Saturday a day ago and already much lost. Its a cloud of vegetable shopping, rugby disappointment for Wales and Ireland and yet more admiration for Angela Rippon on Strictly. There were patches of reading, crosswords and chores but nothing inspirational. The usual chores and pottering around. The good thing is that my sore rib from last week (bloody hedgehog) are easing. I did check the garden camera and picked up the record of the dead hedgehog and me burying it. Unfortunately there is no sign after that date of hedgehogs. I am pretty sure the one I buried was not our “regular” hedgehog but I need to have some proof before I start to put food in the hog canteen again. At the end of the day I take my meds and go to bed.

Sunday and I weigh in first thing and find I am 96.7 kilos, a loss of 0-7 kilos over the week. So far “no sweets, cakes or biscuits October” is working slowly but steadily. Warm coffee before getting up and then its breakfast with morning meds. My favourite way to start the day, bacon sandwiches, is probably a major contributor to my elevated cholesterol levels but some times there is a need to eat the unwise. With breakfast over I start on Christmas. This stemmed from an earlier conversation with my partner where we both agreed that we could easily get going on an Christmas and get it down early. With that in mind I dug out my journal with my Christmas card list in it and up dated it, calculated the number I need and the stampage. With that done I go to Amazon and order my cards for this year. I also discovered that I can buy stamps from Tesco so by Monday evening Amazon and Tesco will have equipped me to do my cards. I may well get the cards done and then send them as so as it does not feel to previous and will not create a “heart sink” moment in recipients rather that moment of festive skip of joy of getting something through the post other than all the crap flyers, junk mail and coercive sales pap that drops on our door mats all the rest of the year. I just my start sooner this year. What I will not do is write one of those “family letters” which manages to pack an entire years gossip, trivia and misery into two tightly typed pages and mentions obscure family relations that no one knows or is interested in. For some reason these sorts of letters err on the side of doom and gloom. Rarely do such happy events such as the neighbours rabbit having kittens or unexpected wealth get a mention. The closet they get is the sunny foreign holiday that has been had, which is a bit of a double edge sword if such sunny sourjons are out of ones own reach. I prefer the personalised note in each card that can reflect the individual nature of the relationship. On this day 2014 I finished reading the final novel of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. It clearly made an impression as its the only set of novels that made it into my diary.

My partner goes to the gym and I draft the blog. All this culminates as England kick off against Fiji in the World Rugby Cup. What a game, and one England manage to win and progress into the semi finals. So the evening starts with Country File followed by Strictly results show and then the final quarter final of the rugby in which France take on South Africa. For me it will then be time to take my night meds and paracetamol in readiness for tomorrows early morning monthly injections. It will be a double injection this month to include B12. It will be another Monday on which I try to make the effort to train as well as continue with “no sweets, cake and biscuits” October.

Friday and I wake to find a thoughtful cold coffee waiting for me. I clearly roused early and fell back to sleep. Surfacing I wonder how my youngets grandson is and whether he is recovering from COVID and I wonder if my presents are arriving for my eldest grandson in Sweden in time for his birthday tomorrow. First I must get new papers from the solicitors counter signed by my partners brother, so I message him and arrange to go round to see him in the morning. A quick breakfast and coffee with meds and I drive round to get the papers signed. I have a quick chat with my brother in law about an issue on the papers and then drive back home to check previous versions. Having checked that I have run off the right version I go to the post office to send the documents and buy a newspaper. I’m knackered, it would appear that recently I have had fewer spoons than before.

