Sunday, and I try to get up and about to be able to see my youngest grandson before he and his mother leave for home. I just fulfil this before they leave. I spend a large part of the day on the recliner in the lounge watching endless Poirot reruns until there is football to watch. By the time the football ends and sees Scotland crash out of the competition to a last kick of the game goal I am spoonless and retreat to bed. I go thorough my now familiar night routines of fitting a night bag, taking my meds and settling down early knowing that at some point in the night I will take more co-codamol to aid my sleep. This is what happens.

Monday and its 28 day injection day, which means I have to make it to the GP surgery by 9am. I am on a mission. With what energy I have I get up, take my meds and sort out my night catheter bag then comes the big challenge, having a shower. I remove the restraining straps and and get myself into the shower, slowly and carefully. I am fully oiled up with the anti bacterial shower gel the hospital supplied when the shower stops working and flashes LP at me, meaning the water pressure is low. This happens if the mains water is run somewhere in the house. The LP sign persists and in the end I go to the down stairs shower, fed by a hot water tank and not the mains to finish my shower noting that the washing machine is on, hence the LP in the other shower. The whole process is knackering.

Eventually I finish my shower and get back up stairs to change into my going to the doctors clothes. I choose training undergarments from my gym kit as they provide the right support and means of hiding my pipe work. With these and a little gymnasts self adhesive strapping I am able to get mobile under some normal clothes. There is time for toast and water before my partner drives me to the surgery, where I book in and gingerly take a seat. When the nurse calls me I have to get my partner to give me a hand to get off the chair and walk with a very nautical gait to the nurses room. I am soon jabbed with my 28 day regular injection and as an added bonus today I get my three monthly B12 jab in the arm. Then its home. I not that the mock orange is now in full bloom and smelling sweetly in the warm sunshine.

I nap for an hour to recover from the mornings efforts and then I start to do admin. There are numbers to ring to follow upon my TWOC (Trial Without Catheter and not as I always knew it: Taking Without Owners Consent, the most common car thieving offence). The trail of numbers that I call eventually leads me to an answer phone service where I leave my details and enquiry, they say they will get back to me, I wonder if they will. I move onto prodding the Hippo Bag company to come and collect the waiting Hippo Bag that they said would be gone by now. I chat to the chat bot who promises to email me back, at least I can see my collection is still pending on my account. With lunch time looming the post man arrives with my quarterly Poetry Review to be quickly followed by another delivery man. The late brings a surprise. A fathers day present from my youngest daughter and her son. Its a zip through hoodie with a photograph outline of me and my youngest grandson cuddled up together on the sofa with a message embroidered on the sleeve. I love it instantly and message my youngest daughter to say so.

Lunch time arrives and its time to do my routine comfort making process before a bite to eat. I eat lunch on the patio with my partner and do the crosswords but after a while I feel uncomfortable and return to the house. I retreat to bed to doze, which I do fitfully and as the afternoon continues my usual post 28 jab pain starts to kick in. I try to relax though it but eventually I resort to co-codamol. As I wait for for the pain killer to kick in I revisit the blog and note I have have had no response from either the TWOC clinic message line or the Hippo Bag chat bot with its promise of an email. I’m tired and feel myself loosing energy all the time. This is all I shall manage on the blog today, I need to rest and get myself comfortable and pain free. It could be a long evening and night, perhaps there is poetry in there, it feels beyond me at the moment.

Friday, was a day of joy as I got to see my youngest grandson for a while, blow him bubbles in the sunshine on the new patio. The rest of the day I spent managing myself and watching football. Its not exciting but it is a phase I need to get through. My world has become more confined so less interesting, so feeding my head has become more of a tricky task. Thankfully I have found Radio 4 and 3 again, with gems like the News Quiz and the afternoon concert.

Saturday and after a night of co-codamol sleep I surface and drop into my self maintenance routine. I am getting listless and want to get rid of this damn catheter as soon as possible. I distinctly remember being told I would get a letter with an appointment to go back to have my catheter out in a weeks time but as yet no letter has arrived. I suspect I will be ring the ward at some point soon. Of course Monday is my regular 28 day injection day, which is booked in with my usual organisation. So there is going to be some juggling to be done. It would seem that life has a quirky way of finding new ways of making life just a bit more difficult, to whit I discover whilst having breakfast that I have a filling that has disappeared. Whatever the process is, it has impeccable timing. By lunch time I am organised enough to think about getting up and having some sunshine patio time.

The afternoon is taken up with lounging and managing myself while the garden guy mows grass and puts pots back in place. My youngest grandson plays with the family until his early bedtime. About the same time I retreat to the spare room to rest and watch the final football game of he day, then its my new bedtime rituals, night meds and an early night. I am going from hour to hour trying to keep myself comfortable and pain free. As always tonight I will hope for sleep and assist it at some point with co-codamol. I realise the blog is hardly up lifting at the moment but it reflects the grind that things are at the moment. I keep telling myself that this will pass, I really hope it does.

