Saturday, well the full blood scores were pretty damn good to wake up to. Given that these bloods were taken 17 days into the 28 day third cycle, this is a good result. Its also sunny. If the arithmetic is to be believed then my cancer is being contained at the moment, or at least the PSA indictor is reducing, which seems to indicate a positive response to the current chemo. I drink a warm coffee in bed and then get up to complete the results grid and up load it to the website library before tucking into toast for breakfast and finishing off with my morning meds.

There is much to be done this morning and I find that my partner has been busy cooking for tonight and tomorrow. I clear the kitchen and then take myself off to do my vitals (all good) and then to sort my clothes out. As lunchtime approaches I sit on the patio in the sunshine and do the crosswords. I am in the middle of this when my youngest daughter appears with her new baby son and partner. This is the baby grandson I have been referring to as Dangerous Beans. We eat lunch and acquaint ourselves with the new member of the family. Its quite warm outside so we move indoors with baby boy and get him to sleep. During this time Amazon deliver some new storage boxes which are destined to house the last of my sisters and families material goods and documents in the loft. I begin to integrate yet more books into the houses over crowded book shelves and having found a new niche for my Brentford signed football I am able to accommodate the boxed ones. The rest, which were awards to my mother will go into storage in the loft. As I unpack more stuff I am able to jettison the cardboard boxes into the recycling. Slow I am getting to the point where It will all be contained in sealed plastic boxes that can go in the loft or the garage. I’m almost there.

Having got this far I return to the sofa and have Dangerous Beans lay on my chest and fall asleep while tea is being prepared. Its a long time since I had a baby fall asleep on me and even long since I sang to one to get it asleep. All goes well and my youngest grandson falls asleep. By the time tea is ready he has to be nudged awake to be changed and fed as the family assemble for tea . We eat and then clear away as my youngest daughter and new mother gets ready to go off to bed early in order to get enough sleep to get through the night. The kitchen gets cleared and the dishwasher loaded as before we all retreat to the lounge and collectively get Dangerous Beans to go to sleep. So here I am drafting the blog as he sleeps soundly on my partners lap happily snuffling along. There will of course be Match of the Day football highlights and then night meds before going to bed and seeing what the night brings. I suspect that youngest grandson will have his own ideas about what the night is for, so we shall see how it goes.

Friday adn I am the first awake and making warm drinks, downing my morning meds and fishing out my blood form. While the house slumbers I walk down to the GP surgery noting that autumn is in the air and smug that I have worn a vest. I have to admit I am a convert to the vest, that cosy close layer of warmth is welcome on such mornings and I am hoping will delay the dreaded turning on of the heating system. Anyway I arrive at the GPs, log in and wait to be called. The nurse soon appears and beckons me in. I hand her my form and she asks if my bloods have been done to monitor my Apixaban intake. I tell her I’ve never had bloods done but someone did ring me up and ask me questions. “Ah” she says and runs off a form and gets out two more blood vials. So in goes the needle and out goes four vials of blood. Its all done quickly and efficiently and in no time at all I am sporting a white fluffy cloud taped to my arm. I walk home via the co-op to gather strawberries, a paper and my monthly cash allowance it being the first day of September.

By the time I get home the house has stirred and I am made toast and decaf coffee. I clear the kitchen and then return m partners car manual to her car glove box but not before I wrestle the cigar lighter adapter from behind the compartment where it has got itself lodged. Its the small moments of over coming the nuisance phenomena that are sometimes the most satisfying. I help change the bed and then do my vitals. They are all good. Chore done I set about transferring the results to my data base and calculating my average blood pressure so far on this third cycle of chemo. I know that I have called this era of my blog CHEMO II but it is not continuous, within it there are 28 day cycles and I am onto the third of these cycles. Unlike my first chemo which had six discrete 28 day cycles and came to an end, these cycles will go on until the drug stops working and my body finds another clever way to stop it. How long that will be I have no idea so I could go in cycling till I die. It feels like I am locked in to a franchise like Fast and Furious, Rambo or Bond. “My name is Roland, Double digits cycle Roland, licensed to blog” .

I lunch on jam doughnuts and decaf coffee and draft the blog before I ease in to the afternoon with another Harvard philosophy lecture. My partner and I go shopping for presents at our local shopping centre and whilst there take time out for a coffee and tuna melt. Back home we move into the evening with a treat. No one feels like cooking so my eldest daughter and I walk over to the village chippy. Normally you put your order in and then have to wait around while the fish gets cooked almost as if the chippy is taken by surprise that anyone wants fish, tonight I am surprised as there is fish available immediately. I’ve never been served so quickly. Back home we sit down to eat before spending the rest of the evening finishing of The Tower and watching a couple of boxing bouts while finishing off the blog for the day. I take my evening meds and post the blog before going off to sleep knowing that tomorrow my new grandson is coming. One last thing to do, check to see if my blood results are in. They are and I look anxiously for my PSA score, it is relief, my PSA has dropped to 1.7, a fall of 0.6 and I still have 6 days to go in this third cycle. I go to bed feeling that I am still in the fight. My eGFR has also gone up to 62,back in the normal range so my kidneys are firing as good as they can. I am more than just in the fight.

