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.

Friday, this was a day of preparation in readiness for the visit of my youngest daughter, her partner and their son, my youngest grandson. It is all very prosaic stuff like cleaning, washing wrangling and shopping. Mundane but necessary, which always takes longer than hoped for and is more tiring than it ought to be. So be the time the house and fridge are visitor ready the evening is one of para Olympics and TV before a retreat to bed and the hope of sleep. I take my night meds and affix my nasal strip in the hope that I shall beat off my recent insomnia. Is it a real effect or a placebo, I ‘ve no idea, just want to sleep better.

Saturday and I have slept better, my partner is already up and preparing things for the arrival of our guests. Cars are moved and food prepared. I make a breakfast and then wait. The post man delivers and there is a letter for me from a friend who has read the blog and comments on my latest brush with the nhs in a sympathetic and witty way. Our guests arrive and the house is instantly transformed by the presence of a small person who can now haul himself up to a standing position, as a consequence many items are immediately elevated by at least three feet. The day is spent playing and eating and having conversations that only families with young can have. Activities are fluid as the entertainment and wonder is constantly changing. It is amazing what one rapidly developing new universe can have on an entire family. People dip in and out, take rests and take turns but some how everyone contributes in some way. At a magical point in the evening the young one goes to cot and the adults, with one ear on the baby monitor watch a film together and then one by one drift off to bed. I am left to watch the football high lights, but I do not get the end, I take my meds strap on another nasal strip and go to bed reflecting that my diet today has not been the best, but I seem to fall asleep.

Sunday arrives, its the first of September and my partner’s mothers birthday and the plan is that we will surprise her with an afternoon party. Cakes and goodies are ready. I wake and do my vitals, that are good, and I am treated to a bacon sandwich in bed before I get up and get party ready. My youngest daughter is asleep with her son draped across her on the recliner in the lounge, I am guessing that sleep may have been interrupted last night. My own sleep seems to have been better, perhaps the magic nasal trips are doing something after all. It will take a few more nights to know. I suspect that not taking angina meds that give me a blinding headache and having a rest from my cancer pills maybe, just maybe, giving my body a rest. I am still very fatigued but that I can understand and find ways to cope with. As everyone is taking the opportunity to rest while my youngest grandson is asleep I try to catch up with the blog. Of course much of the last two days has passed my short term memory by and my long term pixies have not bothered to pick them up, I just assume that anything crucial would have been snatched out of the daily stream of the mundane and carefully stored. That’s probably a dangerous assumption but I cannot possibly know or remember what I never remembered in the first place. I guess that is how fantasy comes about in part, thinking you remember something that you never did.

The afternoon is spent amongst family celebrating my partners mothers 96th birthday. There are small children to a great grand mother all together being who they are. There is cake and conversation, a lot of catching up, sharing of recent history and requests. I am asked to sign one of my books, that comes as a surprise. So the afternoon goes by, and there are some lovely moments of children clapping fairies, falling over to find a soft spot on the lawn, and general exploring and making new contact with new members of the family. Eventually people drift away and I help clear up the debris before heading home. Once home there is a film to watch and then onto the para Olympics, where the Brits actually start to win medals at the athletics. I am now tired and will drift towards bed, but before going there is something to add to todays blog, which is important to me.

TODAY IS THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THIS BLOG ! For five years now I have written this blog to help keep family and friends up to date with what has been going on with me and my battle with metastatic prostate cancer and all the other adventures along the way. It started with a welcome and the experience of my pre chemotherapy induction day. There were no pictures or videos just a description of the experience. As I got more blogging skills I was able to add more content. The very first picture was of a sharps bin that I was presented with on the first day of chemotherapy.

Over the years the blog has developed into a running commentary on my life containing all sorts of things I did not predict but also testament to the mundanity of everyday life that accompanies the day to day life of living with prostate cancer. It is true that I have experienced things I thought I would not live to see that have given me immense pleasure and there have been moments of grimness, but overall this blog has chronicled my appreciation of being alive and kicking. To all of you who have read my blog, whether regularly or just dipping in now and again I want to thank you all. Knowing that even if there has been only one person who has looked at my blog on any given day has been an immense support to me, especially on the more dark days when I wondered if it was worth it. So even now in this period of fatigue knowing that someone has been to the blog and perhaps just caught up with where I am or got an idea for their next read or a film to watch, even to read the occasional poem is motivation enough to continue to write the blog. I hope I shall be able to write this blog for a long time to come and that you are kind enough to visit it at times. Once again, thank you.

