Bank holiday Monday and I wake quite early as my partner goes to the gym for an early morning aqua class having brought me a hot water. I do my usual taking of the vitals, checking messages and e-mails and jotting a short poem. Eventually I get up, not feeling as chipper as I wanted to be but make myself muesli and take my morning meds.

524
Each morning
I wake a ball
of clay.
Each sunrise
I remould myself
for the day.
Each new dawn
a new shape
to hold the world at bay.
A new me
out of the old
to find a way,
metamorphosis 
day by day
just to stay 
in the fray.

					524 04-05-2026

Its not an elegant poem, I was just struggling to express the feeling of the effort each day to get myself motivated to get going. Each day feels like I have to do the same thing but in a different way, so its like reinventing myself for the day to get through the day. Some days I mould something better than other days. Once having had breakfast I start on a draft of the blog and then return to researching bookcases, however I am hoping to visit a garden centre as the sunflower seedlings are nagging at the back of my mind as they need planting out in something that will show them off. New pots, new planters will do the job I think. I might even get a bacon roll or chilli, depending on where I go.

As it turned out the day turned to rat shit and I did not get out or do anything other than stare into space, watch TV and finally go to bed with my meds. My achievement of the day was to watch A Taste of Murder and learn the recipe for “eggs in purgatory”. Nigella Lawson recipe below, but she excludes the usual half or quarter of a sweet white onion so add it in if you like onion at the start with the garlic. She also uses chopped tomatoes but I think passata is better. I’ve added these to the ingredients list.

Ingredients

Serves: 1

MetricU.S.

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 a small white onion
• 1 small clove garlic (peeled)
• ¼ teaspoon dried chilli flakes
• 1 x 400 grams can chopped tomatoes or passata
• ½ teaspoon Maldon sea salt flakes (or to taste)
• 1 large egg (or 2 eggs if needed)
• 2 teaspoons grated Parmesan (or more as needed) – see Additional Information below
• 1 splash of chilli oil (optional to serve)
• 2 slices white bread (or other bread of your choice to serve)

Method

1. Pour the olive oil into a frying pan, then grate in (or mince and add) the garlic, scatter in the chilli flakes and put the pan over a medium heat, stirring, for 1 minute.
2. Tip in the tomatoes, stir in the salt, and let it come to a bubble. It’s got to be hot enough to poach an egg in.
3. Crack in the egg (or eggs), sprinkle the Parmesan over it, leaving some of the yellow yolk still exposed, and partially cover with a lid. Let it bubble for 5 minutes, by which time the white should be set and the yolk still runny, but keep an eye on it.
4. Remove from the heat and serve — if so wished — sprinkled with a little more Parmesan and some chilli oil, and some bread to dunk in.

Your welcome

Sunday and I wake up late feeling the full force of the chemo. Its not unusual but always a pain in the grillocks. So I take my time doing my vitals and checking my messages and social media. Eventually I get up and get into my relaxing blanket and get myself hot water and my morning meds. Fancying something different for breakfast that is easy to do I open up a new box of muesli. I settle down on the sofa and type up the poem that I scribbled in bed this morning.

523
This pen, this ink
write darkly,
not by my hand
but in a me I hide.
That part of me 
scared and letting
the chemo do 
its worst
on a body
that cannot resist.
A tearful me,
depressed and desperate
who wonders if anyone 
notices.
No option but to fight
and see this me
through poetry.
This pen, this ink
is my mirror.
My portrait in the attic
where I can 
keep sight
of this cancerous
reality.

					523 03-05-2026

With the poem typed up I turn my attention to researching book cases. I’m going to pull all my poetry books into one place in the office so I need some new big bookcases that will take them all. I find a couple of possibilities and note them. The ordering and building can take place when I feel better. I move on to watching the world snooker championship. Tesco deliver the weekly food order, which gets squirreled away. This takes me through to the early evening and tea. I have entered the “inability to taste” stage of post chemo toxicity. I am at the flannel stage, diet coke tastes foul. I slide into the evening keeping an eye on the snooker and the football scores while finishing off the blog draft. It will inevitably end up with my taking my night meds and getting to bed as soon as I can. Hopefully tomorrow the post chemo will ease a bit.

