Wednesday and I have had a tricky night but in an effort to be positive I get up and get my training gear on and head for the garage where the machine of hope sits waiting. I clamber aboard and very slowly begin to pull. Matters do not pick up and my session is one long slow pull where I end up going the least distance I have done since starting to train again. I do not make 5k so I know I am struggling but I am making the effort.
I get myself to the shower and get washed up, which by the end of I am all out of spoons (energy) so I retreat to the recliner and rest. I get my vitals Excel spread sheet up to date as this is the first day of chemo cycle 16. Of note is the slowly rising average blood pressure average. This is ironic in that later in the day my GP sends me a message to monitor my blood pressure twice a day and to report it on the nhs app. So tomorrow I get an extra chore to perform, funny how life and medical admin increases as one gets to feel more crap.
The evening is tough as my partner and I battle with the process of coping with the tsunami of coping with our own and others stuff. We eat trout, which took two bottles of white wine due to one being corked, and then watch Chasing Shadows an old police drama which never made a second series. I get to night meds and get myself to bed with the goals of staying in the same bed for the night.
Thursday and I wake having achieved my goal of staying in the same bed even though my sleep has been disturbed. My partner and I sit and talk for a while and then get up for a bacon sandwich before my partner heads for the gym. At the last minute I decide to accompany her to spend some time in the lounge drafting the blog while listening to the Infinite Monkey and Cage and Mark Steel’s In Town in Stoke-on-Trent. He is just excellent of making fun of the town that he is in. So with my ear buds in to block out the noise of lounge people babble and the piped music I draft the blog. I find myself laughing out loud at Mark Steel as he describes in an hilarious way Stoke. I never knew that the captain of the Titanic was born in Stoke, captain Smith, and that Josiah Wedgwood had one and a half legs and that Stoke originated oat cakes and is awash with monkey dust.
My partner joins me and we drive across the fun park to the Italian restaurant and have lunch. I’m feeling off but the food is welcome. Once fed we return home where I continue to listen to radio shows and rest.
