Midnight Friday and my blood test results get posted on the Patient View app. I read them and note the rise in PSA, I go to bed perturbed. Saturday morning I rise early and process my blood results in my usual way. I’m trying not to panic and to remain calm, there are more scan results to come. I need to wait and see what it all means when put together. When all is said and done my blood results are okay, in fact moving in the right direction or not changing from the normal range, it is the PSA which is the crucial one. A rise of 0.35 is used as the cut off criteria for oncologists to take note (NB), this is the second set of tests over two months that have shown a rise of 0.5, hence my perturbation.

As you can see the out of range scores are moving in the right direction towards the normal range. Urea is dropping to wards normal, eGFR is just one point from normal and is stable and my Platelets count is moving up towards the normal range. The fly in the ointment is the rise in PSA. Although in the normal range for my age the rise is significant because of what it potentially signals and that is, that my body has found a way round the effect of the hormone therapy and/or the chemotherapy I had. It is a common process for this condition but one that is negative in terms of holding off the disease. As I say I’m trying not to panic, to wait for the rest of my scan results and to hear what the oncologist has to say on Tuesday.

The rest of my day is going to be filled with gardening, cleaning out the fish tank and doing the generative everyday things that constitute a life. I might also find time to celebrate that Brentford for a number of hours sit at the top of the premier division after beating Arsenal 2-0 last night in their first top league game since 1947. Perhaps I will come back to this page to edit it later in the evening.