Tuesday and I wake knowing that a scan awaits me today so there are constraints on when I can eat and drink. I get up and shower. As I select clothes that have no metal content I remove all my jewellery in anticipation of the scan. Refreshed and sparkly I have time to start to fill in the cover design questionnaire that the Americans have sent me for The Cancer Years: Breathless collection. I also have time to wish my son happy birthday and reassure him that things are wing there way to him from Blighty to Sweden. Before I can finish the cover design questionnaire its time to leave for the hospital.

My partner drives me to the hospital where we park up and go in search of the CT scanner pod outside the main hospital building. Its easy to find and my partner and I ring the bell and get let into what is in essence a big caravan with a scanner in it, there is even small waiting room, already occupied by a bloke waiting for his partner to finish her scan. My usual identifiers are checked and as soon as the woman who was being scanned comes out I am ushered in. I am laid out on the couch and a medic of some sort puts a needle into the vein in my right arm, places my arms above my head and disappears to the techno room. Pretty soon I am being asked to hold a breath and being progressed through the giant doughnut, which whirls a bit. After a couple of ins and outs of the doughnut I feel myself being moved into it again and this time I feel the dye go into my arm and very soon feel the warm sensation in my arse and dick as the dye circulates. The machine makes a louder noise this time and then I ejected and the medic arrives to take the needle out of my arm and patch my arm with a gauze and sticky tape. I am free to go. My partner and I return to the car park pay station and find that we have been so quick that the parking is free. That’s a first.

Back home I return to the cover design questionnaire. For this collection I will keep the basic format of the series but will add a pair of lungs wrapped in the prostate cancer blue ribbon. I will be interested to see what the American designers make of it. With that done I go to the post office to send a missive off and to buy a paper and some food items to test out my new gridle. The crosswords today are a bit of a challenge I get stuck but unstick them with a Red Bull. I have a theory that some of my fatigue can be relieved by caffeine. I had considered cocaine, amphetamines and crystal meth but in the end settled on Red Bull as I thought it would be less hassle to get. I cannot see my post office being able to supply anything other than Red Bull. I finish the crosswords and read the rest of the paper. Their is so much trash in the papers that is definitely not news. With the paper now obsolete I watch some Mock the Week highlights and book a Tesco order until the evening meal after which I start to draft the blog. My evening will be football on TV and maybe a tad more but I shall take my night meds and go to bed relatively early in the hope that I sleep well and have the energy tomorrow for a longer rowing session and some rest. I am acutely aware that I have not written to anyone for what seems like and age and feel neglectful of those friends who I usually write regularly to. I need to rectify this.