Thursday and I wake early after a patchy night but at least my catheter management is back on track. I spend time just trying to snooze before I get up and get my breakfast, which I take back to bed. I get myself organised gradually surrounding myself with the things I need to keep occupied for the day. I am still feeling exceedingly groggy and lack any real appetite so I doze and begin to do some of my ritual things. I do my vitals and find they are still good, to my surprise. I start to prep for the blog. My morning passes till I get to football time and the early match. Of course I watch and before the England match I download some of the pictures I took at the hospital.

Now too tired to write any more, all I want is sleep.

Tuesday and I have survived an horrendous night, thankfully there was morphine and some drifting sleep. I was woken at about 7:30 for my vitals to be taken by an apologetic but kindly nurse. All around me were men like me laying in beds and trying to rest and deal with their particular package of woe. The guy opposite to me was desperate to leave but had talked in his sleep all night and every time he fell asleep again began to talk again. Others like me were desperate to sleep and to be able to leave. I get offered breakfast from a trolley and select cornflakes and a yoghurt as it is all I can face. Not long after a crew arrive to make my bed, which I was grumpy about as it was changed at 3am. not long after 8am the consultant does his ward round and is surprised that I did not have a catheter put in during my operation but the bottom line is that I can go home once the paper work is done, which will be by 4 o’clock in the afternoon. I try to sleep but hospitals are noisy places and I drift in and out with a real post morphine downer and I feel absolutely exhausted. I do manage chilli concarni for lunch and another yoghurt. My vitals are checked several times adn to my surprise they are all spot on. Spot on is definitely not how I felt. All day at regular intervals a nurse comes and empties my catheter bag and records my output. One nurse comes and gives me a lesson on catheter maintenance and another delivers me a bag of bags to see me through the coming week before they have me back in to take my catheter out. My partner has not been well but she arrives at about 4 o’clock, all I need is my release papers and as luck would have it they arrive quickly and I am able to leave. My partner drives me home and I try to rest. There is football to watch but I am exhausted and distracted but I have to sort out my medications and get to grips to sleeping a full night with my catheter. I take myself to bed and hope for sleep.

Wednesday and I wake up after a better nights sleep, I seem to have managed myself quite well. I sleep as much as possible before getting up for breakfast on the patio with my partner and then my eldest daughter. My eldest daughter and I chat for a while before I retreat to the recliner in the lounge. I’m so tired I doze for long periods of time while my partner and eldest daughter go out for a while. I am drinking water and my biggest challenge is over coming the constipation that the morphine induces. I doze and doze making myself comfortable from time to time. I watch a football match, eat pizza and then draft the blog before watching Scotland play football. Its going to take me a couple of days to get myself fully organised and begin to feel better but for now I will settle for sleep and not needing to take any pain relief. Today is the fifth anniversary of my prostate cancer diagnosis. I’m still here, still fighting and still Rocket and I battle the cancer, now that my bladder stone is no more there is hope I can keep fighting for longer.

DAY FROM HELL. BLADDER STONE REMOVAL ALSO KNOW AS ULURU’S REVENGE.

ITS BEING A BASTARD OF A NIGHT.

AND NOW iTS A MIDNIGHT CATHERTER., FAILED

3 O”CLOCK SURGEON AND CAMERA FINALLY GET CATHERTER IN. 4AM MORPHINE

EXHAUSTED, BUT SLEEPING AT LAST.

ALWAYS

Saturday, It was mostly football and preparing myself for my Monday operation. The preparation being the anti bacterial regime I’m doing of a pre shower body wash and a nasal gunk three times a day. As for the rest of the day I tinkered, moving the olive trees in their pots to their new positions at the front of the house and trying to get an old phone to work so that I do not have to take my good phone into hospital with me. Of course I have forgotten my unforgettable security number to unlock my old phone so I think I am doomed to failure there. After an evening of football and brain rotting S.W.A.T. I took my meds and head for bed once I had cleared the kitchen.

Sunday, its fathers day and I have slept in till late, I seem to have slept deeply last night, perhaps its the antibacterial nasal gunk I m shoving up my nose before going into hospital tomorrow I’ve no idea really. However today is fathers day and my son in Sweden has sent me a much appreciated box of chocolate bars and a lovely card signed by him and my Swedish grandchildren. There is also a lovely card from my youngest daughter that has a montage of four lovely photos of me with my youngest daughter and grand son, I am really touched by it, it is thoughtful and contains very good memories, especially the picture of me holding my newly born grandson for he first time. It lifts me just at the time I need it. My eldest daughter has also presented me with the wonderful gift of a new Japanese Acer tree, a dark variety which I shall find a special pot for and a place of pride in the newly organised garden. I feel loved and thought about and honoured that they have taken time to give me such thoughtful gifts.

