Thursday and if I was counting antiandrogen days it would be day 79. Of course I am pleased that the antiandrogens have lowered my PSA and I am hoping that they will go on doing so, but I am experiencing more tiredness than before. This means that I can do two main things a day after which anything else is a bonus. I can gym/work, gym/garden, gym/shop, gym/ go to rugby, gym/Shed, gym/hoover. If I do not gym then I can combine any of the others depending on the degree to which I do them. It appears that spoon theory is spot on. In any one day I only have so many spoons of energy and when its gone its gone. I have had to lower my expectations of myself and accept that I need to pace myself but that my well being in terms of cancer means I need to invest quite a lot of spoons into keeping exercised. I thought I would just put that out there in case anyone was thinking of inviting me to Zumba classes.

So this Thursday started with an early start. I needed to move my car so that my partner could go to physio. This done there was time for a marmalade toast breakfast before I hit the work screens at 9 o’clock. I useful meeting and afterwards I did a bit of admin. I umed and arrrd a bit before deciding to go to the gym again. By this time the guy who helps with the garden turned up and was setting about the weeding so he needed to have tea and a chat. I packed my kit but then took a call from a friend who now has a child on crutches after a visit to a hospital last night. A trampoline mishap resulting in ligament damage. We chat for a while as I drive to the gym. The world seems to be giving everyone more to juggle just when they do not need it.

I get in the gym and get a cross trainer so that I can do another hour of “vigorous exercise” as my oncologist would define it. So I do my hour and burn of 605 calories whilst going 8.18 Kilometres, marginally better than yesterday. I spend a bit of time on the weights machines, arms and back mostly, and then head for the showers. I sit in the lounge with my customary coffee and egg and bacon bun whilst checking my social media and recovering. It takes about an hour to get myself recovered and then I am off to Sainsburys. I’ve been promising to try alcohol free Guinness for ages but its never been in stock at Tesco’s. To my vague surprise I find some, so I have a treat to try tonight as I watch more European football. I drive home adn find my Puck Futin hoodie has arrived. Its try on time and of course a photo opportunity:

I replenish the hedgehog food and provide fresh water in the dish so hopefully it will continue to eat and who knows one day there maybe Urchins. I clear the kitchen and with my last energy draft the blog. Tonight I shall watch football, drink alcohol free Guinness and go to bed early, again.

I am struck by my buying such overt signals of Ukrainian support and link it to a comment I made at yesterdays Elders meeting. I said that I thought it is important for things to be visual, that there should be reminders in the environment so that people could not avoid the conflict and the realities of war. I realise that there are parallels between the blog and the clothing. It is the sense of relentlessness that I experience with cancer and in what the Ukrainian people are experiencing. Anyone who experiences cancer, I believe, experiences that sense of constant threat that never leaves one alone. The Ukrainian people are living with that sense of remorseless threat day and night with no sight in end. I find a ray of hope in all this. No matter how I fight or battle I will ultimately loose, on the other hand the Ukrainians can win, if not in the short term ultimately they can. So for me I think the keeping the relentless conflict visible is a way to acknowledge what is being experienced.