Wednesday, I wake alone and get up to do my vitals and then have breakfast and meds. I clear the kitchen and watch the end of a football match. It is my eldest daughters birthday tomorrow so I drive myself to the local Sainsburys and do some food shopping. I am surrounded by temptation and it seems rude not to give into it so I indulge in the purchase of jam doughnuts alongside my essentials. I drive home and pack the goodies away and take my eldest daughter to the village café for lunch where we dine and chat about her studies. I note that new Lilys have appeared in the garden.

Back home I watch the Irish women’s team lose to Canada at the World Cup. There are aspects of women’s football that are refreshing, for example there is far less feigned pain and dramatic rolling around on the ground. There is still a physical side to game as witnessed by the number of penalties award in the early rounds but there is less cynical hacking down and “taking one for the team” crap going on. With the game over I get ready to train. There has been a gap of five days since I trained due to the trip to see my new grandson, who is doing really well along with mum and dad. I get into the garage and set myself up to row for an hour. It goes okay, I have Radio 2 in my ears although I was not impressed by the stand in for Sarah Cox but there you go. The hour goes by as I reach my target of 12 plus kilometres and a burn off of 800 plus calories. I am pleased as it is my first post jab training session, which can be a bit sore but this time seems to have gone well.

I get out of my sweaty kit and then begin to cook the Indian meal I bought on my shopping trip. Mid way through I get my eldest to continue the process while I have a pee. To my dismay there is blood in my urine. Its a heart sink moment. I am so disappointed and distressed at the same time. If I cannot train to avoid the chemo side effects then that’s a crap outcome in terms of quality of life. On the other hand I can continue to train and live with the consequences, which is mainly the distress of pissing blood when I train. Can’t be good can it, devil and deep blue sea comes to mind. I could weep but that doesn’t do anything does it, so its time to re assess options and explore what else will keep me fit, lean and side effect free. I feel a period of research and experimentation coming on.

I eat tea, wave my eldest off to Jiu Jitsu and settle down to write the blog before the final of the Great British Sewing Bee. I sit on my end of the sofa reflecting in the solitude of the house. I am understandably pensive, I’ve been in this place before, I know I have to wait for my body to recover so I expect I shall spend a couple of days reading and writing letters, perhaps now is a good time to throw a few more poems into the meat grinder of competition as there are some open at the moment. Tonight I head for an early night and perhaps a bed time read.