Saturday and I wake to do my vitals, have breakfast and take my morning meds. The basics over I and my partner go to the garden centre to buy food. I am feeling very tired after a poor nights sleep and by the time we are loading goodies into the boot of the car I am feeling almost spoonless, fatigued and and on the floppy end of the pert to droopy continuum. I flop on the sofa once home feeling “off”. The next time I go for a piss there is blood in my urine. It was there yesterday after I had trained but had cleared as usual so this is a resurgence. I drink a lot of water and keep retuning to the loo and checking. This was my life for the rest of the day, through Queens tennis semi finals, through tea, through Aquaman, through several episodes of Redemption and finally into Guns and Roses at Glastonbury, topped off with Christine and the Queens performing topless apart from Elastoplast crosses covering her nipples. Now full of cranberry juice, dark chocolate, and of curse night drugs I go to bed with a flagon of water. My intention is not to sleep till I am pissing bloodless. At to o’clock my wish comes true and I let myself try to sleep. The body is willing but the bladder isn’t due to the amount of liquid I have drunk. Eventually I do fall into the waves and sleep restlessly till 8 o’clock on Sunday morning.

Sunday and of course my first thoughts are “is there blood in my piss” and “how much do I weigh?” The answer to the first question is no there isn’t, (hurray go me) and the 97.1 kilos is the answer to the second question. Of course I feel knackered after a shit nights sleep and all the blood anxiety but I get up to breakfast with my partner on the patio. There we enjoy the thoughtless arsehole of the neighbour with the world loudest lawn mower/hedge trimmer and the joys of making holiday packing lists. There is good news in all of this, my friend has a date for her scan and my youngest daughter who is expecting seems more chipper and organised for her time. I prepare to do some more archiving before I watch the men’s final at Queens this afternoon.

I do not watch the Queens final as I spend all afternoon archiving, digging out yet more photos of relatives generations ago. In the end I have to give it best and eat tea with my partner who has returned from the gym. I’ve been drinking copious amounts of water and cranberry juice to fight off passing more blood, so far so good. The evening finds me watching Glastonbury culminating in Elton John allegedly last English. performance. I take my night meds, and pain killers and do the Tesco order. Tomorrow is injection day, so I have to be ready for my 8:30 injection. I am hoping for a trouble free night. The next couple of days are likely to be rugged post injection. Some how squaring the circle of exercise and drug side effects is becoming more challenging. I think my response to this makes me less of a person that people want to be around, which I think is understandable. Just four days and I get to drive to Devon for a holiday by the sea and the sound of the waves.