Thursday and I wake up with last night in my head.

Having fully woken up my partner adn I make our way to the Orangery for breakfast. How lovely to have breakfast that is provided by someone else. Good muesli followed by eggs Benedict with salmon. Delicious. We ate whilst the wren that had got into the Orangery flitted about and we chatted to the couple on the next table who had also been to last nights show. We took our time over the meal and then returned to the room to pack. We checked out at reception and then drove home. Being efficient I unpacked and begun to down load material onto the blog site.

It was not long before my partner and I are planning for the weekend and drawing up shopping lists. We get organised and drive to our local Sainsburys and fill our trolley with the goodies we require plus a few indulgences. Its not a good experience, nothing specific but the joy of supermarkets has faded. Its difficult to describe but it is now just a big shop full of strange stuff and After Eight mints at a scandalous £4. The goodies get loaded in the car and we return home but on the journey we discover that the CD player is refusing to spit out the resident CD. Once home I read the car manual to no avail and then watch videos of people wheedling CDs out of car CD players. Armed with my computer mending tool kit and some gaffer tape (no crisis in which gaffer tape isn’t useful), I return to the car and proceed to delve into the CD player. In less time than I anticipated I am able to coax the CD in to view. With a deft touch I use my computer fine point pliers to slide the disc out. I run checks and find the CD player is now working perfectly well. It is clear that the CD player was unwilling to let Tina Turner out into the world again. Happy with my work I return Tina to my partner with a plea not to let Tina back in the car.

With my tools away I settle down to watch episode three of the Harvard philosophy lectures and continue to watch until tea time. I am drooping, a severe lack of spoons now but I draft the blog before settling down to watch one of my favourite films, In the Heat of the Night, possibly Rod Steiger’s best performance as the racist southern sheriff. I’m drinking water like a thirsty camel as I have bloods to do in the morning and being hydrated make a difference. I will take my meds and get myself to bed and hope for many spoons to give mem the energy for the weekend.

Wednesday and I am awake and sentient, so much so that I watch lecture two of the Harvard philosophy course before getting up. It Bentham and utilitarianism. The lecturer is really good and involved the students excellently, drawing out the arguments for and against and plotting out the questions to be examined in the coming lectures. With brain fed I get up for breakfast and my meds before taking my vitals (all good there) and packing for my night away seeing a Dire Straits tribute band tonight as a birthday present. I decide to train as my PSI score on my fitness app has dropped below 100. I get myself ready and go to the garage to row. I need 21 PSI point to get to a 100 total so I decide to opt for a 45 minute session. So I I row as ever cautiously for the time, burning off more than 550+ calories and managing 8795 metres, a bit below my usual normal of 9 kilometres. However it does the job as my PSI score rises to 127 and my fitness age drops a year to 51. That will do me at the moment. My personal best back in 2022 for the same duration and resistance level is a tad over 13 kilometres, so it is clear I am a long way off my peak fitness. It defines my struggle and fight, as a colleague of mine always used to say “the logic is in the arithmetic”.

After my session I record it in my journal and caste about for something to listen to before a shower and lunch. I end up with the Infinite Monkey Cage on radio. They are excellent adn funny as well as being informative. I also have a letter from a friend which I devour immediately. I love that moment when I realise I have a letter to read. I shower merrily and dry my now cascading white hair before lunch during which I indulge in another Infinite Monkey Cage episode. This one was on fungi and was quite an eye opener. With Daisy dishwasher packed my partner and I pack the car and I drive us off to Kilworth House about half an hour away to book in to the hotel. The plan is pre concert dinner in the Orangery before being golf buggy’d (exciting, reminiscent of Disney World car park) to see the show in the hotel’s concert facility in the grounds of the hotel. So before I get caught up in the whirl of excitement I draft the blog in anticipation of a reckless spoon spending evening. A good night out and ended in brandy so pictures tomorrow.

Tuesday and I wake to find my partner has gone to real work. A friend has emailed me a link to the Harvard University first semester philosophy course which has been been made available on line. There are twelve of them, so before I get up i watch the first one. Its very good and I plan to watch one each morning before I get up. I get myself up and cook breakfast and toast to be washed down with decaf coffee and my morning meds. So far so good, I’m feeling more human this morning. There are chores to be done after clearing the kitchen. I replace the light bulb in the bathroom and hoover out the dead bodies of wasps from the fitting. The light works and for now that is enough. I move onto preparing the boiler cupboard for the service guy to come later in the day and then move on to replacing light bulbs in the lounge light fitting. More success there, I am on a roll. I refill my drugs wallets for the next two weeks which will take me to the end of cycle three of Chemo II. All I have to to do is remember to have my bloods done on Friday in readiness for my next oncology review on Thursday the 7th and my cancer admin will be under control.

