Wednesday and its oncology review day and its face to face. So I get up slowly and have a shower before having toast, orange juice and morning meds. I choose to wear a light weight suit given this is the warmest day of the year so far. To my surprise it fits well so I feel okay and ready to front the oncologist and what he might have to say or show me. This session is face to face so that he can share my recent scan results so I feel the need to be respectable and not a trainers and T shirt overwhelmed patient. I think it turns out quite well.

My partner and I get an Uber to the hospital and settle in at the waiting room. A couple who we meet on chemo Fridays. We chat for a while and eat a quick cheese sandwich before I get called in. The consultant explains that he has a new techno gizzmo thing that writes his letters for him. He tees it up and we are off. He asks how I am and I tell him I am tired/fatigued. He suggests that he reduces the dose of my chemo, tells me I won’t make ten cycles and that he might discontinue the chemo rechallenge. I’m not impressed, I do understand that dosage is based on toxicity not amount. In my head its no different from Keith Richards only taking medical grad heroine and not increasing the amount as he understood that taking more heroine would not change the effect.

We move onto the scan results. The oncologist shows me the scan and explains the orientation. Apparently there has been no change, no spread, and I am told its al good. All good that is apart from still having cancer in my prostate and the back wall of my bladder at the base. So its all the same, I’m holding my own, my PSA is going down. So here I am where I was seven years ago, in the same battle with less strength and stamina. The session comes to an end with me insisting on Cycle 6 being the same dosage. The oncologist says accept a lower dosage next time. He then says I have to have a set of bloods today as my last lot were too far back, a week. So I take the blood form to the bloods room and wave it at the blood sucker. He takes my blood and I note that PSA is not on the bloods form. It makes me wonder if PSA is that important, the oncologist clearly isn’t that interested.

Blood taking over my partner and I leave. There is a good fruit stall outside the oncology unit and we buy two large packs of strawberries for a fiver. We order an Uber from the hotel and travel quietly home.

Once home I am out of the suit and into something casual and into the garden to decompress. After a drink I set about sowing the purple sunflower seeds I’ve been waiting to get going. After some time I have a tray of individual fibre pots each bearing a single sunflower seed. I pop them into one of the covered raised beds and retreat to the sofa t start drafting the blog. Tea follows accompanied by some of the hospital strawberries. And with that I sink into the evening watching the Slow Horses series. I now have a new set of bloods to wait for, so the evening will draw to an end later on.

Tuesday and I am awake at a reasonable time as my partner goes off to the physio to be followed by her aqua class at the gym. I get up and cook myself a three egg herb and cheese omelette and take my morning meds. I then spend time filling my meds dossettes for the next two weeks. I add the additional steroids for the end of the week when Cycle 6 starts. Its a fiddly job but pays dividends in terms of keeping me organised and on track. With that done I type up the poem I wrote before getting up.

513
A friend suggested
a spring poem,
one of hope 
and renewal.
A few verses
to lift my gloom,
shake off the grim
and shed some light.
The problem is
it’s not there.
I can’t write 
what isn’t in me,
so I hack ahead
and see where
this leads.
It appears 
the seasons
are unpredictable.
					513 07-04-2026

Typing it up reminds me that I have not posted anything on my poetry website for a few days and should think about putting some new poems up and also making new videos to post as well. But not today. I gather my things together and go out to the Shed. Its an age since I inhabited my Shed and wrote any letters. My head has been so lax recently that I have not written to friends for a very long time and that won’t do at all. So I spend time in the Shed writing a couple of letters. It is hard work but made easier by my new Mont Blanc pen that was a Christmas present. Extravagant but lovely, it is so smooth to write with. I use all my old rituals, sealing the letters with my seal ring and adding the odd sticker or two. y the time I have finished two letters I am tired and take a break to spend time on the swing seat. I notice how good the magnolia tree is looking.

