Thursday and my first thought is “where is the sunshine” and then I remembered this is England and its May. So I look at the emails and messages and do my vitals before getting up. In a moment of optimism I put on shorts but as soon as I go down stairs I realise this is a mistake. I make breakfast and set about trying to choose which poem I will offer up the Stanza on Saturday. I eventually choose 445, the one that has given me the tittle of the fourth collection in the Cancer Years Series, namely Ordinary Brave.

445

There’s a lot written

about being brave,

lots of slogans

and wise sayings

but none seem to

quite fit.

No one asks to be

Cancer brave,

it’s an unwanted

accolade.

Quietly many men

and their loved ones

get on with things,

each being brave

in their own way.

There is no media fanfare

or out pouring of admiration,

nor is there a rush to do things,

fund raise or join a movement,

just the soft tread through the fear.

If there are tears

they are shed privately

once the mundane is done

and there is a quiet moment

to reflect.

Anger is dissipated

gently, released in gardens,

and in putting things

in order in consideration

of those to be left behind.

It is the resilience unexpectedly

found in the depths

that makes us brave

in ways that can only

be ours.

Ordinary people being

ordinary brave

in ordinary ways

with one eye

on the end of

our days.

                                                  445  02-05-2025

I am happy with my choice and send it off, its a Zoom Stanza this month. There are odd jobs that I do and then its time to take my ailing laptop to the clever people at Curry’s. My partner drives me and I present my laptop to a quiet Australian guy and explain what is happening with it. He tells me what the options are and I go for a complete wipe and re-instillation of the system. Its going to cost me £45 pounds and if it does not work I will get another refurbished one as any further work on the laptop means it has to go away, cost another £50 just to be looked at and then the cost of putting it right, which is very likely to be more than I paid for it.

With my laptop cozy in a repair box I head for boots to by some medicinal cream. They did not have what I was looking for but a possible substitute, how the shop assistant behaved like a medical expert who kept trying to get me to tell her what I wanted it for despite my clear statement that my doctor had prescribed if for me. Nosey cow, a bloody shop assistant expecting me to tell her my medical need and potion usage. In the end I left with my cream and her telling me to read the enclosed leaflet. I get pissed off on two counts, one I have a right to my privacy and secondly I object to being patronised because I’m perceived as older.

My partner and I move onto the gym for, in my case ,a fruit tea and a cookie. I settle in and start to do some life admin. I chase up an application by ring the office only to get a message that the office was now closed and opens Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, I was ringing at 3:13 pm, so someone was wagging it. My partner reappears with her hair cut and we return home. More life admin, another nonsensical letter from HMRC. So a couple of emails need to be sent. Finally there is time to start to draft todays blog. The evening slides towards me as does the second semifinal of Eurovision Song contest. My money is still on Albania. So I am going to have a glass of red wine and put my feet up and be entertained until its time to take my meds and get off to bed. Tomorrow is all about getting ready for the poetry stanza, so there are lots of new poems to read.

Firstly to any one who has been trying to catch up with the blog since Sunday, apologies. I have not been able to get into my website since Monday morning until now, Wednesday evening, so I’ve probably forgotten a lot of stuff over the last couple of days so this is going to be highlights and a nd insight into the trivia that my mind retains.

Monday was bright and sunny and it was a day I had earmarked to train on. So I guess I got up and got into my training gear and headed for the rower in the garage. It was a 45 minute session, I know this because I took my usual photo of the monitor at the end of the session. It appears to have gone okay, not a personal best but okay after a 5 day gap in training.

To be honest the rest of Monday is a bit of a blank apart from the usual round of meds. I know I felt “itchy scratchy” all day and read a lot, in fact I finished Orbit, a short but lovely book that tracks events in the life of astronauts as they orbit the earth 16 times in one earth day, which is in fact what they do. Its a thought provoking book but I loved all the factual small things about living in a space station. I was rather taken with the mice that learned to stop clinging to the bars and let themselves float about, unfortunately all the mice were doomed to be sacrificed for the sake of science, a fast not lost on one of the characters. Once I had finished Orbit I started on Ryka Aoki’s Light from Uncommon Stars a science fiction fantasy novel that has a trans girl at the center of the story. Its an unusual mix of characters but I fear I might be heading for a Disney ending where the trans violinist ends up happy and famous, while her ” sold her soul to the devil” teacher avoids going to hell and the alien that runs a donut shop goes off into space to do other things. I suspect there some of these things to be intermingled. It is when I came to draft the blog that I found I was in real trouble as I could not gain access to the website. There was a lot of trying to get back in with out success so I had to leave it and go to bed disgruntled. One of my big fears is losing the website and the blog it makes me feel cut off and isolated.