The second half of the morning I spend doing the days crosswords and reading Banana Yoshimoto’s Premonition, before eagerly devouring a bacon sandwich for lunch. I do not feel great so I continue to read Premonition. By 3 o’clock I have finished it. A beautiful sensitive book that only a Japanese writer could have written. It weaves the less tangible human experiences together with a modern Japanese context in a way that is not sentimental or fanciful but natural and easily acceptable in a matter of fact way. She is definitely one of my favourite writers. I had bought the book as soon as I had seen that is was available having been advertised as her new novel, but when I looked at the publication date I see that it was first published in 1988 some 35 years ago and only now in 2023 has been translated into English. So this gem of a novel has been around for thirty five years and I did not know it. Japanese folk have had this gem for all that time and no one thought to share it with the English speaking world. It makes me wonder what else is out there waiting to be brought into the culture. Perhaps some Japanese works are thought to difficult to translate without losing their subtlety and the way what the Japanese call Yugen, those experiences for which there are no words, is communicated outside the Japanese language. There is in this book the central theme of knowing something but not being able to identify it but knowing that you will. As I say a beautiful book.

Full of the Premonition I go to the village chemists to collect my medication and to buy more paracetamol as its the weekend before injection Monday. It seems to have come around quickly this cycle. I trudge down to the chemist in the ran, which is forecast to last all day so there is no point in delaying. Mission accomplished I trudge back and settle down to start the draft blog, knowing I need to clear kitchen, check my vitals and squirrel away my new medications. I sense its getting clos to the time that the heating will go on. Once or twice recently the hot air heater has been put on in the lounge to create a burst of warmth, an oasis of heat, and today I am wearing my Nightmare Before Christmas jumper for the first time this year. I guess winter is coming although this year it seems in fits and bursts. Perhaps it has something to do with my feelings of shakiness at times but I think it is more to do with anxiety about my condition and the medication.

In think that recently I have taken to drafting the blog earlier in the day but still posting it at night, which probably accounts for the change in tone of it and the structure. My spoons run out more quickly these days and by the time the evenings come around I lack sufficient spoons to write either cogently or expansively. The numbers of people looking at the blog and the numbers of visits has declined, which is not surprising given the time its been going and the humdrum nature of it. I appreciate that reading about my days as they become less exciting, if that’s the word, is understandable, but it still remains for family and friends to be able to dip into to see how I am at any time.

I feel the evening sliding toward me as the world goes dark outside and know that I shall eat dinner tonight, watch football, read and retire to bed hoping for a gentle sleep tonight. It has felt a long day.

Thursday and its day two of cycle 5, I wake up and my first thoughts are about my new grandson who was last night in a side room of a children’s ward with his parents diagnosed with COVID. I send a WhatsApp message and later get one back telling me that they are all home, but everyone is feeling poorly. Before I can get up a friend rings me on her way to getting her flu jab and we chat for a while trying to catch up with how we are and what is going on in our lives. Her world is packed with returning to work after a prolonged period of long COVID and trying to keep everything going with her lively young family. After out call I get up have a simple breakfast and shower in readiness to go to the dentist. I’m just about done when its time to go and collect my new crown. I’m very quickly in the chair of pain having the temporary cap taken of and my new 3D printed crown being glued into place. Its a really good job, well done and my mouth feels so much better for it. I pass reception and pay for my new mouth jewel.

On the way home I get cash from the local co-op but have to walk the village to get the paper I want, which provides me with crosswords to once I am home. Lunch comes and goes and I settle down to read more David Sedaris until I feel moved to do to do the recycling and clear the kitchen. Chores done I draft the blog before going off to the chiropodist, which will make my feet sing with joy. As I remarked to my partner, by the end of the day my mouth and feet will feel great it just the rest of my body in between which feels such crap at the moment.

All goes well at the chiropodist and on retuning home I find my latest book has been delivered. I settle down to start reading the new book and I am not disappointed, I immediately feel the familiar voice of the author and recognise the deftness of touch. There is definitely a distinctive way Japanese writers express issues around feelings and the wordless experiences of people.

The evening proceeds with dinner and moves on to doing yet more paper work for the solicitors read for signing and sending tomorrow. Finally I have done as much as I can and return to drafting the blog and reading to a background of TV stuff that I take little notice of. I take my night meds and go to bed with my book and a new to do list for tomorrow.