Friday and its chemo day but also today its builder badger day as well as they are coming in to put a deck into the garden on which to stand the swing seat. So I am up at 7:30, taking my meds and having some toast. There are entrances to be unbolted to give the badgers access and I take down the washing line so it is not in the way. With all that done I await the builder badgers. They arrive dead on time. There is the master badger and a new labourer, so the first things to do is get their coffee preferences, one black, one white, no sugars, so a simple order to take. There is the usual catch up chat and then after coffee the badgers get in with the job while I retreat to the sofa and rest and catch up with my messages, social media and news feeds.

By lunch time I have organised some stuff and thought about what I am going to wear to chemo. The days crosswords have been done and my choice of books to take to chemo has been made. After a cheese roll lunch I get into my suit and short sleeve shirt and begin the process of getting an Uber. By 2 o’clock my partner and I are siting in the Uber on the way to the hospital. We arrive at our usual drop off point and walk through the hospital to the oncology unit, but my partner goes to the hospital fruit stall to get strawberries while I hand in my “dance card” . It turns out that the fruit stall is out of strawberries so we have to settle for cherries, which means no champagne but Chianti instead should I fancy it.

My appointment is for 3 o’clock but the standing joke is that it will always be at least 30 minutes after the due time. It turns out to be true this time. I settle into a bay and organise my water bottle, books and Twix to see me through the session. I get the cannula in my hand and loaded with my pre chemo meds.

My vitals are taken and once again my heart rate is up, like last time. It appears that I do not like being at chemo or at least my heart says that. Thankfully this time I did not need an ECG and was able to move straight into my poisonous Yew tree juice. I read for a bit, nap and generally try to relax. My hours chemo ends and I receive my saline wash through.

At last I am free to go and I wander out to my waiting partner who is on her own. We both get comfortable and then head for the hotel opposite to pick up another Uber.

Once home all I want to do is get out of my suit and into some comfortable and clothes. I also want to check what progress the builder badgers have made.

Its an evening of simple food and rest. I end up watching the snooker and then I get drifted into watching Get Carter an early Michael Caine film set in Newcastle. So I take my meds late and get myself to bed at 1 o’clock in the morning.

Saturday arrives and I am feeling fully chemo’d. I just want to rest, my partner leaves early to go and see her mother with her brother. I take my vitals, drink hot water and check my messages and social media. Eventually I get up and dress before taking my morning meds and having pizza for a late breakfast treat. Luckily the world snooker championship is on TV so I lazily watch a brilliant semi final session. I lunch on pastries and watch the women’s European cup semi final. I am pretty much functioning on automatic.

I spend my afternoon watching snooker and football while keeping an eye on the football scores hoping Brentford can manage a win. Snooker is my favourite as a place in the final is up for grabs and it is a close game. I feed myself soup and pastries until my partner returns from visiting her mother in hospital and then going to her house to clear things like the fridge and rescuing the house plants.

The early evening arrives and there is tea followed by lazing and watching TV. All I am doing is resting and running on automatic to get me through the fatigue of the first few days of the chemo cycle. As always my evening will end with my night meds and a retreat to bed hoping for sleep. Ideally tomorrow I would like to train or get some new planters to plant out my sunflower seedlings.

Thursday and after a reasonable nights sleep I go through my rising rituals of message checking, email reading and news feed reading. I measure my vitals and then contemplate getting up but before I do I jot a poem. I almost didn’t but I caught myself and thought that I should not miss the moment. Its only another ten weeks before the next collection of poems is due to be edited and published.

