Its Friday, I’m no longer in the chemo rechallenge. After breakfast I go to the garden to think about where I am and what this time is. Being me I end up writing something like poetry.

548
Day 1, what is this?
sitting on a swing
listening to the Stones,
a whining harmonica.
My Stratocaster mute
waiting on a jack plug,
I do not know what this is.
The chemo challenge is over,
no new intervention,
no cancer weapon deployed.
I'm in the trenches
waiting for the enemy 
to advance, and advance it will.
So here I am
asking what is this?
Me time?
Quality of life time?
Palliative care?
I don't think I've been told
to fuck off and die,
I know there is a sister drug
that can toxically be tried,
so what is this?
I am bemused by this space,
this hesitation in life
as if I've developed a being stutter,
not sure of my life words,
my feelings or what to do.
This has the air of danger,
too easy to slip into
casual acceptance of sloth
and forget that this is a fight ,
its all out warfare for my life.
Is this the Christmas football game 
across the trenches?
What is this?
This started as a list,
a random jotting
to try and find 
a new name for the blog
and here I am doing poetry.
I still do not know,
what is this?

                                                             458 24-07-2026

I’m in a strange place but I listen to music, read the meters and submit their numbers. I respond to a quote, order shredding bags and a birthday cake for my eldest daughter. I start to make a shepherds pie until thwarted by the lack of viable potatoes and start to draft the blog. My new head phone jacks arrive and I await my chance to fire up the Stratocaster and the Peavey amplifier. So I slide into a Friday evening not quite sure where I am in my journey. It feels like I need a plan and all I’ve got at the moment is an inkling to start training again and tapering off my steroids. Maye that should be enough right now and the rest be played by ear.

Thursday the 23rd of July, the last day of my chemo rechallenge. Its over, done with and I enter a new era and the challenge of finding a new heading for the blog. Suggestions welcome. It means no more chemo for a while, no interventions, just blood monitoring. It also means no more children’s toothbrushes, its back to the power tool.

I finally get up after drinking my morning hot water, checking my social media and news feeds. I take my vitals, but I am not really interested, I do it for completions sake. My blood pressure is okay as is my heart rate so everything is tickety boo. I shower and then then search the pantry for muesli but find none, so its toast and marmalade for me. I take my meds but as yet I’ve not adjusted my steroids yet to start the tapering process, I intend to do that on Tuesday next when I refill my dosettes. Need to keep some routines. A friend rings as she is on her way to do the shopping prior to traveling on holiday tomorrow. She is looking forward to her family holiday and the chance to rest and recover by the seaside. Its an exciting time but there are the holiday chores to do like packing the car and organising the travel snacks. After the call I have a long conversation with my eldest daughter about the official secrets act and what that means for research. I move on to booking a Tesco slot before a guy from the house alarm calls me and discuss an upgrade to my system. I eagerly await a quote.

By now I am hungry as is my eldest daughter so its timely when my partner returns from having her hair done and I suggest we go to Pesto for a good lunch. We arrive to a quite restaurant and settle in to a prolonged late lunch. It is a celebration of doctoral completion, chemo challenge completion and successful hair artistry. Of course when it gets to the pudding menu I immediately know its Affogato for me with an additional shot of Amaretto, well why not, fuck it, what have I got to lose other than everything. I pay the bill and we drive home. My next task is to get a quote form a local shredding company to get rid of all my eldest daughters PhD notes and all my old confidential papers lurching in my “must shred” box and the boxes in the loft stuffed with old assessments and reviews. With the prosaic done I take a photo of my chemo challenge tooth brushes and start the draft of todays blog.

With the draft done I head for the garden to see how it is going and then uncase the Stratocaster and tune it up and try to remember what all the knobs do on the Peavey amplifier. I am a crap guitarist but on occasions its nice to hit a few chords and pretend I can play blues in all its distorted forms the amplifier can produce. The rest of the evening is any bodies guess but I don’t care really, tomorrow I start a new era in my Cancer Years adventure and I am not sure I can afford to care too much about the future. It all ends up in the same place, the question is which path is them most fun.