Thursday and after a strange in and out night I wake and take my vitals, which are okay. I check my messages and the news before getting up and into my training gear. I’m soon strapped onto the rower and pulling away. At this stage of the game the goal has to be complete the 30 minutes and then get over the 5K mark. At the moment my best since restarting to row is 5,400 metres. Today I do finish and I do get over 5K but fall short of the additional 400m.

I have breakfast and deal with the post. At last the date for my scan has come through, so on September the 10th I will be laying around having contrasting dye pumped into me. So that is some fun to look forward. I go to have a shower and find that our water pressure is down so I go to use the tank fed one down stairs. There is a delay while I scrub it out and then finally get to have my shower. Wrapped in towels I sit on the patio and chat to my partner and watch a woodpigeon build a nest in the hedge by the patio. Once dressed I return to the patio to tidy my beard and write the last poem for the next collection.

412
I’d like to write an epistle
but it’s not really me,
I’m more known for bony stuff
without tittles, just a curator’s number.
But somewhere in there is a cloud,
a swirling entanglement of events
that brings me to this fatigue. 
Five and a half years of cancer,
five years of blogging every day,
a DVT along the way
and then a bladder stone has a say.
Now the cardiac boys and girls
Are chipping in with scans
and medication I refuse to take;
I cannot bear the headache,
and all along the battles rages
as I cling to reason and sensibleness,
which amounts to denial, 
a life style of “not”
and very little “do”
until this damn fatigue overwhelms.
I’ve no testosterone to drive me,
no flushing chemical to stiffen
the sinews and summon the blood.
This greyhound falls asleep in the slips
only to cry out “what’s for tea”	
and write breathless poetry.

                                                                               412 29-08-2024

Apologies to Shakespeare for nicking a bit to Henry IV Agincourt speech, it just seemed apt. As the para Olympics gets under way with Brits falling off their bikes I start to draft the blog. Not many people bother with it now but as I move towards the fifth anniversary it is something that I will doubtlessly continue just to keep track of things and have for people to check in on.

I arrive to the evening via a chance finding on the drive. I go to put the recycling out and there on the drive is a letter addressed to me. When I open it I find a letter from a friend. It is a delicious surprise. The evening is all fatigue and TV before I take my meds, round off the blog and finally go to bed in the hope of sleep.

Wednesday and after a night during which I found myself eating a cheese and picked onion sandwich at about 3:30am due to some insomnia, I get my self organised and take my vitals. With a little procrastination I get up and make breakfast. I have a mission today as I have decided to pursue a new poetry project. The first step after having donated some poetry books to the local library is to take the necky step of sending a set of collections to the Poetry Review the journal of the Poetry Society. So I write a brief letter offering them for review or publication, or more likely FIBed. (Filed In Bin), wrap them in bubble wrap in an envelope and walk over to the post office and get them sent off to the editor of the Poetry Review. So step one compete, all I need to do now is wait for silence or a polite fuck off we don’t do that, or a very surprising positive acknowledgment.

Once home I get onto the patio and spend time doing todays crosswords. With all of them done without the aid of Google I go in search of the garden camera. I spot it where the tree team had placed it out of the way. The likely hood is that the batteries are dead. I make myself lunch and then set about down loading the contents of the camera. I am not expecting anything but to my surprise there is hedgehog activity. I thought that since I buried one some time ago that we had become a hedgehogless garden.

Having refilled the camera with batteries and replaced it in the garden I return to the poetry project. I check the contents of The Cancer Years: Breathless and put it into a Zip file. With that prep done I email my American editor/ project manager/ minder and tell him I am not doing audio books but he can make me an offer on price to prepare and publish the next collection. I will be interested to see if he rings me. With that done I start to draft todays blog while listening to yet another episode of Mark Steels in Town.

As my partner is going out tonight I shall watch the para Olympic opening ceremony and see that they have come up with. I’ve chosen not to train to day but hopefully I can get back to is tomorrow. The para Olympics opening was to tedious to bare for long, so I ended up watching football followed by Celebratory Race Across the World. I take my meds and tinker with the blog before going to bed.

Bank Holiday Monday and I wake up in the spare room due to my partner having a stinking cold. I make warm drinks for us both and go to see how she is doing. It turns out we are both tired and fatigued but she has the snotty end of the stick. After a lot of procrastination I get into my training gear and get myself to the garage, but not before taking my morning meds. It is a hard session, but I do manage to do 5K in the half hour. So after nine days away from the rower that included a night in hospital and my Monday jab I think I have done okay.

What is a disappointment is that I fall short of a 100 points on my fitness App, I do some puttering to clear the kitchen and then I take my eldest daughter to the village shop to buy in vegetables and a paper. Its sunny and as a result the village is full of people come to see the scarecrow festival. Back home I sit on the patio doing to day crosswords until they are all done and I am strangely chilly.

