Friday rocks up quickly at 07:50 today which means I have to get my arse in gear to be the GP to have my bloods done at 09:25 and I need a shower. So downing my morning meds before going to the GP I set off in sunshine although there is a hint of autumnal nip in the air. I no sooner check in and the nurse calls me forward to have my bloods taken. I have to say my GP vampire is an expert, she always gets my vein first time and quickly. So I am in and out in no time. I decide that I am feeling relatively chipper that I will get a paper and go the village café for a sausage and egg baguette and a hot chocolate. Having borrowed a pen from the owner I settle down and do the crosswords for the day. No Google required as I breeze through them, chomping on my baguette as I go. With food mission accomplished I return home.

I start to draft the blog and as promised yesterday I include yesterdays poems.

413

Damn me Red Bull
from the fridge 
is good.
After rowing a session 
and doing Tesco,
sipping slowly
with my feet on 
the electric reviver
life pauses for a moment.
I look around and see
laptops to the front,
books and papers to the left,
and the office mutterings
of my partner, like water,
seeping in from the right.
It occurs to me 
that I never retired,
not really.
I'm still organising,
writing and trying
to be be productive.
I guess I never
had the nerve
to go off grid,
make dream catchers
or indulge in crystals.
The Real World impinges 
no matter how I plug my ears
with music, podcasts and stories.
Keeping busy seems an answer
but that just pushes the anxiety,
the worry of the scythe
into the back box of a 
crowded head.
Its tricky having trained 
in all the illusions of humans
to fool myself, I am well aware
of how my inner pixies
play and hide,
leaving me with pictures
of a world that may
or may not count as real.
I hear a voice say;
"It is what it is",
but its not really.
It is what I construct it as
and there is nothing rational 
going on in that department.
Too much data through 
too few synapses 
has left its mark 
on a personal universe
that thinks this is poetry.
A universe that appears
to have no doors
or fire exit.
How am I supposed
to make meaning
of all this?
such inadequate tools
or am I the poor workman
seeking solace in blame
of my own inadequacies?
How do people remember so much,
recall vast tracts of beautiful 
words or ornate formulae, 
or make links and leaps of vision
that transcend the data.
Only sometimes when 
I cry at the heights of opera
do I get an inkling
that something is out there
or perhaps within
that has a hope 
of knowing what 
this thing is,
whatever "Thing" 
means.
Red Bull may give me Wiings
but no moment of
Ah Ha!

                                                             413 12-09-20

I was not sure about this first off but its grown on me overnight. If its going to ever be published it will be a way off as I will need to write enough for another collection.

My partner and I go for a late lunch at one of our favourite tea rooms and talk about future planning and things like Christmas. I manage to get the them to make me a smoothie using pineapple juice rather than apple juice as the base, apple juice just makes me throw up, it is a rare treat. Of course we cannot resist sharing some lemon cheesecake. Once home I seek to rest. I stick my feet on the electric foot revivor and while my feet and calfs get gently electrocuted I curate yesterdays poem, making sure it gets stored on my “All I Have” file. Once my feet are tingled fully I shall hoover round my office end of the sofa and prepare for the weekend.

The evening comes around and I am not hungry having eaten well during the day but eat anyway knowing I will regret it if I do not. I settle down to some athletics and more Inspector Lynley mysteries before thinking about heading for bed. Night meds and a nasal strip is the new simplified routine which appears to be working reasonably well, but tonight there is a set of blood results to come in, which they should do just after midnight. I am hoping that my PSA has staid relatively stable and that all the hospital experience of one off drugs has not disrupted my arithmetic too much. I forgot to drink a lot of water so my platelets will be down, but if that is all, I will be well pleased.

STOP PRESS: THE BLOODS ARE IN. IN GENERAL THEY ARE OKAY BUT THE PSA HAS RISEN BY 0.5, WHICH IS NOT GOOD. SO I PROBABLY NEED TO GET BACK ON THE ENZALAMIDE AS SOON AS I CAN. IT ALL SEEMS STRAIGHT FORWARD.

Thursday rocks round and I wake after a sound nights sleep. It seems that less drugs, exercises, and a nasal strip are making a difference. I let myself wake up slowly and take my vitals, which were okay. I decide to train again today originally thinking I would rest today. So I get up and get into my training gear, take my morning meds and head for the garage. It’s chilly today and the house heating has chipped in. I get on board the rower and decide to go for 45 minute session as I may not be able to train tomorrow. I get going and with my ears full of Radio 2 and keep going pretty well, in fact I row further than my other 45 minute sessions. It feels that deciding to go for 45 minutes was a good one.

So I end the session satisfied. A lunch of cereals follows which I eat watching the latest space walk and Politics Today. Australia are going to lock children off social media, that will be interesting. While I rest after training and eating I start to draft the blog. It’s Tesco delivery day today so I am hoping I can at last create my new back tortilla recipes.