Wednesday and I wake after a reasonable nights sleep having watched the History Boys before going to bed late. My injection site from Monday is still swollen and sore so I am in discomfort when I move around. My partner brings me a hot water and I finally get up, having sent several emails. I am pleased to say that the person who wrote the Forward to the last poetry anthology has agreed to write one for the new poetry collection, which is very pleasing. I try and tidy up the growing pile of “stuff” on the lounge coffee table but I get interrupted by a phone call from the oncology team. My expected time is in the afternoon but the woman explains she is starting the phone calls early. Well that’s alright then, clearly the nhs does not expect its cancer patients to be doing anything other than hanging around waiting for the team to call. Clearly any appointment time that is sent out is now variable by at least five hours.

The conversation was quite odd. It seemed that the expectation was that I was going to go for cycle 10 and she seemed taken aback when I said that as the intervention had stopped working that I was not going to do Cycle 10. I pointed out there was no point in doing cycle 10 if the intervention had stopped working. So we talked about PSA levels and the progress that I had made but that for me the logic was in the arithmetic. She eventually agreed with me and said that she would send me blood forms and a new date for four weeks time. I raised the issue of tapering off the steroids. Her first response was to cut down to one a day for a week and then end them. when I pointed out how long I had been on them she changed it to two weeks and then stop. I have no faith whatsoever that she knew what she was talking about. I shall read more and research the tapering process and see what the literature says before I do anything else. Then it was over. So tomorrow is the last of the 21 days of the cycle 9 and will be the end of my chemo rechallenge. It will have lasted 220 days plus a 14 day holiday between cycles 7 and 8. Over that time I have reduced my PSA by 69.9%. All that matters now is the rate of rise in my PSA from here on in.

My partner makes me a fried egg sandwich to go with my orange juice and morning meds after which I start to draft the blog for the day. While doing this my eldest daughter returns home from the physio asking how many graduation day tickets we want. So if all goes well I will be seeing my eldest daughter be presented with her doctorate in early September.

The rest of my day is spent lunching with my partner and planting newly acquired plants into the garden before spending the evening watching the most appalling juvenile film until my partner retuned from the theatre. I take my night meds and go to bed. Tomorrow is officially the last day of my chemo rechallenge.

Tuesday and its been a rabid night, my injection site is very sore and tender I got up at 5am to take paracetamol again and clearly passed out till 11:15am. I came to feeling shit and sore. It takes a while for me to get up and get breakfast (more an early lunch) and take my meds. After the disappointment of the blood results last night I am feeling flat and deflated. I’m not sure where my next move is. I know that cycle 10 is out the window and that the oncologist will just want to monitor me for three months and tell me to fuck off and have a nice summer.

I spend time sending the additional poems and manuscript stuff to the editors at Rulers Wit to complete the manuscript for the new poetry collection. Later in the day I ask the person who wrote the Forward for the Man to Man anthology to write the Forward for The Rechallenge. My partner returns from the gym and has lunch after which we drive to a distant garden centre to collect a new hand bag ensemble that my partner has ordered. It is identical to the one she has and reordered one because it has been so successful and functional. Just like buying the same brand of underpants because they are comfortable. I am wearing my new Wildhearts T shirt, a gift from my eldest daughter who went to one of their gigs last night. While sipping diet coke and forking a coffee and walnut bun into my mouth we chat about my blood results and that the Chemo Rechallenge has come to an end. We both know that there will be no intervention beyond weaning me off the steroids for at least three months so we decide to investigate a short break away at a Spa. We drive home and I set about booking a Spa break. Mission complete. In early August we will be Spa ensconced and being rubbed down with oily rags and dining on, hopefully, robust food.

The evening arrives, I’m not hungry so it turns into a FFY (Fend For Yourself) evening. Apart from the Great British Sewing Bee and The History boys there is sod all on TV so I might just get the Stratocaster out and see if my fingers still work on a guitar. It all depends if I can find my Roland headphones. After my crap night last night I shall head to bed early having taken my meds knowing that tomorrow is the last of the Chemo Challenge and that my oncology review is going to be a disappointment, at least I can negotiate a tapering off of my steroids. I think I’m tottering on the brink of just saying “Fuck it”.