Wednesday, welcome to cycle 5, I wake up feeling off. A sort of shaky anxious off, I’m not sure if its the meds or a combination of meds, training and dealing with my sisters estate. I just don’t feel right and wonder if the oncologist warning of being slowed down is coming true. I laze in bed and try to rearrange a dinner date for the group of old colleagues and friends who I met up with on occasions and I also send emails to the executor group of my sisters estate over some issues that have arisen and cost me some sleep last night. My intention was to laze for a while reading David Sedaris’s Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim but instead I get up for Toast and coffee trying to settle myself down, in doing so I start to draft the the blog and get my head straight for the day. As my first step to getting my head straight is usually a “to do” list and I guess that’s where I will start. A few mundane things to get me going and then perhaps something a little more ambitious, but what that might be I’m not sure yet.

Apart from a chat with the window cleaner, emails to a solicitor, a bowl of soup and watching the film Dune, part 1 all afternoon I have done bugger all as the rain has fallen outside. However due to a friend of my partner going down with COVID I get to go out with my partner for a meal this evening as it seems a shame to waste the reservation. My doctor has sent a message to everyone saying they are reverting back to requiring everyone to wear a mask when visiting the surgery, which reminds me a friend has sent a picture of his rapid flow test (remember them) showing the tell tale two lines. Feels like we are being crept up on by another wave of COVID. I’ve of course order more masks, more liquid soap and hand sanitizer and will reassess my toilet roll stock immediately. I think my strategy will be one of Panic Early for Christmas COVID.

As I fall into the vulnerable category I am now conscious of having to look after myself a bit more., so I shall be taking stock of unread books I have in reserve and writing paper and envelopes although I suppose the safer thing to do would be to send very long emails. As we move into Autumn I’m hoping my flu jab and COVID booster actually work. I could do without a winter of discontent I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment including avoiding the temptation of a pudding at tonight’s meal and blowing “no sweets, cakes and biscuits” October.

So I go for a meal and learn that my new grandson is going to hospital with a temperature with his parents. By the time we have eaten and returned home my new grandson and parents are in hospital having been diagnosed with COVID and in a side room on a children’s ward. I’m speechless at the cruelty of the world, For Fuck Sake does it never end.

Tuesday and the last day of chemo cycle 4, which signals the need to refill my drugs wallet. Strangely I’m awake at 7 0’clock and reading David Sedaris’s Dress Your Family in Corduroy an Denim, more of his humorous observations of himself and the world he experiences. By 9 o’clock I am up and having breakfast before I ritualistically fill my drugs wallets for the next two weeks. Tomorrow I move on to cycle 5 of my chemo with no gap. I feel fatigued but start the blog before I go to the Shed. Life has to be simple when spoonless so today my to do list reads: 1, drugs, 2. Letters, 3. Train. 4. Put bins out. That’s it. If I do that it will have been a good day. 1 is done so I am off to the Shed to do 2.

Its 16:35 and true to my to do list I have spent most of my time in the Shed writing letters, three in all and managed to get to the post box in time for collection. Going to the post box meant that I could complete 4 on the to do list and bring the car back onto the drive. So I sit with a coffee updating the blog and wondering if I will get to train. I’m feeling very tired but want to not let myself down.

So I manage thirty minutes on the rower and that just about finishes me, I’m now spoonless. I very gratefully eat my evening meal, update my blood pressure spread sheet and do the cycle average and then get the blog drafted. I’m done now, all that matters now is getting through the evening with limited effort and the Great British Bake Off before heading for the sanctuary of bed and a nights sleep. Getting up at 7am was a rash start to the day. I’m hoping that I can get well into my last at hand Davis Sedaris book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, in which there are more of his essays about his life, family and observation. So I wave cycle 4 farewell and step straight in to cycle 5 tomorrow.