My afternoon sees me write a poem and then bake my new dish of tortillas for tea. After tea I get a call from a friend and we talk for a while about how we are both doing and how we can gain some perspective in order to get some thinking time and time to rest. It was a real pleasure to have the conversation and to catch up. My evening is mostly TV before I take my night meds and retreat to bed. Tomorrow I shall go for my pre oncology review bloods to be taken and then I shall put todays poem on the blog.

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.

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.

Monday and I wake after a reasonable night. I take my vitals that are okay adn then get up as my partner goes off to the gym. I get into my training gear, take my morning meds and make my way to the garage and the rowing machine. I strap in and decide to go for a 45 minute session, why not its Monday. So I pull off slowly with my eyes closed and radio in my ears. My first target is to get to the next traffic update at the thirty minute mark. So I just listen, pull and focus. The second traffic report comes round quite quickly so I take a look at the monitor and find i have done 5k. Onward, but onward is tougher until at last the 45 are up. Its an okay session and will see me through the day.

After a brief rest I make breakfast, tidy the kitchen and put some washing in. There is paper work to be done for tomorrows CT scan so I dig out my folders and complete my CT scan history. With that done I turn to other life admin. The electoral role entries have to be confirmed and so I go on the local council website and confirm the household is still the same but in doing so I discover I have to amend mine. Now that I am 76 I am no longer considered fit for jury duty! Well that’s a relief, not that I would have done it anyway given my condition but it is one less thing to consider.

My attention turns to the Americans and I check the zip file containing The Cancer Years: Breathless before bringing up the order form to pay the Americas to work on it. I pay my fee and email my project manager and send him the Zip file, which he acknowledges later in the early evening. By now I am quite tired but my partner returns and wonders if there is anything I want to do. There is. I fill the squirrel feeder and the bird feeder before getting ready to go to shop for a gridle. I want one so that I can make tortilla based snacks like the ones I have been viewing on my internet feed. My partner and I go to the local Lakeland and find the pan that I want. Its one I can stick in the oven to bake things in.

As my partner is having a singing lesson tonight we eat early and I clear the kitchen and then draft the blog whilst sipping a Red Bull. I figure if I am suffering from fatigue I need all the help to be energetic I can get. Its worth a shot. So having drat the blog as far as I can get and downed my Red Bull its time to get my washing in and then settle down to an evening of TV. Crucially I need to know if the female detective has survived being shot with a shotgun, its all very knife edge. I expect her to be okay and to be able to go to bed happy and full of night meds. Tomorrow at 11 o’clock I am having a CT scan at the local hospital so I need to be up bright and shiny to shower and prepare for the scan. Somewhere someone is working on my new poetry collection so this is a good day.

Saturday and I wake up in the Spa bed having slept quite well to the knock on he door and the delivery of breakfast on trays. It seems a long time ago now as I write this in the early evening of Sunday. I recall the inevitable packing and the number bags being ready to be picked up and stored. These would magically appear when we were ready to depart. My partner went for a swim while I lazed in the sun room listening to various things on my ear buds. There was a break for a drink, more lazing before we changed into our travel clothes and had lunch, our final meal at the Spa.

As predicted the luggage appeared as if by magic as we paid the bill and I recovered the car. The drive home was quick and we were soon unloading the car and settling back in to home. There was a pile of post, most of it for recycling but one item was intriguing. Someone had sent me a book, which is not unusual but this one took me by surprise. I do not know who sent it to me but I think I can guess judging by the particle physics and philosophical content. It is a book by Sebastian Junger entitled In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife. I have no time to read it yet but I am intrigued.

The evening rolls round and there is an England football match to watch and a crime series to be caught up on. eventually its time to take my night meds and to go to bed hoping for a good nights sleep.

Sunday and I seem to have had a reasonable nights sleep, so I am able to lay in for a while. Breakfast follows and I spend some time just catching up with life admin and making sure that up coming birthdays are covered. My partner and eldest daughter go shopping and I start to read my new book. Its a very personal read that goes from one mans near death experiences to an essay on the possible connections between near death experiences and some modern particle physics, biology and consciousness. Sebastian Junger has an interesting personal and family history that makes connections across several fields as well as an individual seeking meaning for his experiences.

I read the book in one sitting and I am left with very mixed feelings about the book. I am not sure the “science” holds up across the board. It going to take time to process the contents and sort the wheat from the chaff. The evening arrives with the closing ceremony of the Para Olympics. Its tedious, so I watch a combination of football and a crime series until I take my night meds and watch the Pet Shop Boys live from a concert. Boys is a bit of a misnomer now. So tomorrow starts a new week and its back to a round of scans and bloods in preparation for more reviews. I’m tired of fatigue but will set another collection of poems in motion tomorrow.