I close the Shed up and then take a walk over to the post box and send my letters on their way. Back home I settle down to begin to draft the blog until its time for the evening meal. Once food is over my partner and I begin to watch a new drama series Slow Horses, which turns out to be good. I return to the blog and then take my night meds before turning in for the night. Tomorrow is oncology review day so there is a bit of prep to do in the morning, I need to be clear about what I want to know about my latest scan.

Sunday, Easter Sunday. My partner brings me hot water and I laze in bed until my hunger motivates me to get up and cook breakfast for myself. My partner goes with her brother to see their mother in hospital in the early afternoon, taking with them a radio to add some stimulation to her stark room, leaving me to watch women’s football, of which there was a lot. The goalkeeping is at least better than it was. A men’s FA cup quarter final kicked off the early evening and went on into extra time and penalties. So the evening saw my partner and I finishing off a couple of drama series and catching the latest episodes of a currently running one. My partner went to bed leaving me to watch a couple of comedians, Bill Bailey and Micky Flannagan, good fare by which to take my night meds and go to bed finally. Easter was a non event in the household apart from a bunch of flowers. Everyone just has too much on to be arsed really.

Bank holiday Monday. Its an at home day for everyone so of course its time to tidy up, clean and mow the lawns with a bit of shrub and flower tinkering along the way. So after breakfast and meds I join in the garden activities. The guy who does our garden is currently indisposed so its down to my partner and I to keep on top of the garden. The lawns get mowed and some plants get tidied up after which my partner and I are knackered, she puts food in the slow cooker and we rest. I draft the blog while waiting for Tesco to deliver. It is tedious and its is boring hence the brevity of the blog. I’ve not read for a couple of days now and not really been moved to write anything. All I hold onto really is the chemo and the hope that it works to keep me going. When it ends in July the issue will be whether the oncologist has anything else to offer, he did not last time. At least I can get on with publishing the next collection of poems to mark the end of the chemo rechallenge. After that its anyone’s guess. One positive is that I appear to have regained some sense of taste, so I should make the most of it and eat delicious food with as much variation as I can, which puts the newly delivered Tesco order in a new light. I’ll probably order more peppermint creams, just in case.

Easter Saturday and I wake up quite early for me and gratefully receive the hot water my partner brings me. She goes off with her brother to see their mother in the rehab unit she has been moved to. I am not feeling chipper at all but I get up and make perfect boiled eggs to have with my morning meds. I rest and nibble Maltesers, just rambling in my head I suppose. I watch Manchester City thrash Liverpool and my partner returns from her visit. Its been a difficult morning.

In the afternoon the flowers I ordered arrive for my partner and I watch the end of the boat race. In a small burst of energy I refill the toilet roll box and refill the liquid soap dispenser. A full toilet roll fairy episode. Having returned to the sofa I write a poem. This one is not for the blog and may never see the light day, joining the “not for publication list” perhaps. With the poem out of my system I begin to draft the blog. There is more FA cup football on TV but it maybe too much but at least the decision has been made about what we will eat for tea. Tonight will be a “chippy” night for ease of effort. I shall think carefully what I will require, I might break out of my pie and chips routine.

Apparently storm Dave is on the way, so tonight and tomorrow maybe windy and wet. As nothing opens on Easter Sunday I guess it will be a quiet day of hoping things in the garden are tied down and that nothing comes loose anywhere. I make the assumption that there will be lots of people on Easter egg hunts that may not be as comfortable as usual. On a personal note I could not give a bugger really, I feel crap and that’s that. All I want to do is get Easter over with, get my oncology review done on Wednesday, (with scan results) and crack on with Cycle 6 on Friday. Simple really, just have to keep focussed on what’s keeping me alive and what might add some extra time.

Friday and I wake late again, much to my annoyance. It would be okay if I felt refreshed, but I do not. I do eventually get up and cook pizza for brunch and down my morning meds. After pizza I book a Tesco slot and throw a few things into the basket. To my surprise I can get a slot on Easter Monday! My partner returns from visiting her mother in her new rehab facility. Things will be slow over the Easter period so we will have to see how things go. I do the days crosswords and then my partner and I head out for a drink.