I rest for a while as my partner and eldest daughter go to see the scarecrows. I got this far drafting the blog and just ran out of energy and drift towards the evening, TV and meds. This sometimes happens, my energy just stops and I cannot focus on anything to finish it apart from sleep. This is fatigue as it worse.

Tuesday and I have slept quiet well, I take my time getting up, taking my vitals and then making the decision to train again. I get my training gear on and do a few a chores before finally get into the garage and mounting rower. I just want to earn enough fitness points to get me over the hundred mark on my fitness App. I set off and want to get through to 5 kilometres. The session is quite good but tiring, the upshot of the session is that I make my 5K target.

Ultimately I want to get to 6K and to a 1000 strokes, but that is something I will not push, I will be happy if I can make it by Christmas. With the session out of the way I make myself a bacon sandwich and rest a for a bit. Once again I get myself going and go for a bath. Its a high energy use activity and I lay there listening to Mark Steels in Town. My partner, who is at work at home, pops her head round door and says my phone is too loud and goes back to work. I am beginning to think my hearing is not what it was perhaps that’s something else I should check out. I get to the crinkly stage and get myself up and dry and continue to listen to Mark Steel. I am very tired again and just spend time trying to finish yesterdays blog that I had to abandon as I just slipped over the energy edge early. Today is hopefully different in that my energy lasts a bit longer, especially as there is a Tesco deliver to take in.

It is now a week since my night in hospital and I am hoping that slowly I am recovering. I not only need to recover physically but also get back to feeding my brain. To that end I might contact the Americans to begin the process of getting the third collection in the Caner Years series published. At the moment I am minded to call it “Breathless”. As late afternoon approaches I begin to consider my evening and how I can get myself ready for the end of the week when my youngest daughter and son and partner are due to visit. There is also a family birthday coming up so I need my energy to see me through it. I get to the evening end, take in the Tesco delivery, take my meds and ready myself for bed. Tomorrow is yet another day to recover one step more.

Sunday and I wake up after a reasonable night’s sleep and importantly no headache. My partner has a cold so I am up making warm drinks and Lemsip. We spend time lazing before I take my vitals, which are okay. I get up and clear the kitchen and then have breakfast and my basic morning meds. Because I know I have limited energy I set to and prepare tonight’s meal and get it into the crock pot and set it cooking.

By the time I have done this I am already tired. I resort to laying on the recliner and listening to Mark Steels in Town until there is sport to watch on the TV. That is where I stay until the evening meal. My evening is all TV. I know this sounds appallingly sloth like and couch potato but this is a day of fatigue when my energy for activity ran out very early. Of course I do odd chores of life admin and follow the football results. There are occasional messages and emails to respond to but mostly I do my best to rest. My hope is to return to the rower tomorrow as my burst of energy.

At the end of the day I hold my nerve and keep to my basic meds and night time routines. In 7 days time I will have been writing this blog for 5 years, so I have started to think about how I might make the blog for that day special, perhaps I can write a poem or a collection of favourite books or images over the time. I am open to suggestions.

Saturday and I wake up with a partner with a cold. When I get up to make drinks and a Lemsip I am so pleased I took the time to clear the kitchen last night and get rid of the take way debris. We have our drinks and I take my vitals, they are okay. Up and dressed I start to cook a full English breakfast which will become brunch. I manage most of it except the grill catches me out and over does the bacon. However brunch gets done and with it my morning drugs. I am still not taking the angina pills and I still I remain free of chest/heart pain and I am free of headaches so I intend to continue. I am continuing to be fatigued. At about noon I watch a football match after which I accompany my partner to the village shop to get food. It is the village scarecrow festival but there are far fewer than the last few years. Our nearest exhibit is a magnificent spider.

The walk to the shop and back has tired me out, I am still recovering from the weeks exertions at the hospital. I tidy up some life admin including the new oncology appointment that came in todays post and casting up my latest blood results. Today was the poetry stanza meeting, the in person one locally but I am just not up to attending, the fatigue is overwhelming. My hope is that on minimal mediation, just the blood thinner, relaxant and single night med, that my body has a chance to balance out for a while and I can get to grips with the fatigue on its own. I have no idea how this is going to go but I think its my best shot until the cardiac boys and girls have done with me.

So this evening I will eat tea and try to relax and rest. The aim is to get back to the rower on Monday and to to find a routine. In the meantime I shall try to stay relaxed, occupy myself and keep some activity going. Sleep is the great gift I can get right now.