Thursday and I wake knowing I have to pack so I take my vitals for the last time for a couple of days and get up for breakfast. So the first part of the day is spent tidying up and packing up. My partner and I are off for a two night break at our favourite Spa. Its a last minute thing. So by lunchtime we are all packed up and my car is loaded. Before we can set off we have to drop my eldest daughter off at the local community hospital for a scan and then we are on our way. Its a bit of a test as last time we were at the SPA we had to abandon it due to my bladder stone problems but now Uluru is no more I am more confident that things will be manageable.

We arrive and pull up in front of reception, I’ve learnt not to drag bags all the way from the car park and let the door attendant do the heavy lifting but I still do my own parking. Check in goes fabulously smoothly and we ae given or magic wrist bands that open everything. Room 33 second floor, main building we are told, just up the stairs. Its a long climb up an old fashioned wide staircase and by the time I am at the top I am knackered. Nice room though even if the view is architecturally mildly industrial. I am tired from the drive so while my partner goes off to indulge I find the sun room and read and rest. The SPA world is one of white fluffy bundles flip flopping from one beauty treatment of activity to another unless one is curled up on a sofa sipping drinks and staring into space.

My partner and I indulge in lemon drizzle cake and I, in a moment of fuck who cares, wash mine down with Prosecco. The evening meal comes around an surprisingly there is sufficient meat and potatoes on the menu to satisfy me. Slogging back up the stairs my partner and I watch the final episode of Freddy Flintoff’s adventure of taking a load of dysfunctional young men to India to play cricket. Its an interesting watch. Night meds and then bed, but not sleep I have a bad night.

Friday and my alarm wakes me up at 7:45. I must have had a really stupid head moment when I set it. I know I struggle to get to sleep in the night and only sink into deep sleep post dawn, so I’ve stupidly sabotaged myself. This is a double whammy as breakfast arrives at 8 o’clock on trays. So breakfast is a slightly bleary eyed affair. While my partner goes for a massage and to cancel mine, I cannot face being handled at the moment, I return to the sun lounge and read for a while. So the morning passes with me reading and my partner going off for treatment and activities. Lunch is a pleasant surprise, once again there is enough meat to satisfy me.

I have a post lunch nap and as my partner goes off to indulge again I get ready to go to the “wellness room”, which of course is a gym. It has a rowing machine, a more up market one than mine, but I cannot just row I have to select a 5000m row. So I get going, to my surprise I get into a rhythm and take only slightly longer to hit 5K.

Post row I meet up with partner and have a snack and then go back to the room where I catch up with the blog, shower and prepare for the nights meal, I’m hoping for more meat. As it turns out I have pasta, not the best choice as it is rather “rustic”. My gut has not been at its best today so after a post dinner coffee I and my partner head for the bar and there I order Armagnacs. I tell myself its a digestive and I am tired of being careful about food and drink. It tastes good and I retreat to the room and draft the blog before taking my night meds and settling down to see how tonight goes. I am hoping a combination of exercise, food and Armagnac does the trick. Normally I would pack the night before leaving but today I can’t be arsed. So good night everyone, see you in the morning.

Its a Wednesday and I wake up after what seemed a night of being tossed about on rugged seas. I have finally got to sleep late and as a consequence wake later in the morning. I check my vitals and they are more or less okay. Once up I dress in my training gear, I’m trying to make the effort. I take my morning meds and head for the garage and the rower. I am tempted to go for another 45 minute session but sense prevails and set off on another 30 minute session. As I begin to pull I am listening to Alexei Sayle’s Imaginary Sandwich Bar, I’ve not tried listening to stand up comedy before as an accompaniment to my exercise, and I have to say that the content was good but it is not a natural fit to training. I think I miss the sounds of Rammstein but I am not fit enough to be driven along by their music just yet. The session went quite well, at least I made 5k.

With the session over I switch my attention to getting rid of some old metal washing line props and unpacking the new ones that have arrived. I end up sawing the old ones up into chunks so that I could get them into the bin. An arduous task but its one bit of clutter less to deal with. Buy now I am feeling hot and bothered so take a quick shower hoping all the time that the water pressure does not drop and leave me dripping wet with no shower. Mission accomplished I settle down to think about whether or not to enter a poem into the Poetry Society Stanza competition as the closing date is midnight tonight. The theme of the competition is “Counting”. I do have a poem the fits the theme so I decide to have a punt, why not I think, you never know, I tell myself, but of course I actually do: no chance! So I submit a poem and know that, that is going to be that. Here it is;

400

Like my poems life is curated,
it is by filling the abacus that I know the days
since cancer took me.
Now my life is a plethora of numbers,
singularly or in pairs they see inside.
"Is my arithmetic good" I ask
after every vial of blood,
pot of urine or dollop of poo.
My life is enumerated, recorded
so that I and others may tend me.
All my ins and outs in digital,
averaged, plotted and watched
for waning and ebbing.
Life is moonlike, changing shape
dependant on reflection, angles
and the tremulous rotations
of a system trying to maintain
it's dynamic equilibrium.
By these calculations
I gauge how many more 
mathematical days I have left
to count.

