Wednesday, I wake up after a reasonable night and do my vitals, they are okay. I watch a couple of short videos and get up. This is a challenge day and todays is to row for an hour. I get into my gear and take my morning drugs. I get myself into the garage set my ear buds to radio 2 and the rower to 60 minutes and then the challenge starts. The aim is just to get to the end, or is it? A little voice in my head says “10K, make 10K”. Always there is an internal dialogue, a voice that chats away. It is always positive to start with and as tiredness piles in it becomes a tormentor of self doubt cloaked in reason and self survival, which is really capitulation. Its soon warfare in the head and it can go either way. The first 30 minutes is easy , the voice is positive. After 45 minutes the voice is suggesting enough is enough, don’t over do it. Then it start to gets get nasty the voice starts with its “I know there is part of you wants to stop, I know you are think it too, there is no reason to continue, you don’t think you can make it, I know you and I know you will stop, so give it a rest, stop now. ” It is at this point that my pixies kick in and I find my voice and start to argue: “I am Roland, I have held my own in rooms full of killers and thugs, I’ve been in the heads of monsters and seen the worst of humans, no one wanted me in their heads, because I could stand and hold my own in the face of anger and hate. When I hear your voice tell me you know I will stop, I will fail, I hear the other part of you that fears I will succeed and the longer you fail the louder you know I will succeed, so we both know I will succeed and this gives me strength. Your fear of failure to stop me only gives me strength” And so it is, I finish the session and there I am over 10 kilometres and burned more than 600 calories. I am Roland and I stand. With Rocket at my side and my gems of self inside we renew the war on my cancer. End of.

Oh yes don’t screw with me. I’m back to being a one hour training man. I get out of the garage and record my session before getting out of my training gear. I empty Daisy dishwasher and bring in the bins and then prepare to make a new dish in my new pan. I intend baked tortilla for lunch. The tortilla is thrown into the new pan, a perfect fit and then I go to get the eggs and cold meat and cheese goodies that will make up my dish. I find only two eggs and I need four. Pissed off and disappointed I have muesli for lunch.

My afternoon sees me fill my drugs wallet for the week. Its down to the minimum of a twice a day blood thinner to ward off a DVT, a pill to help keep my blood pressure within limits and a night pill to ensure my prostate does not interfere with me during the night. All of this while I play the Pet Shop Boys live on the i-player. I draft the blog while I take some rest time and down a Red Bull. If I have not got Testosterone to drive me I am doing caffeine instead. Coffee gives me a bad gut but Red Bull is cold from the fridge and refreshing and as far as I can tell the only adverse effect is that I might fart more frequently, a small price to pay for feeling less fatigued. Bizarrely I am more concerned that I can only get the non diet version of Red Bull. Its not the biggest threat to my life right now, but there you go. So now my mind turns to what I can now do while I recover from my row.

My solution to my activity conundrum is to make four videos of me reading a poem from each of my poetry collections and putting them on my YouTube channel PROST8KANCERMAN. I think one of them is available now but three of them are scheduled to go live at 11:30 tonight. Of course if you are here before then they are below:

I edge into evening without a plan, I am sure today will catch up with me at some point so I am likely to take it slowly unless the Americans ring me up or I get a secondary burst of energy. I am strangely hooked on the Inspector Lynley Mysteries, they are so dated but incredible middle to upper class, no swearing, there are bounders and cads and no representation of any marginalised groups, its a real anachronistic watch but still manages to be an engaging watch. Ideal for an old white bloke to watch, I think it is because there is no disturbing “noise” apart from my own as I crunch my way through a bag of cheese crisps. Some times I just need the world to fuck off and leave me alone. It will be night meds and bed for me.