Monday and I wake to an eerie quiet. I realise that the rest of the household have all gone to work, I am silently alone. I check my phone, read a section of David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day and then get up in my wearable blanket. The kitchen gets cleared and I make myself boiled eggs and soldiers (magic get better food) and then watch some David Sedaris’s videos. By 11 o’clock I’ve had enough of both the videos and my wearable blanket. In a fit of self disgruntlement I go upstairs and get into my training kit. I’ve had enough of me and my sore ribs and feeling crap, I’m a man that has run marathons, reduced my fitness age to 40, had a career, provided for my family and owe nothing so what the hell am I doing sitting around feeling sorry for myself, its the rowing machine for me, survive it or not. I get into the garage and find the bloody display on the rowing machine was blank. Feeling as I do I take it personally and very grumpily change the batteries and strap in. I was going to do half an hour but I’m so pissed off with the world in general I go for a 45 minute session. To be honest I don’t give a crap if it makes my ribs worse, but I do take it steady to start with, somewhere in there my reasonable rational self is still looking out for me. Its a very below average session but it gets my PSI points over a 100, which is where I need to consistently be. I guess the distance is a bit down and 500+ burnt calories will have to do. I did say yesterday that this would be “give it another go Monday”.

Having got myself together after the session I record it in the journal, book the coming months medications and get a bath organised. As I am alone I can leave all the doors open and wander around as I please. The plan was to read in the bath but instead I listen to three episodes of The Infinite Monkey Cage ranging across, Sharks, Richard III and Space Dust. Having soaked, laughed and got wrinkly I get out of my rib easing bath and don some clothes. Chicken Soup follows and then more Podcasts of the best bits of the Infinity Monkey Cage. On checking my emails there is an email from the solicitor related to the sale of the house in my sister’s estate. The buyers who have not completed are asking to be able to go in with an architect before completion. Our solicitor advises against it unless accompanied by some of the estate agents staff. I agree on behalf of the executors and note the focus needs to be on the hurdles standing in the way of completion of the sale contract.

As I listen to the radio I see another email comes through from my GP asking me to send my blood pressure reading. Having updated my Excel spreadsheet I send the average for cycle 4 so far. It is highly unlikely that I will get a response but then there is nothing remarkable in my blood pressure, or indeed in any of my metrics. My source of discomfort is my fatigue and there is no measure of that objectively, I suppose I could rate myself on a scale of one to ten but without referents for the ends of the scales I’ve no idea what I would rate myself, beyond not my most chipper. My partner returns from work that signals the start of the evening, a beverage, a phone call to check on her mother and then a meal of some description while we wait for Tesco to deliver. I plan to read, rest, take my meds and go to bed and hopefully repeat tomorrow. The sun has shone today and I have glimpsed the garden, thought briefly of being in it or going to the Shed but felt overwhelmed by it. Today has been about the first step of recuperation, again, and tomorrow might require the same, but I feel the tentacles of guilt seeping into as I have been inattentive to those who write to me or to those to whom I write, so perhaps I will find myself in the Shed tomorrow.

Sunday, and I wake up with aching ribs, the hang over from my Wednesday fall. I make warm drinks for my partner and I we spend time lazing in bed reading and chatting. I weigh myself to see if the vow of no chocolate, biscuits and cake during October has made a difference. I weigh in at 97.4 kilos, a decrease of half a kilo in the first eight days. I’m good with this and hope that the rest of the month goes well. After a bacon sandwich and morning meds breakfast my partner goes off shopping and I watch a world cup rugby match. As Argentina finally over come Japan and my partner returns I am taking bits off the hoover to dehair it prior to vacuuming through the house. The morning is a domestic one as I run the machine over all the surfaces and on occasions suck up a spider who has come inside for the winter. Having completed the chore I am out of spoons, no energy at all and I retreat to the spare room to lay down for a while until I recover enough to take my vitals, which are all okay.