Having breakfasted and taken my meds along with my anti bacterial stuff I set down to draft the blog to cover both yesterday and today so far. The sun shines and I have a number of things to attempt today, which include trying to fill the Hippo bag and more importantly packing and readying myself for tomorrows operation. That all important overnight bag has to have my essentials in it and enough for one or two possible nights in hospital. I am of course anxious but my vitals do not show that. I down a prophylactic pain killer (or am I addicted) and begin my tasks.

I set about filling the Hippo bag and it is clear early on that I will not get everything on my list into the bag so I go for the rubbish and broken things that are making the garden look a mess. Its hot and sweaty work, I’ve not put in this kind of physical effort for a while. I find that this is heavy on my spoons and I am soon finding the going hard. Eventually I have filled the Hippo bag and covered it over and tied off the lifting loops. All I can do now is tidy some garden stuff away and use the newly available shed space. With that done I retreat to the recliner in fresh lounge clothes to drink a lot of water and check what Amazon have bought me. The heavy physical effort has taken its toll and when I go for a piss there is a trace of blood but nothing that alarms me. I just drink a lot of fluid knowing that it will pass over the next few hours. I eat lunch and watch football while my new very cheap pay as you go phone charges up, I am hoping not to take my smart phone into hospital with me. I have lunch and book the Hippo bag to be collected while the phone charges. As the football trundles on I return to drafting the blog and making a mental list of what to take into hospital with me. The rest of the day is predestined for me. I will pack my overnight bag, shower, watch the England game and go to bed early in anticipation of my early start in the morning and the nil by mouth period prior to my operation. So I maybe quiet for a while. I will see you on the other side as the dialysis nurses used to say as they waved me off in the ambulance in Jamaica.

Its Friday the 14th of June and exactly 365 days since I started my current form of chemo, so I have to acknowledge that this form of Chemo has been successful in containing my cancer and reducing my PSA. In the scheme of things this is a good result, so today is an important day and a day to celebrate.

On a more here and now issue today is the day my pre operation assessment takes place. Before I get up I check my vitals and spend sometime organising myself for the day. Of course as I am going to be seeing the medical profession later in the day I get into the shower and wash my ever lengthening locks and contemplate what is reasonable to wear, its a tricky balance between feeling comfortable and not looking like some one who has lost all sense of decorum. In the end I settle for jeans and T shirt with a classy fleece jacket. I have breakfast and do some meds admin until it is time to do the drive to the hospital. My partner drove me as I had taken a pre-emptive co-codamol.

The wait to be seen was not that long and I was soon called in accompanied by my partner. It turns out all is good, and I have a strong heart and my vitals are good. There is one surprise, my height. I have managed to lose almost two inches in height. I come in at five feet nine inches, that’s at least an inch and a half short than my mature adult height. So a sure sign that age has taken its toll, it is never the less a bit of a shock, so its thick socks and Cuban heels for me from now on. I see two nurses, one to do the measurements adn one to take me through the process. I am dispensed an anti bacteria body wash to use between now and the operation along with an anti bacterial ointment to shove up my nose three times a day. So having been measured and briefed I am sent off home. My partner drives me while I take in all the information I have been given.

Once home I settle back to draft the blog and to prepare to watch the opening game of the European football championships. Traditional fish and chips fortify me for watching Scotland get thrashed by Germany. I while away the evening and stay up late to watch a film before finally taking my night meds and going off to bed. I am very tired after the days exertions Now it is all about preparation and rest for the early start on Monday when I check in at 7 o’clock to the pre-theatre ward. I am of course anxious but I am hoping that I can soon return to training and get rid of some of the blubber that I have accrued over the past six months.

Thursday and I wake up after a peaceful night which had vivid dreams in it. Comforting dreams, which was good, so I woke up feeling I had had a good nights sleep. I was not eager to get out of bed and allowed myself to rest until late into the morning. It feels as if I am better at the moment when I am horizontal. Uluru (bladder stone) seems to be okay at night and when I am laid flat but begins to produce symptoms when I get vertical and the day wears on. I check my vitals, which are good and then check my messages and social media. There is the final invoice for the work the builder badgers have done so I get that paid via internet banking and then amuse myself watching some Mock the Week, Scenes We Would Like to See. At last I get up.