522
I mustn’t let
the moment pass.
Pressed to get up 
with a long to do list
I’m tempted not to
jot what comes.
I’m ugly
with my steroid football head
and dissatisfaction of self,
not the person I like
and frustrated with
my short comings.
It’s no use telling me
“its the treatment”
I remain irked 
with my late rising,
self limiting activity
and sloth.
Whatever this is 
It cannot be 
an excuse
to be 
lazy.
					522 30-04-2026

I finally get up and change into my training gear before cooking myself a cheese omelette and taking my morning meds. The first bits of the blog get drafted. I spend the morning listening to I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, reading and trying to relax. It was not until I took my morning meds that I remembered today is the start of the additional steroids. My partner returns from the gym and is soon on her way again with her brother to see their mother.

Early after noon and the garden guy turns up. I make him a coffee and then chat to him about garden related topics and his experiences with giant hog weed, a truly scary plant. He continues to cut the grass and I return to my listening and reading. After a while I wave the garden guy farewell and head for the garage and the rower. I usually train earlier so I am not sure how the session will go. In fact it goes reasonably well and I am pleased I made the effort.

I am quite pleased with the session.it means I get another session before I start cycle 7 tomorrow. Session done I finally get out of my training gear and return to drafting the blog. By now its early evening and I will negotiate the tricky balance of Race Across the World, A Europe football semi final and the final episode of In the Dark. All of which can be sorted after a late tea of salmon pasta. Basically I am looking for a quiet evening, and early night and a good nights sleep before I tomorrow afternoon go to start cycle 7. This is further than I have been in chemotherapy than before, last time it was six sessions and then a rest. Tomorrow I start the additional four sessions, so its new territory, I hope my training stands me in good stead.

Tuesday and at last my blood results come through on the second set I had to do due to the first ones being rejected. I am relieved to see that my PSA has dropped again.

Most of the pink items are falling back to the normal range and my kidney function (eGFr) remains steady and increases slightly, which is a good sign. Overall I am content with these results and there is certainly nothing in them that would suggest I should not go on to cycle 7 of the chemo rechallenge. I will find out at Wednesdays oncology review. What I need to do now is get back to training as this helps with the toxicity elements I experience. The rest of my day was spent lazing and watching the world snooker championship as I waited for the soreness of yesterdays 28 day jab wears off. The injection leaves me with a pigeon egg sized lump in my abdomen, and it is not only sore but also uncomfortable until my body absorbs some of the mass. So I laze and ease my way trough the day until I take my night meds and get myself to bed.

Wednesday and its oncology review day, but first there are vitals to take and breakfast to be had. Of course the morning meds are in there as well. I get into my training clothes so that I can get myself to the garage and the rower quickly. As my breakfast settles I draft the last couple of days blog till I am ready to train. My oncology review could be tricky in that I need to convince the oncologist that I have overcome the toxicity issues by training. As the extent of toxicity is judged by blood results and self report I am hopeful I can convince the oncologist to go to cycle seven without reducing the dosage. I also want a conversation about resveratrol and copper supplements to counteract the non haematological toxicity. So a chat about cell free Chromatin particles (cfChPs) is in order, but I am not sure he will want to engage in it, as I think he is only interested in what he is prescribing. I guess I will get to find out one way or another.

I get to the rower in the garage and strap myself onto it ad set off. Its three days since I last trained so I am not sure how I am going to go. Initially it feels that I am labouring and not making much head way but I gradually pick up rhythm and crack on. By the end of my twenty minutes I find I have just completed a personal best for my twenty minute sessions.

I am pleased to find I have gone further than before, in fact when I do the numbers I find my performance has improved by 17% over the last 15 days. I am feeling better than I was and it feels it is helping with coping the chemo rechallenge. Having got back into training I need to continue with it. Having got back to the sanctuary of the sofa I down some Lucozade and return to the blog. I am happily tapping away and listening to the motivational training podcast when I am surprised by the oncologist ringing me to do the monthly review. It is not my usual oncologist (he who made a pact with the devil) and a different guy. He launches in with, “your bloods are good and your kidney function is holding up, which is reassuring”. I interject and tell him about returning to training and without inducing peeing blood. He says that is good and notes it probably helps with the toxicity. He ends up confirming cycle 7 and says the dosage will remain the same and that he will send me a blood form. Then it is over and he has gone. I have what I want with very little effort. With the oncologist gone, I return to drafting the blog.