Tuesday came around and with it the challenge of trying to retrieve the website. After morning meds I started to try to get into my website. I failed miserable and in the end gave up. So as a way of distracting myself I accompanied my partner to her routine breast screening. On arrival it became apparent that there had been an admin cock up and she was not on the list for the day. After a bit of huffing and puffing (literally) the reception person came back to the desk to say they could fit her in. So I sat in the waiting area wondering if they would contemplate doing mine given my hormonal depletions and consequences but chose to read instead. I know hospitals and had taken a book. Once my partner was called in it was very little reading time later that she reappeared. With the screening done we went for lunch in town.

It was a very pleasant lunch on a bright and sunny afternoon after which we returned home, where I continued my website rescue but it was soon obvious that it was not going to happen. I was not pleased in fact not gruntled at all. Unable to read I got to filling the Hippo Bag with all the crap that needs to go from the garden so that the new storage shed can be sited when it arrives. Pleasingly there is room left for some kitchen crap to go as well. By the time I had finished I was out of spoons and drifted into the evening. Though the day there were highlights like a call from a friend and a message from the book preparation people asking for a video call to discuss my needs. But still no website access. Night meds and bed.

Wednesday and I wake to my partner going off to see her mother having already had a walk around the village. I do my usual pre raising rituals and then I get into my training gear, take my morning meds and then head for the garage and the rower. Today I decide I need to go for an hour session so I get some calming music into my ears and get going. I take it easy to start with and then I build up to a faster final quarter. The session sees me end a very sweaty person and happy to have got through the hour.

I record the session and then shower. I have lunch on the sunny patio with my partner and then return to the website conundrum and unexpectedly it resolves itself. I am very pleased. I notice there are squirrels playing in the garden, they are small and clearly this years kits. My partner point out that the Iris have flowered. These are my grandfathers Iris that he brought from his job at Kew Gardens.

Inspired by the playing squirrels I get out one of the good cameras that I know can take a decent picture or video. After a bit of basic maintenance I get some pictures of one of the squirrels and the flowers.

By the time I’ve sorted camera there is the watering can to mend again. I try soldering it but fail so go back to superglue and see what happens. The evening meal comes around and then I start to draft the blog, while the TV throws out Race Across the world. I am relieved to be able to blog, having lost it for a while made realise how important it is to me. When checking my emails I find one from the Kindle Publishers who supply Amazon, they think I should check my copyright and my registration of it with the USA authority. I have replied that this was all done for me by Writers Clique and do not how to do what they are asking. I will wait to see what happens. For now its meds and bed happy to be back. My tip for Eurovision is Albania.

Sunday and I am up making warm drinks quite early. Sunday is my weigh in day and today I come in at 99.7 kilos, the lightest I have been for a while. I had already designated today a reading day so after some toast I start to read. I have three books that I am reading at the moment. My day starts with finishing the re-read of Terry Pratchetts’s Night Watch. Its a terrific book and one of his books that on occasions make me laugh out loud. A friend once described him as the modern day Johnathon Swift.

As the day goes on I read in between rugby matches and a light lunch. The reading is punctuated by the garden guy coming to mow the lawns and Amazon delivering me new shorts. The two other books I have on the go are Samantha Harveys’s Orbital and Ryka Aoki’s Light from Uncommon Stars. One, Orbital is about a group of people’s experience orbiting the earth the the other is about a deal made by a violinists deal with the devil.

I read and draft the blog once the rugby is over and easy into the evening and a mixture of TV and reading. Tomorrow must be a training day and a day where I try to work through my growing todo list. So having had my lazy Sunday it is back to keeping things organised.

Friday and I wake up and find my partner who is off to the gym. I get up, having taken my vitals and get into my training kit. After a brief breakfast and my morning meds I get into the garden and start to tidy things up. After preparing another flower bed ready for my partner to sow the flower seeds she bought the other day. I am hot and tired when I get back inside the house for a rest, just before the post person delivered a large envelope addressed to my eldest daughter. And then the fun began, the letter was from HMRC.