I drive to a local garden centre where my partner and I have a drink and then my partner buys pots of sweet peas to be brought on in the mini greenhouse. I collect a big bag of peanuts to keep our squirrel fed. When I get to the checkout I find out how much of a luxury peanuts now are for the squirrel. The cost has soared over the last few months. I am afraid that once this bag of peanuts has gone then he is on his own, nature will have to provide. On the drive back we realise that there is some weekend food shopping to be done. So our journey continues to another garden centre that has our favourite butchers in it. The butchers does not let us down and we buy our main meals for the Easter break. On the journey home I top up my petrol tank at a garage that had cheaper prices than the other local garage. I now have 400 plus miles in the tank that should last beyond the Iran war.

Back home the car gets unloaded and the sweet peas are found a space in the mini greenhouse. I gather up the escaped table cover and stow it in the writing hut. I then retreat to the sofa and start drafting the blog and adding things to the Tesco order for Monday. My partner cooks some of the goodies we brought back from the butchers and we then settle into catching up with some of the TV series we have missed. Hopefully a quiet evening before once again I take my night meds and get to bed for a nights sleep.

April Fools day, a Wednesday, a day to have bloods taken and therefore another PSA reading, its an important day. I am sluggish to wake and find everyone is on the way out to something. I do get up and make myself breakfast, a traditional one of toast and marmalade to accompany my morning medications. At the appointed time I drive to the GP surgery, I’d not make it walking, fortunately there is a space to park in. Having checked in I realise I have not got my phone with me and actually do not care, in fact its a relief, I do not have to play with the calendar for the next appointment. The nurse calls me in and I am really relieved to see its my usual blood taker. She is chatty, bouncy and blood good at getting the needle into my tired veins. She is having a busy morning, the doctors keep asking for a “quick bloods or ECG”. I suggest she draws a wiggly line on a piece of paper and when they ask for a quick ECG she produces it and says “here’s one I made earlier”. It was nice that she laughed. A couple of vials blood later I was on my way out.

I drove home and rested until my partner returned from visiting her mother in hospital. I did have time to type up a poem that I wrote yesterday. At the last poetry stanza one of the group suggested that I wrote more poems that contained my past and especially my memories of London just post war when I was a child. Apparently my image of the Sunlight Laundry horse in the smog was a good one. I had also had a conversation with one of the Rulers Wit publishing team on Saturday who was thinking of writing a memoir after reading some of my poems. So I had been thinking a lot about my childhood and wondering if a memoir was possible. The following poem popped out of my head and gave me a very clear answer.

510
I thought I’d write
a memoir.
It turns out
my childhood
is a cloud
of fragmented falsehoods
and constructions,
bleak, cold 
and misunderstood. 
There’s nothing there
but mute parents,
a weird sister
and a sense 
of having to go it 
alone.
There were ration books,
smog, gas light,
and horse shit on the road.
A nit nurse and a parade
on Empire Day.
The other kids
were fucking awful
so I played rugby
and stole things...
and drank.
It was twenty years
of dyslexic hell
till correspondence courses
bought me a ticket 
to Uni.
English, economics and logic
saved me.
That and the fact 
I thought I might 
be bright enough,
good enough
to do the normal shit.

							510 31-03-2026

My partner and I drove to a big garden centre near us for lunch where I indulged in chilli concarni. It was nice just to eat an chat, With the food and chat over I headed for the Pavers shoe shop and made a bee line for the Sketchers slip ins. I had my eye on a pair of blue trainers. I found two styles and grabbed them to try on. On style had laces that were not done up but even so I could no t get my feet to “slip into” them, poor design. The others were a broad fit and I liked them immediately, so it was them that came home with me. along with a couple of boxes of chocolate creams, peppermint and strawberry. Of course I wore my new “slip ins” to break them in for a while.

