, no doubt to locate where the marmalade was. Apart from that all went well.
With the car packed we paid our bill, messaged our daughter that we were arriving imminently and set off on the ten minute drive. We arrived to find the youngest grandson happily playing and appearing to be happy to see us. Having settled in, unpacked and had a snack the family went off to a garden centre that has a huge pond with enormous carp in it. We had a snack and a drink and then bought two bags of fish food so that the youngest grandson could feed the fish. Like all garden centres these days this one had a vast array of other goods, some related to gardens and gardening others to anything that the management think they can get people to buy, so there is a mixture of useful stuff and extraneous crap. We duly explore the centre until we had had enough and the youngest Grandson was showing signs of sleepiness.
We return home and before long there is pie to eat before the small one’s bath and bedtime. We whiled away the evening until it was time for bed, when I went into my usual meds and finger splint routine before trying to settle down. I did not succeed very well and I found myself unsettled and having difficulty sleeping. This sometimes happens on the meds I am on, but eventually I got to drift off in a rather on off sort of way.
Sunday, the 200th day of CHEMO II THE REBOOT, the day I had decided would be the last of this phase of the blog. Two hundred days of a reboot is long enough and it is time for a rethink about where I am at with my continuing fight against my cancer. Its serious stuff and quite complex given the goodness of my arithmetic, vitals and so on and the ups adn downs of of my energy levels according to where I am in both of my medication 28 day cycles. Today the family are going out to a mini railway in the forest that has attractions and activities to do, I have been looking forward to it but I wake feeling absolutely fatigued. I have no energy whatsoever and just want to sleep. I am so frustrated but it would be stupid of me to go out, I would only spoil the family day out so the family go with out me and I end up laying in bed trying to sleep. The problem with this kind of fatigue is that at times it won’t let you sleep, so the brain keeps going but the body stops. Its tricky. I try and capture it in a poem, more a scribble than a poem.
441 Every once in a while my cancer gives me a kicking. This Sunday I lay in bed as family go for a day out. I slept poorly and when I came to look in my cutlery draw of energy it was empty. Not a single spoon to sustain me. There I was thinking things were getting as good as they can get, when this happens. I could weep with frustration . I've no creative juice to come up with a dazzling line or memorable phrase to bury this in another's brain, to touch their soul or tug at their being. It's all flat and prosaic and once again I slump with the thought, "not again". 441 13-04-2025
The family return and eat the crock pot meal that was put in during the morning to have in the evening. Once again the youngest grandson is bathed and bedded before the rest of us watch a film together and then go off to bed. I do not bother with my finger splint as I want to give myself the best opportunity to sleep.
Its Friday and all that there is to do today is travel and indulge in a night in an hotel. So today is easy to do, take my vitals, have a smidgen of breakfast, shower and pack the car. Of course there are some practical bits to add on like checking the tyres, putting petrol in the car and double checking that I have my meds and night finger splint packed. With all this done its time to set off. The resulting journey, being guides by Google Maps turns out to be the longest route ever to the hotel we are staying in. What should have been about a two hour journey turns into a three hour plus one.
We arrive at the hotel and have afternoon tea and scones before even getting to the room that turns out to be an almost mini bungalow. While my partner continues to knit a new hooded jersey for the youngest grandson I work my way through the days crosswords. So the evening arrives and we go to the bar to eat, eschewing the “fine dining” restaurant, we have played that one before, nice surroundings and over priced food, we order our meals and settle down to conversation and, in my case, a small glass of Merlot.
On Sunday the this section of the blog, “CHEMO II THE REBOOT” will reach day two hundred and it feels like that is long enough for a “reboot”. I’ve been on this chemo now for almost two years and I seem to be tolerating it well, I’ve recovered from whatever it was that forced me to abort cycle 16, the toes that I dropped a paving slab on have recovered , my hand has almost recovered completely from the operation to correct the Dupuytren’s Contracture and I am also training again, so it seems to me an opportune time to enter another phase on my prostate cancer journey. It seems to me that it is almost as good as it could get again, not quite perfect by any means but much better. So I think I am going to use Monday to launch a new phase to lose weight and increase my fitness with a view to once again traveling and going abroad. Its a big fight and I will still need my internal visualisation of Rocket fighting because cancer is relentless and I must match it but I need to get on the front foot and get into “Its as good as it gets” mode. Its also time to publish another poetry collection, which I may call “As good as it gets”. All of this I discuss with my partner over dinner. So on Monday look out for the new phase and a new picture of Rocket.
Post dinner I am back in the hotel room and ready to draft the blog while my partner continues to knit. The usual rituals kick in, night medication, donning the finger splint and preparing for sleep, only in a strange room and in a smaller bed. To sleep, perchance to dream.