I rest in the afternoon and take a refreshing shower before watching more world championship snooker. My partner goes out for a meal with a friend so I order in an Indian takeaway and treat myself to my favourites before watching a European cup semi final and nibbling popadoms. My evening ends with meds and bed as usual. Tomorrow will mean the garden guy coming to mow the lawns, so I will be out in the garden beginning to weed out some beds to make room for the seedlings that are developing in the mini green houses.

Monday and its a jab day. I take my vitals and get up and ready to go to the GP surgery. I have toast and take my morning meds. Before I can go anywhere the garden centre delivers my six bags of pebbles for the garden. I drive down to the GP surgery and check in. My usual nurse calls me in and we go through the routine of my 28 day injection and added the three monthly B12. With my drugs safely in me I ask if the nurse can check my blood results. When she goes into my records she finds that my bloods were never processed due to a mismatch between the blood form and the labels on the vials of blood. Its a bit of a blow but my nurse asks me to come back later with a new form and she would take new bloods.

I return to the GP surgery with my new bloods form and my nurse takes the new bloods. I return home and just rest as much as I can. A friend rings and we have a conversation about how our families are and what we are both doing. My partner returns from the gym and then goes to see her mother at the hospital. I rest and nap in the afternoon pausing to do the days crosswords. The post man delivers some new books from a friend and I immediately start to read Invisible Cities by Calvino, knowing I have Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic to move onto.

My evening was all TV as I watched more episodes of my current drama favourite, Hidden Assets. My partner went to bed and I draft the days blog as I wait to see if my blood results will get posted. It passes midnight and no results are posted. I take my meds and go to bed, disappointed.

Saturday and Sunday are days of frustration, there is no sign of my blood results. I fear that I have been ghosted or excluded from the “patient knows best” website. It is run by the Kidney and Urology departments at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and I think I might have been taken off the list of clients due to my discharge. If I am right then it is poor timing as at this moment in time my kidney efficiency is in question. So I feel bereaved as knowing what my blood results are enables me to assess my situation and gives me direct and relevant feedback about my situation. It plays to my high Locus of Control score which means I respond better to intervention when given the means to affect my behaviour, denied the data it makes being proactive and positive much more difficult. I may need to find a new way to access my blood results, perhaps via my GP surgery or the specialist prostate nurse.

Most of the weekend has been spent watching sport, FA cup semi finals, the London Marathon (first ever sub 2 hour marathon, a truly historic moment.), and of course the world snooker championship. My partner has of course been to visit her mother in hospital, which has been tough. My one real effort has been to train on Saturday. I had to do two ten minute sessions due to the set up of the monitor but I managed to do 3.8 kilometres over 21 minutes so I feel I had a reasonable session. This and preparing Saturdays evening meal took most of my energy and left me to while away Saturday evening watching the end of Young Sherlock. I took my meds and headed for bed with the hope that my bloods would turn up, they didn’t.

Sunday is overshadowed by the fact that tomorrow is 28 day jab day. So I am preparing myself for the grim two days that follow the jab. Apart from Tesco delivering I also have six bags of chippings for the garden arriving, so its going to be quite a busy day. In the meantime I fill the bird and squirrel feeders and draft the blog. The rest if the day will be a meander until I have taken my meds and gone to bed ready for an early jab start to the day.

Thursday, another day that seemed to speed by after a very lazy morning and a brunch of pizza and snooker. My aim of course was to train again and I manged to get into the garage gym about 2 o’clock. I was not looking forward to my fourth day on a row but it turned out to be a reasonable session. I was not expecting to get near yesterdays personal best but I came relatively close. I actually managed 3.6 kilometres and burned off 234 calories. I was pleased with this and took my self off to shower happy with myself.