Monday, I am up early to make breakfast and take my morning meds as my partner goes to the gym. I take my car to he garage and run it through the car wash and check the tyres. Having topped up the tank I drive home for a quick change of clothes. At lunch time I go to the GP surgery and have my 28 day jab, a B12 jab and a set of bloods taken. The nurse had to have two goes at getting my blood with aa result that I have a hole in each arm.

A quick trip the garden centre for a bacon roll and a diet coke along with my partner and eldest daughter. Of course we came away with another plant which I planted up later in the garden. A friend rings me and we chat for a while about holiday experiences and how our families are. it was good to catch up and exchange news. Into the evening I take paracetamol to dampen the injection soreness. There is a meal and two Spiderman films before my blood results come through, which I caste up into a grid.

My PSA has risen slightly, that’s no good. There will be no Cycle 10, the logics in the arithmetic. I draft the blog and having taken my meds go to bed, disappointed and anxious. This is a set back.

Sunday and I wake up late with a headache. Once up its toast for breakfast with my morning meds and paracetamol. While I wait for the paracetamol to kick in I create a Moonpig birthday card for the eldest grandson of my youngest daughter. Hopefully it will arrive on his birthday on Tuesday. With the card on its way I start the draft of todays blog. There is little for me to do today apart from riding myself of this headache and preparing for tonights world cup final. Tomorrow is a 28 day jab, B12 and bloods day so I shall prepare for those as best I can. It is a crucial set of bloods as the PSA result will determine whether or not I get to finish the chemo rechallenge or go onto the last cycle, cycle 10. If the PSA is down by a reasonable amount the logic dictates that I should go for cycle 10, if it is not then its probably best to stop, the question is “what is a reasonable amount”. On average I have decreased my PSA score by 0.86 per cycle but the dosage used in the last two cycles has been decreased. My last PSA score was 3.1. The lowest it could get if the average of 0.86 is applied over ten cycles is 1.4. I will be disappointed if my PSA score on tomorrows bloods does not dip below 3. How much is the question, I think I will be pleased if it gets anywhere near 2.5. If it does I will be inclined to go for cycle 10. I stand by my dictum of “the logic is in the arithmetic”.

Spain beat Argentina 1-0, so its night meds and off to bed.

Friday and a grim nights sleep. I get up late and get my breakfast and take my morning meds. I spend time downloading new poems for tomorrows poetry stanza and reading them through. At some point I convert my eldest daughters PhD thesis from Word to a PDF file for it to be sent off. With that done I head for the garden and finally get the new plant tubs filed with compost ready to plant on the Domeflowers that my partner has grown from seed. With the tubs filled and placed around the garden there is time to tidy away the garden before the evening meal and an evening of TV. I managed to watch all of I Jack Wright. SIx episodes of reasonable stuff which ends up with no conclusion and a bland “to be continued” banner at the end. There is obviously going to be a second series so I need not have bothered until it is out. I go to bed having set the dishwasher going and taken my night meds.

Saturday and I am up early to download my poetry stanza poems and to watch one of the new international rugby while I eat breakfast and take my morning meds. While Ireland get crushed by New Zealand I begin the draft of the blog. I decide on which poem I submit to the Stanza. It is my poetry version of Terry Pratchett’s Dark Morris.

527
Its a wood at night
the dark is spider cold
and blinding. 
Trees form the boundary,
and at its centre a seat.
A fallen trunk, heavy on the ground.
Its inky, threateningly moving
in slow waves around me.
There are no intruding stars,
no moonlight beams
to give hope of sight
or sight of hope.
Wrapped hard in moleskin,
confined by bible binding
stillness it is fixed in body
and in the space. 
This is a living coffin,
velvet  lined and waiting for 
the final submission. 
Nothing moves or intrudes,
only the sense of dense 
darkness is present.
Here I sit and recite 
dark poetry,
silent verses,
soundless words,
nothing to disturb 
the woods blindness. 
The poetry flows
thick and opaque,
moving like a snake 
soundlessly. 
Strain your ears,
focus on the air,
but there is no disturbance,
not a hint of sound 
or vibration. 
This is dark poetry,
spoken silently, heard profoundly
and felt in every fibre
of soul and being.
In this forest depth
is where I reside,
the place of despair
where being is mute
but everything is jet clear.
I sit and silently 
recite here 
in the dead black.
This is dark poetry,
silent, undeniable 
and final. 							527 10-05-2026 

By 9:30 I am organised and look forward to The rest of the day which will include the third place world cup match between France and England in the evening. It promises to be another disappointment for England if they do not improve markedly.