Yes that is right the delay in responding, which they apologised for, was 76 weeks! What they were demanding was a tax return (self assessment) for the tax year before my sister died! They have sent the letter to the family member who was the executor for my sisters estate, which was wound up 53 weeks ago! Only Her Majesties Revenue and Customs could be so inept, idiotic and ineffectual. But it meant that I and my eldest daughter spent the rest of the day going through the accounts from my sisters estate and talking to HMRC in between emailing and talking to the accountants to who sent the letter to HMRC 76 weeks ago. There are some interesting complexities but as the estate is closed there is no one to complete a tax return, is raises some issues. Can HMRC get dead people to fill in a tax for what is deemed a personal tax liability. Can HMRC collect taxes from dead people? That is called death duties that in this case have all been paid, so is this double jeopardy. After a day of having to drag myself through all my dead sisters papers all over again I am battered and homicidal, I just drag myself into the evening and watch TV until I take my meds and retreat to bed, with a sense that there will be more HMRC nonsense ahead. It feels as if I am stepping into a Kafkaesque world.

Saturday and having put HMRC behind me for at least the weekend I wake up and find my partner still fast asleep. Eventually I get up and like my partner have breakfast, take my meds and get ready to go shopping. Its a raid on Sainsburys, cash from the ATM and a pile of fruit and veg with a smattering of meat. Once home its rugby for me but its interrupted by the arrival of a mystery parcel. When I open it I find an official Lions baseball cap for the coming Lions tour. It can only be from one of my friends, so I message him and send him a picture of me in it.

I watch a rugby match and when its over I swing into cook mode. Tonight I am making Mary Berry’s pork Stroganoff. It goes very well and I make two versions one using soured cream, and as my eldest daughter does not do well with dairy, a white wine version. it goes down well. By the time I have eaten I am knackered and escape to Dr Who ( not impressed so far) and then take to drafting the blog. The evening ends with meds and some reading before putting on the finger splint and settling down.

Thursday and this is the first day of Cycle 25 of my chemo. I started it on the 10th of June 2023 so I am just four weeks and a bit off of being on the Enzalutamide for 2 years. Apparently this is good. Officially this drug is a nonsteroidal antiandrogen that inhibits the binding of testosterone to the androgen receptor. In theory this prevents the testosterone from stimulating the growth of cancer cells. In combination with the 28 day injections of Degarelix it seems be holding my metastatic prostate cancer at bay. The Degarelix is a hormone therapy, it is a gonadotropin -releasing hormone (GnRH)that works by preventing the pituitary gland from producing GnRH. It is GnRH that stimulates the testicles to produce testosterone, so by blocking it, Degarelix lowers testosterone levels in the body, which is also supposed to slow or stop the growth of prostate cancer that rely on testosterone.

Of course there are down sides to both these drugs. The list of common and possible side effects is huge but mostly fatigue, which is not surprising if I have no, or next to no, testosterone. Yet my oncologist keeps telling me that hard exercise is the best way to counter the side effects of the drugs. A neat catch 22. No testosterone so train hard! Bastard. But it explains why I continue to clamber on to the rowing machine and try to work up reasonable sweat. But not today, while my my partner is out for a walk with an old work colleague I plan to attack the garden, clear the access to the compost bin and remove the unsightly and falling apart green plastic greenhouse. First there is a fried egg sandwich to be eaten and morning meds to be had. Thursdays is the addition of my vitamin D tablet. Soon I shall rattle with all the pills I take.

Having clambered into my work trousers and got my feet into my “steely” boots I hit the garden and start to raise the skirts of the fir trees and clear the path to the composting heap in it is wooden crate. With that done I can prepare the top bed for my partner to start sowing a wild flower bed. As my partner returns form her walk I start to take down the old and shabby plastic green house. She joins in and fairly soon we have it down and bagged ready to go into the Hippo bag. By the time I’ve organised what is to go into the Hippo bag, what needs keeping till the new storage shed arrives and what is rubbish I am verging on the knackered. The last thing to do is put all the tools away and divest myself of my working clothes. Finally I can sit down and down a Red Bull and a Crunchie.