I should explain that although the tittle of the blog at the moment is CHEM II DAY X that I am in fact taking continuous cycles of chemo therapy. Currently I am on cycle 4 day 27 of a 28 day cycle. I have no break between cycles so I shall be starting a new cycle, cycle 5 on Tuesday. This will be immediately followed by cycle six before my next oncologist review. At the end of cycle 5 I will have a monitoring blood test to see if my PSA level is reducing and then one more before my oncology review. This continuous cycling will go on until my PSA starts to rise again and then it will depend if there are any other options. In the meantime there is no respite from the side effects, the main one being fatigue. It is the fatigue that is most effecting me in an increasing way. When I can’t train I lose my biggest weapon to counter the fatigue, which is what my sore ribs is stopping me from doing at the moment. Its a real hurdle, all I can do is make an effort to make this coming Monday another start again Monday.

So after resting and doing my vitals I watch another rugby game and start to draft the blog. The evening will be a quiet one of reading and Strictly result show, before more meds and bed. Then I will try again. As far as I can see there are no other options.

Saturday and I return to million Tog duvet having spent the night in the spare bed to avoid keeping my partner awake all night with my runny nose and sneezing. I make us warm drinks but today there is no negotiation for bacon sandwich for breakfast as we have run out. I’m not sure how that could happen but it has so today will be a day to revert to cereals. So once up, I eat, take my meds and get my washing in. I’m not feeling chipper and my nose starts to run again so I go for the Actifed option. No idea if its compatible with everything else I take but it works on what it needs to. I do my vital and tidy stuff away. I venture into the garden to check the squirrel feeder and sadly find the small hedgehog that I tried to tend on Wednesday had not made it. He/she was laying dead by what I call Bhudia’s corner of the garden. I dug the poor thing a grave next to he family of mice that I buried several months age and gave it a marker.

I peg my washing out and then my partner and I go shopping for weekend food. Its a quick dash to the garden centre and back as I’m still not feeling chipper, Once home I settle down to hours of World Cup rugby, putting my vitals data into my Excel sheet, and drafting the blog. My partner goes to the gym and I continue to watch rugby through to the very end when I then catch up with Strictly. Its been a strange day of watching others do things while nursing my sore ribs. Shame I acquired my ribs trying to save the deceased hedgehog, I’m sure there is a lesson in there somewhere. Hey Ho! I move on and see what tomorrow brings. I do know that in the days to come I have the excitement of Banana Yoshimoto’s new novel The Premonition arriving, one of my favourite authors. She is typical of how Japanese writers seem to be able to capture the nuances of the real and maybe not quite real.

Its Friday once again but this one is a disappointment as I wake knowing the planned exchange of contract on the London house will not happen today as anticipated. It not only marks a significant step in finalising my sisters estate but it will sever me from a place that I was never happy in and could never wait to leave. It was my childhood prison, not that my family were cruel or I was mistreat but it was a place I just did not belong. It was an aspiring working class household that worked hard and did its best to give me and my sister every chance to succeed in education and life in general. It was also a family devoid of physical contact and emotional integration. I guess we all tried in our own way but where overwhelmed by things we could not control or did not recognise. We were never cold, never hungry, always clothed and as safe as it was possible to be. All this makes my desire to be shot of this house the more unlikely, but there it is. My dyslexia was neither recognised or understood by me or my family and was in stark contrast to my sister who excelled at school and lived out the parental desires for her. I struggled to understand why I could not write or read like my peers and of course I compensated in other ways.

There were other irritants like the succession of cats that I hated and brought in an army of fleas that seemed to like me more than other family members and finally my mothers parents that moved into the house to ultimately have legs amputated in the case of my grandfather who had taught me dominoes and a grandmother who declined with Alzheimer’s and was repeatedly retraumatised by being told over an over that she could not visit her husband in hospital because he was dead. I got out before she died. So this house holds no happy memories for me despite the years I spent in therapy training and its contiguous own therapy. I saw over the years people, many criminals from shit backgrounds, recover lost family connections and memories and parental love and care that enabled them to reframe their childhood, cruelly this never happened for me so I guess my perceptions were pretty accurate in the first place. I guess others of my family have a different view, my children who sent time in the house have different memories which seem to have been happy so it just highlights the fact that its the people not the place.