The poetry stanza goes well and I enjoy my afternoon alongside other writers and poets. Once done I watch England rugby team beat Argentina before watching England football team beat France 6-4 to win third place in the world cup. I take my knight meds and go to bed looking forward to free day until the world cup final.

Thursday and a tricky nights sleep. England had lost the night before in the usual English way, too timid in the end. I had spent some time in the spare room trying to get to sleep but by morning I am back in bed and taking my vitals. My vitals show my hart rate back don to normal and my blood pressure doing okay for a 78 year old. I must get back to training on the rower again. I must be feeling better if I am even thinking about training. I eventually get up and make breakfast and take my morning meds. I check my messages and find more poems being posted for Saturdays poetry stanza. As I check my socials I have the Stones in my ears and it prompts me to scribble a quick poem based on the fact that my eldest daughter has introduced me to The WIldhearts, a punk band that is still very active. They are an uncompromising group whose lyrics preclude them from ever being played on Radio 2, or any radio I should think, however I enjoy them immensely. Here is my poem.

546
Hurray for the Wildhearts
and their driving fuck you
raucous music.
Punk in adulthood,
still raw and anti the man.
Not a Radio 2 favourite
even if they do spell
Cunt cuntze
to get their 
disc sleeve printed.
As they proclaim,
“there’s always some cunze in the way”.
Its the language of my streets,
my adolescence and probably
most of my adult life.
Its a shot in the arm
to find my thirty something
daughter is a fan
and she was happy enough
to gift it to her father.
I can feel a live gig
coming on.
Elbowing my way 
into the Mosh pit 
I might just recapture
the innocent joy 
of thinking things
can be simple
and its okay to 
point the finger 
at the nice people.
All I risk is being 
hit with a rolled up
Daily Mail. 

						546 16-07-2026

I still cannot decide on which poem to take to the poetry stanza and decide that I shall decide tomorrow. In the meantime I relax and draft the start of todays blog looking forward to the afternoon when I am having my nails done. The cross of St George and the football are definitely coming off my nails today. I still cannot go back to having my “subtle sparkles” on my nails as I’m still in chemo and likely to be so until at least August 13th.

With my nails done and the decorations removed I wait for my partner in the gym lounge and idea away the time by doing the Tesco order. Once my partner arrives we return home where I sit on the patio while my partner snoozes on the swing seat. By the time we are both ready to eat no one wants to cook so we order in a take away and eat out on the patio. The rest of the evening is spent on the patio chatting, planning and watching the bats zip about. Time flies by and at 11pm I clear away, take my meds and get myself to bed. I am conscious that its three days to my next set of bloods which will determine whether I get to do Cycle 10 of the chemo rechallenge. It is also three days to my regular 28 day injection so the beginning of next week is a crucial time.

Wednesday and I wake up slowly and to the hot water my partner brings me along with some toast. She soon depart to the gym taking with her the compost we bought yesterday as I was not quick enough to unload it. I take my vitals that seem to be okay and then get myself up to take my morning meds. The garden guy is coming today so I make up a list of things that need doing in the garden and print it off for when he arrives. I start to draft todays blog in anticipation of tonight’s world cup semi final between England and Argentina. Its going to be either a night of joy as we beat the Argies or one of deep disgruntlement as England bottle it. Argentina are a beatable team but it would be typical of England to whimp out and play like timid mice. My pre match preparation will consist of making sure I have enough chilled drinks in the fridge to see the match through and sufficient snacks to keep my energy levels up.