With everything away I take to the sofa and check my emails. I pay the deposit on the new garden storage unit that’s been ordered and I also get a response from the a publishing support organisation that I contacted. They are coming back to me next week, it would be nice to have a UK based support team rather than the Americans, but I guess there could be a down side. The Americans just wanted my money and were prepared to deliver for it, the Brits might be a bit more “fluffy”, we shall see.

So I head into the evening feeling pleased I’ve cleared the garden but also feeling that there are things I need to do, however I am tired an its a football night, so I shall watch a game and get an early night as tomorrow I shall be filling a Hippo bag and continuing to shape the garden, which means some rock moving. I also need to train, remember the testosterone and the chemo affects, that’s where the fight is.

Wednesday and I wake up after a decent nights sleep. My partner brought me a hot water and then left to see her mother with her brother. I took my vitals, which were good so I got up and in a fit of optimism donned my training kit. Before making my way to the garage I take my morning meds. I strap onto the rower and decide after yesterdays efforts to go for a thirty minute session. I go for it, in the sense that I start off hard and try to maintain it for as long as possible. The result is that by the end of the session I have achieved a personal best. I am surprised but feel chuffed by the experience.

I record the session full of self congratulations and then tuck into toast and Lucazade. Having recovered from the row I shower and freshen up. By the time I am sparkling fresh my partner has returned just in time to see me drive off to the chiropodist. Arriving at the chiropodist I settle into the chair and de sock myself. What follows is some polite chit chat as my feet are pampered and all my troubled nails are put back into working order for the next two months. At the end of the session my feet feel joyous and I pay, book my next session and then literally skip out of the chiropodist.

Once home I offer to take my partner for a coffee at the revamped garden center close to us. We arrive and order scones and drinks and then spend time looking at the revamped facilities. When we had finished we wandered round the place selecting packets of seeds and looking for inspiration in the food freezers. Back at home I feel I am running out of spoons (energy) and settle down to listen to Meet David Sedaris interrupted only briefly to help change the bed linen. I also respond to a message from a friend who was resting after a “procedure” yesterday. I of course wished him well and hoped he had whiskey to drink and idly ask what the “procedure” was. His reply was one of those that makes one wince. So having retired my friend is now facing recovering from circumcision! I will of course be sending him erotic literature!

I start to draft the blog knowing that tonight I shall watch a crucial football match and then strive to have an early night as tomorrow I hope to write letters. I mentioned yesterday that a friends daughter did a charity run for cancer with my name on her back. On the back of this I wrote a brief poem, which I share here.

446
Her mothers asked her 
"do you want to put a name
on your bib?"
They explained it could be,
a charity,
a person,
an organisation. 
Her reply was,
"Roland, how do you spell it?"
I saw the photo
before she set off
on the muddy race.
This ten year old
made me speechless
and humble,
by her spontaneous thought.
I've never been run for before,
and maybe never again,
but  in that moment,
I never felt so grateful
and touched beyond words.
Cancer like poetry
reaches out unexpectedly
and finds compassion.

                                                               446   06-05-2025

Tuesday and the excitement of the Bank Holiday weekend is over, it means I have to get back to training and being active, however apart from training my days “to do” list look more “adminy” than active. So after making my partner a cup of tea in bed and doing my vitals, reasonably good, I get up, take my morning meds and head for the garage and the rowing machine. There can be no compromise today it has to be an hours row, so I set the session up and get underway with my ear buds in and radio two playing. Its a very tough session indeed, my body really does not want to do this with the result that the final outcome is not up to par but will have to do for the day.

I record the session and make myself breakfast and notice my partner has got the incinerator out in the garden and is burning documents. No complaints from the neighbors today. I join her in the garden and we walk around it looking at what has come up and what work needs to be done, I explain my plans for the new shed. I’ve already researched racking and floor covering for it. After a quick lunch I move onto the main challenge of the day, mending my laptop. Its taking me hours, I’ve run tests on the hard drive and the memory and they are all tickerty boo, so it has to be the BIOS system and when I get the dreaded error code that tells me my system is corrupted at the point of loading I know I am in trouble.

