Thursday and I wake after a reasonable nights sleep but drift off again. My partner brings me hot water and toast and then goes off to do aqua aerobics. I struggle to get up and end up jotting a poem, these are tricky times.

504
My body lets me down,
time slips by
and I don’t care.
Abandoned
like a floating hull
devoid of sailors
left to the currents
and the tides.
This drifting loose 
upon the swells 
under a moon
leaves me directionless.
I’ve no sails to hoist
no trusty oar to pull
just a rudder
that is locked to forward.
There are no tugs 
to throw a line,
to pull me home 
to a port and repair.
So here I am becalmed
and wait and wonder 
if Neptune has a place
for me.

				504 05-03-2026

Eventually I get up, get dressed and find some underwear that does not pressurise my 28 day injection site. I Am walking about with a lump in my midriff the size of a chicken egg and it is sore so tight underwear or the belt line of trousers is a problem. It sounds a small thing but it is a constant nag and most unwelcome when I am feeling feeling crap anyway. So having found comfortable, non pressurising under garments, I get up and try to get going. There is mail for me and when I get it open I find I have been booked in for a CT scan later it the month. Its a Thorax, abdomen and pelvis scan, I guess someone wants to have a look at how my prostate and surrounding areas are doing. No one mentioned this to me at the oncology review so I guess it was an after thought or it is a routine annual scan. Maybe once in the system you get a regular update. It means a trip to the nice new area diagnostic centre for a morning, which I shall do by Uber. The diagnostic centre is lovely and new but a bastard to get to and park.

Of course there is admin to do, like getting it on the calendar of family activities and treats and checking that I am available that day. As it happens I’m due to be going to the theatre that evening to see Mama Mia. I am hoping by then I will be up for it. With the admin done I check out Easter having realised during the scan admin that Easter this year is early at the start if April. I guess I will need to think about what if anything I will be doing. With Easter checked I start to draft the blog. I put a new picture of Rocket at the head of the blog. I wanted a more active, aggressive Rocket pose to emphasise the need to fight, so I found one and then cropped it to make it more “in your face”. Whilst doing this my partner returned and made me lunch. So the afternoon starts with more blog drafting and a girding of the loins to try and do something. I return to the misery of not beg able to taste anything. I have the most appalling earthy taste in my mouth all the time due to the chemo fucking up my taste buds. Not quite how the oncologist put it but it is what it is, fucked up taste buds. I can do cold and warm, the rest is “flannel”. I just hope my taste returns soon, I miss good tasting food and the ability to quench my thirst.

In the afternoon I try to get myself going. I go for walking on the spot for a few minutes whilst holding a 5 kilo weight in each hand. After that I plug in the circulation reviver and zap my feet for thirty minutes at 60% just to give them a bit of a kick start. I then settle down to read a poetry pamphlet that came to the surface when I was tidying the pile of books at the side of the sofa. The poetry is really good but it is not my style. I recognise well written, constructed and creative poetry but for some reason it does not touch me. It does prompt me to write a poem of my own.

505
A tip toe round the tricky stuff poet,
full of tangential adjectives 
and illusions to cruel subtleties.
All nods and winks and introjections
that point a possible way
but averts the eyes at the last
when face to face with reality.
It’s kindness turning it’s gaze away
so as not to witness the implacable
nature of life passing through
and on without the reader.
Its form is flowing, never stopping
to view too close,
to capture conclusion 
only the impression of moving
inevitably towards
what cannot be borne. 
Its impressions 
brushed over and over
till the feeling is 
that something 
was there
but not quite clear what. 
It’s a harsh compassion. 

					505 05-03-2026

I return to drafting the blog before I descend into the evening, a meal, the last of the Brokenwood Mysteries and an early night. Night meds with or without paracetamol, which I think I am superstitiously beginning to think helps me sleep. Its Friday tomorrow and I feel I have wasted a week laying around trying to get better, tomorrow I need to try to exercise again and electrocute my feet, now there is an ambition for you.