                                                                          400 15-07-2024

I think that fits the theme of “counting”, however I am sure that there will be far more eloquent and clever poems entered, but in some way it legitimises me thinking of myself as a poet and motivates me to continue to pursue the Americans for a new book deal. The next couple of hours is spent trying to find a Spa break so that my partner and I can have at least a couple of days away but the search is fruitless, its been left too late. Both my partner and I search but we are out of luck. I start to draft the blog.

We come to the evening and my partner has another shot at finding a short break at short notice. To our mutual surprise my partner found a two day break at our favourite Spa, so tomorrow I and my partner head off for a two night break. Bit of a surprise but that means an early night and some speed packing in the morning and the careful selection of reading material. Hopefully this Spa break will be more successful than the last time, when I had to come home due to my bladder stone problems. This time I laze and do absolutely bugger all apart from rest.

Tuesday and after a semi restless night I wake up in time to see my partner of to the physio. I make the beds, take my morning meds and then get into my training gear and head for the garage and the rowing machine. I’m fed up being this fatigued person so I set my session for 45 minutes and to hell with it. I start slow and try to keep a steady pace. When I start out I do no t look at the monitor for as long as possible, its the only way I can get into a rhythm. By the time I look I am through the half hour mark, so onward. The end result is 7k+ and almost 500 calories burnt. For the first time since restarting to row I crack 1000 strokes. Go me.

After time to rest I take a shower and then make a reservation at a restaurant for tonight and then book tickets for a showing of an Andre Rieu concert at the local cinema. My partner and I go and stock up on popcorn and find our seat. Its not exactly packed out as the video shows.

It turns out that there is still some music that can choke me up. It turns out that Andre Rieu can throw quite a shindig. The good citizens of Maastricht certainly know how to party. All in all it was a good way to spend an afternoon.

Back home there was just enough time to spruce myself up before my partner and I went of to the restaurant. It is a cosy restaurant in a local village whose food is good. So I indulge in good pate, beef fillet and crepes. I also take the chance on a glass of red wine, a glass I do not finish, so there is still a bit of me being sensible. Home, a bit of TV and then night meds and bed. Its been a full day I hope the night is full of sleep.

The Monday after the 96th birthday shindig and an evening of TV. I seem to have slept okay, so the magic nasal strips might be working. I am aware that they are black and wonder if they are similar to Dumbo’s black feather.

As I have said before it could be not taking a substantial amount of my prescribed meds. Any way I wake and take my vitals, which are average and then get up to breakfast and meds. Importantly it is crucial that I send my youngest daughter the charger that she left behind that powers the child monitor at night. So placing it in a sock my youngest grandson left behind along with a small plastic rattley ball I bubble wrap it all up and pop it in a double envelope. I sounds and feels like a suspicious package that if ever x-rayed would definitely be opened. The post office clerk did not bat an eyelid and I sent it winging its way back by guaranteed tomorrow delivery. Mission accomplished I return home with a paper and sweets and settle down after my efforts to do the days crosswords. I have to say I fairly flew through them today and it makes me wonder if sleeping better is helping. Hopefully it is, but I am not about to sleep deprive myself to find out.

By lunch time there is a new task on the horizon namely lunch and checking the tyres on both mine and my partner’s cars. We go in convoy to the local garden centre and eat snacks before driving next door to the garage to check check both sets of tyres and fil up with petrol. Being shrewd and parsimonious pensioners we get both sets of tyres done on a single pound and then blow it on petrol for the cars. Once home I need a rest. It sounds ridiculous I know but it takes little effort to slow me down considerably. As a stop gap I sit on the recliner and start to draft todays blog, while my partner scours the internet for a break by the this week, me foolishly having indicated that I might be up for a short break this week.

The evening rolls round and my partner is going to have singing lesson this evening during which I will find a way of amusing myself but ultimately I shall take my night drugs and don my magic feather nasal strip and see how the sleep pattern goes.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the start of my chemotherapy. Here I am five years later in an unexpected space. Alive, refusing angina medication and on an enforced rest from my cancer treatment apart from my 28day injection. It doesn’t feel too bad, all I need to do is to keep trying to train while I get my next scan on the 10th of September and my next oncology review on the 18th of September. I am hoping for a sign off from the cardiac boys and girls and the oncologist gives me the go ahead to restart my cancer pills. Its been an interesting 5 years.