The evening came along and we watched the conclusion of Gone, not bad but a bit predictable, my partner went to bed and I sat and waited for the “patient knows best” email to arrive with my blood results from the mornings visit to the GP. It is always a tense moment as I read them, transferring them as I go to my record sheet that I use to record them. As always the crucial one is the PSA score, up is bad and down is good. I am relieved that today it is down. Down by 0.4, not a lot but down and I have to remind myself that the bloods have been taken earlier than usual, day 13 of 21 in the cycle because of Easter. The rest of the profile is okay. The things that are out of “range” are all moving in the direction of “range” so I am quite pleased with the overall outcome.

Today is a significant day in a different way. Seven years ago to the day I was flown out of Jamaica in an air ambulance, where I stopped for ice cream in Bermuda, pizza in Carpenter, Canada and sandwiches in Iceland before retuning home to Birmingham airport and an ambulance ride to Leicester Royal Infirmary, where I was immediately put into quarantine. I did have the memory of seeing the northern lights over Iceland to keep me going. Here I am still fighting, still knowing that I want to live, that I still have things that I love about the world and a family I do not want to leave and, of course, a head full of poetry and silly stuff. My cherry blossom continues to hold on and I intend to see it next year and the year after.

Thursday and to my chagrin I wake up at gone 10:30. I check my phone for world and personal updates and send birthday greetings to a friend. I feel rank but I eventually bully myself to get up and to take my morning meds, which are now more like breds, brunch meds. I have pizza and orange juice on the swing seat in the garden as the sun is out. I watch mother robin feed her young one, the squirrel gather peanuts from the freshy filled dispenser and our bachelor wood pidgin waddle about filling his crop. I also listen to the poxy dog down the road yelping and growling. Its a bulli type dog and I can’t help fantasying about it coming to a sticky end. My partner returns from visiting her mother and after a chat and a bite to eat for my partner we set about some jobs in the garden. I plant out some geraniums and pot up others. The garden furniture is released from its winter coves and the patio sponged down but will need a power wash very soon. My partner organises the mini greenhouse and the covered raised beds and plants out some over due pansies. By four o’clock I am knackered and clear away what I have been using. Back on my end of the sofa I draft the blog until tea time. The evening is up for grabs, perhaps a film or a new drama series, it is that tricky pre world cup couple of months when I feel I need to abstain a bit from football to get enough credit for the world cup, however I reckon England will not go far and in likelihood Scotland are more likely to stay longer. With that in mind I shall steer my way through the evening to evening meds and then bed. Easter is a bit of a lottery as my partners mother moves to a new rehab facility today so there will be visiting and organising to be done. Creativity and flexibility is the key.

Monday, jab Monday but not until 2:20pm. I take my time getting up, I am still feeling incredibly fatigued. My partner has gone to visit her mother in hospital and returns in time for lunch. I ask her to drive me to the GP surgery to get my injection, I feel I need the support. There is a small crowd in the waiting room and are soon joined by an ambulance team who disappear into one of the doctors surgeries. Clearly some one is more ill than they thought. I get called in by the locum nurse. She is a chatty person whom asks all about the injection and how long I have been having them. There is something jittery about her but I think I am more nervous that she is unfamiliar with the injection as it has to be made up.

Eventually the jab is ready and she askes me which side it is going in. It is the right side, the side that gets sorest. The needle goes in and the 80mls gets pushed into my lower right abdomen. A cotton wool ball is taped over the puncture and I am free to go. As my partner drives me home we note the ambulance is still parked in the carpark blocking everyone else in.

I get home and my partner and I watch “The Other Bennet Sister” to its conclusion. No radical ending just a usual falling in love marriage status quo ending. A bit of a disappointment really. I am not sure that being married and being a governess to an older child was that revolutionary. Tea followed and then I settled in for an evening of TV as I could feel my injection site getting more and more sore. I take my night medications and get to bed. I get more and more sore and my gut is off as well so at 2 o’clock in the morning I am juggling water and soluble paracetamol. All I crave is a block of sleep.