I had time to rest in the afternoon before my partner returned home after a visit to her mother in hospital. Things are still not moving at the hospital and my partner and her brother had a difficult time pinning the staff down and getting any sensible answers. After tea my partner and I plus our eldest daughter go off to the De Montfort Hall to see Darren Brown’s new show Only Human Live. On the way to the venue I had to stop and change into my driving shoes as my wide fit Sketchers slip ins were a nightmare to drive in. When I tried to brake the trainer was catching the accelerator, with a very tricky outcome. So with my driving shoes on we make it to the venue just as the car park opens. The problem stems from the car being built by the Chinese. Small feet and smaller car pedals. My big western feet and wide trainers do not fit. I am fortunate that I had my elegant driving shoes in the car.

There is time to have a drink and watch the audience arrive before we settle into our seats. All the seats had a green and yellow card on them, which later on we had to choose a colour from. I am not going to put any of the content of the show on the blog as people may be going to see it, but I will comment on the audience and the general skills displayed. Darren Brown is part magician, part hypnotist and part cold reader, with a dash of psychology thrown into the patter. I suspect he is also adept at using modern search technology to inform his act. What was interesting about the audience was how the suggestable members of the audience were happy to identify themselves without any idea that this is what they were doing. Of course they get chosen to be on stage and to “assist” the magician. As for the actual illusions and reveals I was personally underwhelmed and felt the various themes that were woven through the act were not cogent. However it was a night out and it was good to be out and about again. I drove the family home and spent a bit of time reading the mildly disturbing pop up Darren Brown programme and eating the Maltesers I had saved from the show. Finally it was time to take my meds and get to bed, tomorrow is busy.

Friday and I am up with the lark, 7:30am and getting an early breakfast and meds before going to the GP to have this cycles pre oncology review bloods done. I drive down and in and out of the surgery in minutes. My nurse who takes my bloods is a wizard. So quick and painless its almost a pleasure. I drive home and relax until its time to go and have my nails done with my partner. We arrive at the gym where our beauty parlour is, have our pre-emptive and then present our selves to have our nails done. At the moment I cannot have polish on mine due to the ridging the chemo is causing. So I settle for being tidied up, hand massaged and a sunshine painting on one of my nails. I arrange the next session and pay before waiting in the gym lounge for my partner to finish. I indulge in a bacon roll and a drink as I catch up with drafting the blog.

On retuning home, minus my partner who has gone to the hospital to see her mother, I have a nice surprise. The Clematis has flowered.

I settle down to do the days crosswords and then read the meters and send off the readings. I think at some point I nodded off but recovered to draft the blog and think about cooking tea tonight. This evening is going to be a slow one, the end of Young Sherlock will be watched and couple of Friday night regulars before I will take my meds and go to bed.

Wednesday and I wake early knowing my partner is going to see her mother in hospital today, however once she has gone I fall back to sleep again and wake mid morning. I check my vitals which at the moment are a bit erratic, sometimes average and at others elevated and I cannot work out why they are varying. I get up and get into my training gear before making my standard two toast and Marmite breakfast. My morning meds slip down and then I am doing odd jobs like bringing in the bins and emptying others. I check my messages and social media and respond where appropriate. There are a couple of quick calls with my partner who is with her brother and carer at the hospital as they try desperately to sort out the future plan for my partners mother. Eventually I get to the garage and get myself ready to row my days twenty minutes. With my ear buds in I set off to the sound of a Pace Setter track. It feels smoother that yesterday as I just ignore the rowing and focus on the beat of the track. At the end of the session I am pleased to note it is my best yet.

I am really pleased with the distance, it is 497 metres more than I managed on the first session 8 days ago and 32 more calories, which in calorie terms is good. This is about a 15% improvement. I have to keep doing the figures as it provides me with feedback and hence the motivation to keep going. Of course being me I am already looking to either upping the resistance level back up to 4 or to extend the session by 5 or 10 minutes. All of this is about how it affects my bloods on Friday and on my response to the chemotherapy, so the next few days are important.

I sit on the garden swing seat with an orange Lucozade and watch the squirrel feed himself from the squirrel feeder. The magnolia remains beautiful and a real fillip to the soul.