Breakfast is late which means so are my morning meds, after which I spend time on Moonpig sending some cards. With noon whizzing by I start to draft the blog and think about about my afternoon and organising myself to g to the hospital tomorrow for my pre operation assessment. My guess, my hope is that I am just going to answer a lot of questions, the same ones as I answered on my electronic pre op questionnaire. They will probably want blood and urine samples and to see if I can stand up from a seated position and have capacity to sign a consent form they will not want me to read properly. I will be interested to see how they present the catalogue of things that can go wrong all of which of course will be my fault if I consent to the operation.

My afternoon passes and somehow slides into a Stars Wars film and the Post Office enquiry where a clearly slimy solicitor who was involved in the Post Office strategy to minimize the post master scandal was being grilled. What I could not resist was the fact that he worked for Womble, Bond and Dickson, now that you could not make up. There are people out there called Womble and they are lawyers! The Force in full flow the evening arrives and as it is Thursday my partner does her singing lesson while I draft the blog and settle down to the most restful evening I can manage. My best outcome for this evening is to get my meds down me and to get a good night sleep, tomorrow is going to be demanding and I suspect a little distressing.

Wednesday and I appear to have slept reasonably well last night. I’m in no rush to get up so take my vitals (all good), check my messages and social media and watch a couple of YouTube videos. My partner brings me my morning hot water before I get up for breakfast and my morning meds. I am feeling shaky and I can already feel Uluru (bladder stone) making its presence felt. Having just settled down on the recliner the builder badgers arrive to fit the new side gate and the hand rails to the patio steps. They seem to be as chipper as ever so I set them off to work with the now ritual cups of coffee. Feeling slightly off my game I return to the sofa and an early start on drafting the blog. There are some decisions to be made about our front gates with regard to split, 50/50 or 66/33, as my partner points out it makes a difference when getting the cars in or out of the drive. Potential to make a school person error here.

The “tree man” Eddie is popping in later today to discuss stump grinding, hedge trimming and tree maintenance so I need to be on my game later today. I have still not worked up the courage to send the book links to Radio 2 even though I now have a WhatsApp group with them, although a friend asks what have I got to loose I still feel uneasy about doing it just in case someone actually responded. I shall think it over.

The builder badgers get to work and after a while they are completed. The new hand rail for the patio is in place and the new side way gate is in position. The project is almost done. I talk to the badgers and tell them which gates I want for the front drive so that they can order them for me and fit them in due course when they are delivered from the makers. For now its time to clear up the garden and get reorganised.

Having waved farewell to the build badgers I return to the sofa and spend time doing some economic home admin and planning for the future. My sums are just completed when the tree man arrives to look at the work that the garden requires. He is getting to be a regular visitor and was the person who recommended the badgers to us. We stroll the garden and identify the work required. Apparently there is nothing that poses a problem and it can all be done in one day. He departs saying he will send me a price over the next couple of days. So all that leaves me now is to find some muscle for a day to clear the garden of the things destined for the waiting Hippo Bag.

The evening starts when my partner returns home from visiting her mother. We eat and then drift into the evening. I am not feeling that well so I am content just to get through the evening to the point I can take my meds and get to bed. I am working my way towards Fridays pre operation assessment one step, one day at a time.

Tuesday and I wake up in the spare bed as I feared I would not sleep last night. It was an okay night. My partner goes off to work and I change beds and take my vitals, all good, before getting up for breakfast. Immediately I can feel my cystitis like symptoms starting and immediately take my meds and another cystopurin and retreat to the recliner. To keep myself busy I send the link to my to new books to friends and family and toy with the idea of sending them to Radio 2, but as yet I have lacked the courage not wanting any contact while I am feeling the way I am. With that done I record to new YouTube videos to get my new poetry collections “out there”. They will only reach a hand full of people but that is life.

My videos go live at noon and so I include them here. I think I have included at least one of these in printed format in the blog before. As I wait for noon I clear the kitchen in anticipation of the Tesco delivery between 2 and 3pm today and then retreat to the recliner and down some co-codamol as my cystitis like symptoms increase during the morning. My intention is to sit tight for as long as possible and just try to relax, read and stay still.

In the afternoon my eldest daughter goes for a walk and of course Tesco deliver, so I hump the crates in and then squirrel all of the goodies away. I have run out of spoons (energy) and take to the recliner again as I attempt to rest. I spend the afternoon trying to keep my head busy and watching some random TV including the new Star Wars series The Acolyte. Just as my partner returns from work a friend rings and we have a chat about how we are. Once again her employer is failing to understand the implications of having long COVID, in particular the difference between travel for work purposes and private domestic trips. It is good to hear from her and to talk to someone outside the household. Tea is eaten not long afterwards and I return to drafting the blog. Apart from the Great British Sewing Bee there is very little I want to watch so I expect that I shall return to S.W.A.T as a means of escape before I get to night meds time and the hope that I can get a good nights sleep.