Tuesday and I do not get my block of sleep. The result of this is that I nap and view bits and pieces on the phone. Eventually I get up close to noon. I am frustrated at my fatigue and soreness and try to get going. I cook a pile of pasta and add a splosh of red wine to the sauce. I take my meds while watching the news, mostly doom and gloom and a lot of supposition. I start to draft the blog while snooker is on in the background. I realise that as I become “confined” so does my blog, it is the mundanity of the battle, where day to day survival is fought out. I have ten days to gather myself before the next cycle of chemo rechallenge starts so I need to get going on some sort of recovery plan. Tonight I shall watch England play Japan and see whether England can actually compete with a reasonably good team. With luck I shall be okay to wander down to the GP surgery tomorrow to have my pre oncology review bloods done. With it being Easter bank holiday finding a slot where my bloods would be acceptable was a nightmare, I have messages from the oncology unit setting dates and facilities for those with chemo over the Bank Holiday, thank fully I fall just outside their dates. Its just life admin I guess.

I notice that I am beginning to show “growth ridges” on my nails. There seems to be a delay in their appearance but it does seem that over time I get one for each cycle of chemo. Its just one of those little oddities that comes with the territory.

Saturday and it is to be a busy day. I get up and take my morning meds and get ready to drive my partner to her mothers house. We arrive and met the carer who is still staying there while my partners mother is in hospital. We spend time measuring the bed and the stair lift. My partner collects clothes for her mum and then sees the house is in order before it is locked up . The carer returns home and my partner and I return to ours. There is time for lunch before getting ready to go to the States of Independence literary event at De Montfort University.

I drive into town and park up so that I can walk down to the university with my partner. I am suffering and finding the effort of walking very difficult. We book in and then we walk down to the rows of book stalls. There are so many self published books of all kinds, especially poetry. It makes me realise just how getting to the top echelon is a matter of career and knowing the business. At base I am okay with this as my poetry is out there and my family can access it if they want to. I spend time chatting to Rulers Wit. My books are on their stall, which is nice to see. I give them some of my new business cards and talk about a timetable for there next collection. My partner and I go for a drink and then return in time for the open mike session. The hosts ask that each person confines themselves to three minutes, which the first poets do but then people start reading extracts from their short stories. Some of them are insufferably long. I am enraged as I think it is unbearably rude for people to ignore the three minutes and to make others wait so long to perform. Some of the poetry was interesting but there are some people who should just not read their poetry. At least one or two good poems where ruined by the flat and mumbled delivery of the poet. I was going to put myself up for a poem or two but the session ran over by so much that by the end all I wanted was to get out and get home.

The walk back to the car was painful, I am huffing and puffing and really struggling. By the time I get home I am shivering and trembling. I feel chilled and cold and hunker down on the sofa under a blanket. My gut is in uproar. I eat tea and then settle down on the sofa. My partner microwaves the lavender bag which I clutch to my chest to try and get warm. I half watch some TV but eventually go to bed fully dressed trying to get warm. It is a distressing time as I try to get warm and to sleep. My gut is disturbed which means I am to and fro to the bathroom. At one thirty in the morning I am up and taking paracetamol. The next thing I know its five o’clock. Then its suddenly 10 o’clock and I realise the clocks have gone forward an hour.

Sunday and my partner has brought me hot water and my eldest daughter has gone to comi com. My partner goes to see her mother in hospital and I drift in and out of sleep. I scribble a poem.