Despite it being sunny the wind is chill so I retreat to the sofa and start to draft the blog. Not long after my partner returns from the hospital along with the carer. Its been a long day at the hospital and a frustrating one by the sound of it, with different professionals giving different answers to the same questions and making different discharge plans in the absence of any care plan. So it looks like there is going to be an ongoing dialogue to sort out a credible discharge plan.

Late afternoon arrives and I finally change out of my training gear and ease into the evening . There is young Sherlock to finish. I plan an early night so that tomorrow I can train early and be ready to go and see show in the evening. It will be the first night out I have had in quite a while.

Tuesday and I wake up irked by the fact that I have over slept again, it’s 10:30am. I am immediately on the back foot. The house is empty, partner at gym, daughter at work. I take my vitals. It requires time to relax and get my blood pressure down but it does eventually come down to an acceptable level. My heart rate continues to be elevated, I’ve no idea why apart for it being a side effect of the chemo and maybe an interaction with my lack of fitness/training. I get up and climb into my training gear and then make myself a breakfast salmon omelette with orange juice. I take my morning meds and then settle down to fill my medication dosettes for the next two weeks. Its a slightly tricky task as I have to include the next lot of Chemo steroids into the mix. Mostly it is straight forward, I just have to remember that once I get to Saturday I swap onto the next dosette.

I clear away the drugs rubbish and then head for the garage and the rower. My motivation is low and I really do not feel like rowing this morning. My ear buds get put in and I select a motivational training track from the BBC and set myself up to go. Its a tough twenty minutes. One of those days when every pull is an effort and there is never any rhythm. The end inevitably comes and I find that it has been a reasonable row. Not my best but good enough.

So after what felt like a tough session the figures say I did okay. I have not yet worked out the balance of training days against rest days at the moment. It feels like I should get as many days in as I can, I have bloods on Friday and it is there that any difference will show up. The problem is that it is far too early for any real differences to show up due to training, its going to need at least another cycle before I can expect any observable difference, and even then that maybe too optimistic. Patience is the key here, patience and perseverance. I just hope I have the strength for the perseverance. I sink a Red Bull and relax to recover.

My partner returns from the gym and has lunch while I recover. Once recovered a little I change into real world clothes and drive myself and partner to the local branch of Nationwide. I chat to a bank person and explain that I need an ISA cancelled as it never had anything in it. After a productive chat and a look at the relevant paper work she taps away and then smiles. The ISA is no more but of course it will take five days for the system to catch up, that’s modern tech for you. Its a kind of exercise in learning to live in parallel universes. I realise that this is the first person outside the household that I have spoken since I started cycle 6 of chemo, 10 days ago, that can’t be normal.

With bank stuff done I drive myself and partner to a local garden centre where I head for the grit, gravel and chippings department. I peruse the available bag of chippings to select what will go into the bamboo retaining trench. As it is going to be hidden at the top of the garden there is no need to consider aesthetics. So the cheapest stuff will do and fortunately the cheapest stuff is just right.

In a moment of inspiration I take a photo and head for the tills. “Do you deliver” I ask the till wrangler. “We do” she says and joy was unbounded. So its all arranged, next Monday my chippings will be delivered, so I have no humping to do and Elsie (the car) does not have to bear the load on a journey. I drive away from the garden centre chuffed. I know its an ordinary thing but it gives me pleasure.

Once home I relax and start to draft the days blog, and as I do so I begin to feel fatigued again. I have jotted poems but they are dark and inward, not a pretty sight. I know that they will make it to the next collection, they all will, but for now they remain quietly resting. I ease into the evening with no plan knowing that the next few days are supposed to be sunny. It could be that I spend more time in the garden and the writing Shed. For now I re-read Forrest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha, a collection of poems that keep drawing me back to them. I shall end my evening as always, taking my medications and heading for bed in the hope of a good nights sleep. With the bins out and the gates shut nothing else is going to happen tonight. That’s a rule.