I finally get to the point where I have to reinstall Windows from a software USB stick. Its going to take ages to do this as it has to create a file called “Old Windows”, so things could still go wrong. My guess is that this is going to take hours so I start to draft todays blog and plan a shower and other activities while the small note book grids its way to instillation. There is no guarantee that this process will work, patience is the watch word.

Bank Holiday Monday and there are just two things to say about today. Firstly it started with the surprise of bacon sandwiches in. What a luxury and a great way to start the day. Secondly, I’ve ordered a a new garden shed. This is great, its custom made, the size and design I wanted. Having driven to the garden center where the suppliers are based it was great to sit with the supplier and get down to business and cost exactly what I wanted. The bonus? a bloke came out to us by 5 o’clock to do the survey and confirm the details, what service. Now I have to wait while they build it, paint it and then come and install it. Even better they are going to take both of my old sheds away for the price of one! This is the start of Phase Two of the garden development, which I thought I would have trouble getting off the ground. This all comes from having a conversation with our neighbors yesterday while walking round the village VE day event. Its clearly good to talk.

On the down side I am trying to mend my other laptop which refuses to load, so i am running diagnostics and recovery programmer but will probably have to factory reset it. Hopefully my external drive has captured all my files. I can feel I have run out of spoons (energy) so this is where I leave the blog today knowing that I have night meds, finger splint and scar massage to look forwards to. Tomorrow there is much to do including more work on the poetry collection.

Sunday and I wake to a sunny day and my partner reading. After a bit of time I get up and warm drinks. After breakfast and the morning meds my partner and I wander into the village to look at the VE day celebrations. There were several displays of various aspects of 40’s life.

After much wanderings my partner and I return home where we have a late lunch and I rest by watching a football match. With the match at an end I return to drafting my partners family tree. During this time my laptop is trying to repair itself, a long and tedious process, which I doubt will be successful. As I work through the information that I have on the family tree I get a message from a friend that her daughter has completed her “muddy run” for charity in support of Cancer research. She had put my name on her bib as supporting someone she knows has cancer. I am very touched by the thoughtfulness. It is a complete surprise. I continue to fill out the family tree until I finally get to the point of where I run out of data and all that I can do is literally draw the connecting lines in. By then its time for tea and the family eat together.

I slide into the evening popping into to see how my laptop is doing but the screen is not changing so while Black Snow is running in the background I start to draft the blog. It is soon time to take my night meds, strap on my finger splint and try to get a nights sleep.

Saturday and I wake up in a groggy state and not sure why but I knew that this was going to be a low energy day. My partner brings me my usual hot water to drink and then goes to the gym. I listen to part of Meet David Serdaris before taking my vials, that are okay, but not optimal. Eventually I get up and make toast and try to pull myself together.

In order to be active I get all the materials and tools together to up grade the handrail on the patio. Its a small and doable job that I feel I can manage. So I am in the garden sanding down the handrail and then applying the wood filler. It begins to set quickly but I leave it to set fully and watch the first half of the early football match. At half time I return to the handrail and rub it down and then apply a coat of furniture varnish. By now my partner has returned and is pottering around. Having watched the second half of the football match and downed some paracetamol I return to the handrail to check that it is drying well. I’m pleased with the out come and then join my partner planting the last remaining plants that are waiting for a place in the garden and the swathe of pots that are part of the garden. With the plant in new positions I have a look around the garden and mentally note all the work that needs to be done. There is a lot of weeding to be done. While planting the plants my partner uprooted two horse chestnut trees that had rooted from conkers buried by the squirrel last autumn. I have planted them next to oak tree that was also curtesy of the squirrel planting an acorn. So at the end of the garden there is the start of a small forest to augment and eventually replace the ageing fir trees at the end of the garden. They will be big but that won’t be my problem but they will be a brilliant screen from the houses over the back.

I am now out of spoons (energy) and retreat to the recliner to rest and watch the football results come in on the last day of the championship. My partner and eldest daughter go for an ice cream at the village heritage V E celebrations. With the relegations and promotions sorted out I take to drafting the blog, followed by some up grading of my partners family tree.

The evening is TV and other stuff, which I cruise through, I’ve not the energy to do anything else but I have a mental “to do” list which I keep visiting. Its a dissatisfying place to be and all I can hope is that tomorrow I have more energy and I can train and go and explore the village festivities. Its one of those “itchy and scratchy” times with little energy and a lot of frustration.