Friday and I wake up and feel reasonable, not building leaping good but okay, so I take my vitals and my blood pressure is up a bit but I’m beginning to think “fuck it” lets crack on even its a bit more sedately, this is a new phase. I get up, dress and empty Daisy dish washer and clear the kitchen I then make a ham omelette for breakfast washed down with orange juice. First real decision of the day is whether to take the additional Relosorb angina half tablet. I have no chest pain and I do not want the headaches. I believe “he who made the pact with the devil” when he said he thinks the cardiac boys and girls made a wrong call, so I eschew the angina half tablet and take the risk.
With that out of the way I get myself ready for the short walk down to the village library. I ask my eldest daughter to walk down with me. A confidence thing really. I ‘ve discovered that the medical profession are really good at knocking the confidence out of me with their algorithms, artistic guess work and shroud waving. So just in case my eldest accompanies me. On the way to the library an urban tractor pulls up and a made up woman asks where the nearest supermarket is. After a bit of interrogation I find out she is on the way to Birdland and all they want is some food to take. Easy really, one of the village co-ops is on the way to Birdland. She clearly does not think the Birdland café can cater for her palate. When we get to the library I tell the volunteer behind the desk that I live in the village and that I would like the library to have three sets of my collections so far to either put on their shelves or give to people who might be interested, its up to them, but I did say they were not for the children’s section. The guy said thank and it was very generous of me and that was it. No flicker of interest unless he was just bemused that someone would so shamelessly advertise themselves or be so egotistical as to donate their own books. A bit like going on Desert Island Discs and choosing all your own work. Still I hope it does not create the conundrum as to what to do with them. My eldest daughter and I walk home via the village co-op to pick up a paper and fruit pastilles.
On a windy but sunny patio I do the crosswords in the paper until the breeze drives me inside to settle down to rest a bit more. I recalculate the days spent and the phases that the blog has gone through since I started it back in September 2019. Somewhere along the way I’ve lost 15 days, but what with holidays and unexpected events that’s not too bad. I start the draft of todays blog and choose a new Rocket picture to head up the blog. New phase, new Rocket, same old fight plus a new complication or not. For anyone interested I have included the Phases So Far below with the days in each phase, its indicative of the changing nature of the journey and the hop from one medication to another.
WELCOME ALL: 01 SEP 201 TO 01 SEP 2019 1 DAY
INDUCTION DAY: 02 SEP 2019 TO 02 SEP 2019 1 DAY
CHEMO DAY: 04 SEPT 2019 TO 05 JAN 2020 120 DAYS
FINGERS CROSSED PHASE: 07 JAN 2020 TO 23 MAR 2020 77 DAYS
AS GOOD AS IT GETS PHASE 1: 24 MAR 2020 TO 08 FEB 2021 322 DAYS
AS GOOD AS IT GETS PHASE 2: 10 FEB 2020 TO 21 DEC 2021 315 DAYS
ANTIANDROGEN: 22 DEC 2021 TO. 22 FEB 2022 63 DAYS
AS GOOD AS IT GET AGAIN: 23 FEB 2022 TO 31 OCT 2022 251 DAYS
ROCKET: 01 NOV 2022 TO 21 DEC 2022 51 DAYS
ROCKET BOOSTER: 22 DEC 2022 TO 06 MAR 2023 42 DAYS
RUN UP TO RADIO THERAPY: 07 MAR 2023 TO 17 MAY 2023 72 DAYS
NO MANS LAND: 18 MAY 2023 TO 29 MAY 2023 12 DAYS
REARMAMENT: 30 MAY 2023 TO 07 JUNE 2023 12 DAYS
REARMED: 08 JUN 2023 TO 09 JUN 2023 2 DAYS
CHEMO II: 10 JUN 2023 TO 18 AUG 2024 435 DAYS
ANGINA ADVENTURE: 19 AUG 2024 TO 23 AUG 2024 5 DAYS
TOTAL 1801 BLOG DAYS TO DATE
ACTUAL DAYS BETWEEN 1ST SEPTEMBER 2019 AND 23 AUGUST 2024 IS 1815 DAYS, SO SOMEWHERE OVER THE PAST 4 YEARS, 11 MONTHS 19 DAYS I’VE LOST 14 DAYS SOMEWERE.
DIAGNOSED ON 19TH OF JUNE 2019. 1894 DAYS OR 5 YEARS 2 MONTHS 6 DAYS.
So if I can hang on for another 10 days I can do a 5 year celebration edition of the Blog. I hope it has fulfilled its original purpose of keeping family and friends up to date with my cancer journey and help ease the conversations when they were needed. I also hope it helped and is helping family and friends to ask the tricky questions they want to ask. As for me it continues to help me capture my experiences and to remind me that I can live a mundane life with all the little and big gems that life has brought me over the last five years, there is lots to be thankful for that I thought at the start I would never see or achieve, whether it be new and developing grand children to, holidays I thought I would not have or that moment when my poetry actually found its way into the world. There is of course lots more but today I am content the sun is now shining and I have no headache.
The meanders into an evening Indian take away, a cute film, Gifted and another episode of Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams, where he has taken a bunch of Preston lads on tour to India. It is touching and a surprisingly insightful. Finally I get my night meds down me and retreat to bed having got through the day without angina meds and a headache.