509
Inert,
I have nothing.
It’s all too much,
the effort insurmountable
to push words
onto paper.
This state is illusive 
and will not be caged
by this pen
this ink.
If this is defeat
it is a tame beast
where only the head 
sees into the future.
There will be poems
but not in this
flat land
where erosion works
to hold me still
and make me wait
with the future
as an act 
of faith.
				509 29-03-2026

By the time my partner returns I am getting ready to get up. I take my meds and eat the toast my partner makes me. Once up I settle into my sofa spot and start to draft the blog while watching the Sunday afternoon rugby match. The rest of my day is slow and a time of rest. Tomorrow is my 28 day injection that always knocks me backward for at least 48 hours, so given my vulnerable state I am not looking forward to the coming days. This is a tricky time.

Friday and I wake up after a reasonable nights sleep knowing that I am due at the dentists at 10:45. After a short lay in and chat with my partner I take some paracetamol and get up. With my meds done I wander off to the dentist where I wait to be called. My dentist is smiley and very efficient, and knows my dental and medical history in detail which makes going to the dentist so much easier given my history. I hand my fallen crown to her in its sample vial and she has a look inside my mouth. The decision is that my crown can be stuck back in and so we get on with it. It is a very quick procedure and I am soon back at reception being told that there is no charge. A result.

Back home I settle down to wait for a while before I can have a drink or anything to eat. My partner goes off with her brother to see her mother in the new hospital that she has been moved to. At least the parking should be easier. I make a late lunch and listen to some comedy programmes on the radio while drafting the blog. My Poetry Society quarterly review arrives and idly flip through it. This years winners of the annual poetry prizes are published in a pamphlet, which I leaf through. Its full of poems I do not understand and find difficult to read or connect with. It reminds me of a poem I wrote recently.

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 thought 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 drift along listening to more radio comedy programmes continuing to draft the blog. I know that there is an England football match this evening against Uruguay so I know what I will be doing for most of the evening. Tomorrow is the day of the States of Independence literary event at De Montfort University, which I intend to go to. There is an open mike session and I do not know if I am going to read at it. There are a couple of poems that I might consider reading. There is a well known local artist and poet being interviewed which might be interesting. It will give me a chance to talk to my publishers, Ruler’s Wit and see how things are with them. They have a stock of one of my books, The Cancer Years: Anthology, so I can offer autographed copies along with some of my new business cards. This year I shall probably attend for less time than previously given what else the family has to do this weekend, which is how life is.

Thursday and I slowly surface after going to bed at two o’clock in the morning when my partner returned from the hospital where her mother had been admitted over night. So I am tired to start the day and there is planning to do with my partner, so much depends on what is going on at the hospital. I get up and take my morning meds and then we decide to both go to our nails appointment after my partner is able talk to her mother on the phone. We arrive at the gym where our beautician is and I am able to get a giant cookie and Lucozade for breakfast before we go in to the nail bar.

It is a pleasure to be able to sit and be pampered. There is chat and catching up with what has happened to us all in the last month. I had decided to strip my nails of all lacquer and polish to give my nails a chance to breath and for me to oil them in an attempt to keep them from hardening and becoming disfigured due to he chemo. So my nails are stripped down and manicured and then oiled. My hands get massaged and feel much better for it. I miss my subtle sparkles or cats eyes but as an Easter treat I get an Easter bunny nail done.

I wait in the gym lounge for my partner as she takes longer than me. Eventually she emerges and we go home to eat. My partner goes with her brother to visit their mother in hospital and I settle down to do the days crosswords. With the puzzles done I read the meters and send off the readings noting that this months bill is going to be less than last months and in budget. As it is the 26th of March the channel that I get my sports coverage on, TNT, is changing its streaming partner to HBO max so I have to find a way of down loading the required App. I flounder around for quite a while avoiding having to pay again for a service that I buy from BT. Eventually I get it done and so I now have a new App on the TV that in theory will give me more sport and other entertainment. Having achieved my goal I settle down and check the Tesco order slot for Monday before starting to draft the blog. By now last nights late night is catching up with me, I shall be good for one football match tonight and then I am off to bed. Tomorrow I get to find out if my dentist can stick my fallen crown back in my mouth or if I am going to have to spend a fortune on more work. I suspect the later.