With the poetry stanza coming up I check to see who has sent poems out and to download them into a folder for the day. So far there are only two poems but I suspect people are holding off till later in the week. I’m doing the same thing as I’m not sure whether it should be a cancer poem or another type of poem. I shall spend time in the Shed to think about it and perhaps write something as the day begins to warm up.

What actually happened was I spent time potting up some more plants and making a list of garden jobs for the garden guy who rocked up late afternoon. I completed the days crosswords and then drifted idly towards the England v Argentina match. England lost a game they were wining due to the manager making the wrong substitutions. That’s German manages for you. I watch the final episodes the of The Light in the Hall, take my meds and go to bed. Its disappointing that England lost but hey ho that’s the England team for you.

Monday and I wake drowsy and it takes me a while to come round. By about lunch time I am ready for a trip to the garden centre to indulge in a bacon roll and a decaf coffee. Of course my partner and I wander round the plant section and plunder the end of season bargains. As we leave with our eight new plant we find the “free to a good home” trolley stacked with Dahlias. So we load up a tray and take those home as well. Its straight into the garden and some serious rescuing of the Dahlias. A complete deadhead and soaking. I prepare three small troughs with fresh compost and then my partner plants the Dahlias in the fresh troughs planters. When all is in order I put them out in the front garden, a new layer of flowers. Now its about waiting and seeing if they recover and throw more buds.

The effort has been considerable so the reward is a salad eaten on the patio and followed by the days crosswords. There I sit happily till the evening freeze turns chill before I retreat to the lounge and TV. As an adventure we watch a “Welsh noire” drama. Its a concept I had not thought about before but on reflection it makes sense. All that changing into Welsh when you walk into a shop, clearly the buggers can’t say it to your face so they are obviously up to “noire” if you ask me. As it turns out it is slow and bigoted and not very likely but I’m sure there will be a woke twist to it. Clearly the already convicted child traumatised loner did not kill the missing person, its just a matter of how long the writers drag the story out and what twist they think they can find. Strangely and probably stereotypically I’ve not spotted a single sheep in this rural tale of despair and revenge. I go to bed having taken my meds and reflecting upon an email I received from an old work colleague from my days at the Retreat York.

Tuesday and I am awake quite early, very predictable as today is a dentist day. No time for vitals or idle chit chat I get into the shower and then experience the shower cutting out with low water pressure. I improvise and tease the shower back to life long enough to get rinsed. So at a quarter to ten I am walking to the dentists having taken my days meds. My dentist is lovely and understands the issue around me being in the middle of a chemotherapy cycle. She does a quick check and says there is nothing to do other than monitor what we have been monitoring for months now. My gums could be better so she suggests that I go back to using my electric toothbrush and see how it goes. I’m up for this as the baby toothbrushes do not give me the same clean feel. I pay my fee on the way out and head for the chemist to collect my latest prescription.

Once home I fill my drugs dosettes for the next two weeks. I leave the chemo steroids out as I do not know if I am going to make cycle ten. I am listening to the Stones new album when my eldest daughter asks me if I have listened to The Wildhearts CD she bought me at one of their gigs. I said I would find it and give it a go. My partner returns from the gym and we go to our local garden centre for a bacon roll and a decaf coffee. While we eat we select our grandsons birthday presents and do the appropriate organising. There are no plants we want but as we leave we pick up three more bags of compost as we still have pots to fill.

Back home I put the The Wildhearts on and listen to them as I draft the blog. They are a direct and to the point punk band and I like them. Noisy rude and profane, my cup of tea, they are anti establishment and probably speak for a lot of people. Alienation is the name of the game and I think it speaks to a lot of people right now.

I ease into the evening and head towards the first world cup semi final between France and Spain. I also start to trawl through my latest poems in order to choose one for the poetry stanza meeting next Saturday. Its a Zoom meeting so I am hopeful of making this one having missed the two previous ones. I have a poem in mind but I am minded that it may not go down well with the real poets of the Stanza. As a diversion I take a photo of the yellow Lilies that have come into bloom. Another lovely surprise from the garden.

I move into the evening football and ultimately my night meds but I find myself reflecting on my time at the Retreat in York and wondering how we managed to lose such a powerful and historic place.