One of the few things that happened in the house was acquiring a beaten up old portable type write which magically unlocked my ability to write. I later worked out why whilst doing my psychology degree. It turns out my wiring (neurodiversity) meant that I could not for the life of me convert sounds into hand movements that could translate into writing. The type write changed this process for me and made things more manageable. When I got a computer “spell checker” refined my ability, what it did not do was eradicate my inability to see when I had replicated words or parts of sentences in a paragraph. By the time I had got the typwriter I had learned to read, an accidental side effect of being read to by an inspired scout master who read to the troop Steinbeck’s Cannery Row which inspired me to read Of Mice and Men, suddenly I had the knack and read everything he wrote and then moved onto other authors. Its a trait I have to this day, its an expensive one. Only Balzac has defeated me so far. My family bewail my rooms of books but they are my scaffolding, my feeding trough and the ambrosia that feeds me continually. They if anything became the childhood family I never felt I had. This “family” gave me two things. Firstly a vocabulary far beyond I ever thought possible and secondly the belief that I could do anything because somewhere someone will have written down how to do it. Now I Google everything and watch videos on YouTube of competent people doing exactly what I want to do. So if I’ve found anything out it is the reason I am so attached to my books.

So waking to a day on which I am to be disappointed I do the check of how I am, check my messages and mail and then read the first essay of David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day. Finally I haul my snotty nose and aching ribs out of bed and eat toast and drink coffee to wash down my meds. I read more and then get ready to drive my eldest daughter to the hairdresser at the gym, where I start to draft the blog. What comes out is quite Sedaris like, I think. All of this accompanied by two women talking about the dangers of kitchen rebuilds, boiler servicing and all this time one of their swim suits has been left in a sink with the tap running to get clean. Its been an hour and a quarter of running hot water, that’s what I call getting your money’s worth from your gym membership. Others might have an other interpretation.

The afternoon goes by as I feel myself loosing spoons at a rapid rate and then I slide into the evening with its rugby and Mission Impossible film. Night meds, painkiller and bed and hope that I can shake this cold (possible reaction to COVID booster) and my increasingly sore ribs (bloody hedgehog).

Thursday and I am awake early for today I go to Kwik Fit to have my leaking tyre diagnosed, so I am brushing my teeth and swallowing medications early. I’m out the door and driving off in the car as quickly as possible so that I cannot dwell on the fact that one of my tyres might be well below functional levels. I arrive at Kwik Fit and book in. I take a sit in the waiting area and settle down to read Naked while tyre trolls get on inspecting my leaky tyre. A few minutes later the tyre tech returns to tell me that I have a nail in the middle of my tyre but the good news is they can fix it for less than thirty quid. I think that’s a steal and tell them to get on with it. Several chapters and an hour later I am told my car is done. I pay and drive off i an act of faith that all is well in tyre land.

Once home I dump the car and head for the village café where I do the days crosswords and devour an egg and bacon baguette. That’s when I discover I am getting a cold or a reaction to yesterdays COVID booster. My nose runs like a tap, I’m about to head home when my partner joins me for a coffee so we chat, watch an articulated lorry wipe out plastic bollard at the village round about and I try to stem the flow from my nose. We walk home and I sink into snot control while my partner returns to work. When in this condition I just read and that’s what I do all afternoon whilst mopping myself up. I hate this stage of a cold where it feels like my internal organs are trying to escape through my nostrils. I do get through the book though. I progressively feel shit up to fish and chips arriving via my eldest daughter and then through the evening of watching football and rugby and finally drafting the blog before night meds and bed. The only impingement of he real world was the email telling me the buyers of the London house cannot get them selves together to exchange contracts till next week. Cold feet I wonder or just slow systems.