My philosopher friend also emails a link to The Good Place a comedy/philosophy show. From the moment it starts with the main protagonist being told she is dead and come to The Good Place by the “architect” (played by Ted Danson) I am hooked. What follows is many of the classic philosophical problems played out in comedic fashion. It is genius. I am so hooked that I manage to watch the whole of series one before tea time. There are three more series to watch so I have something that I can watch without feeling guilty and also learn stuff along the way. My partner returns from work and we later eat tea. I have some minor admin to do and I also daft the blog before settling down for the rest of the evening. I am out tomorrow at a concert and an over night stay at the venue, so I need to get a good nights sleep to rack up the spoons. Its the Sultans of swing for me.

Bank holiday Monday starts slowly with decaf coffee and a chat. Neither I nor my partner feel like cooked breakfast so we have cereals and more breakfast before setting off to see more scarecrows and visit my partners brother in the village. Here are yet more of the scarecrows.

We spent time working out family gathering details with my partners brother over a cup of tea before retuning home. I get home with a headache and try to read my way through it but it doesn’t work so I take some paracetamol and have a nap. I think I might have my hair on too tight. When I surface I read the gas and electricity meters and send my figures off and almost immediately get my account. Who needs a SMART meter? Tea time comes around and having eaten I feel much better and go into the evening feeling more human. This evening drifts by in a flurry of TED talks by people talking about the nature of consciousness, this is so much easier than ploughing my way through large dense books that seem to be written in a version of English that is almost incomprehensible. To be honest there are bits that are totally incomprehensible. I get to meds time, draft the blog and go to bed with excited anticipation of the boiler being serviced tomorrow.

Sunday and I wake up slightly groggy but lay in until breakfast time. My partner and I have breakfast and I down my meds. With a small break my partner and I go out to view some of the village scarecrows. I am experiencing a lot of fatigue and my walking round the village turns out to be quite a trial but it got me out adn about for a while. As usual there are some notable scarecrows and of course we visit the one by our friends who live in the village. One group of houses work on a theme of 101 Dalmatians, which they encouraged children to find and count. Others were just self explanatory. Here of some.

I return home while my partner gets some shopping and recover on the garden swing seat, where I am joined later by my partner bearing Danish pastries. We chat for a while and I then return to the sofa. I have a bad head ache and down some paracetamol and curl up on the recliner to doze for a while. The TV is on in the background with a combination of cricket, rugby and finally it drifts into end session of the world athletics.

My evening is going to be slow as I try to work my way out of this bloody headache. I suspect it is going to be an early night for me. I have a busy week ahead of me so I am hoping I get myself together quickly. There is a night away at a concert to enjoy and then a combined visit by my new grandson and my partner’s mother’s 95 birthday party to enjoy. So I need to be up to par.

Saturday. Its bugger all Saturday, the day I intend to do nothing and to recover. I make warm drinks for my partner and I and then we indulge in bacon sandwiches before my sports binge begins and my partner spends time with a friend at the village scarecrow festival and car racing at night. I settle into a day of athletics, football, rugby, more athletics, followed by yet more rugby. For a change there is a Bond film before the football highlights. Night meds and then bed. My one useful thing of the day has been to book the boiler service for Tuesday. Ta Dah, not quite bugger all after all, I need to work on it.

Friday morning, note to self: not a good idea to watch Deadpool till gone 1 o’clock at night. I wake up feeling decidedly crap. I do get up and manage some toast and coffee, but I am very off it. The morning is a mishmash of drugs, vitals, reading and the hint of chores. Most of the morning I sit around wondering if my gut will finally settle. I go to the Shed and write a for a while. I return to the house still feeling off and settle down to respond to some emails and do some admin. After a while I shift myself to go to the post box and to buy some fruit juice. Its only a short walk but I feel knackered. Its so tempting to just flop but I gather up what I have left and go to the garage to train. If I do not put some effort in then the chemo drug side effects will just get worse. I set the rower for 30 minutes and get going. Its bloody tough but I grind and fall just short of what I would normally expect in terms of distance and calories. It will do at least I’ve made the effort.

I record the session, dump the training kit and then relax a little in front of the TV. My partner feeds me tea and I dig into to watch more world athletics followed by a Jack Reacher film. I’m feeling knocked around by my drugs and condition at the moment so I am hoping the distraction of the village scarecrow festival over the bank holiday weekend will provide some gentle relief. I will of course continue to think about the thought experiment of zombies.

Thursday and I wake late to a decaf coffee and a phone call from a friend. An excellent way to start the day. We chat for quite a while as my friend makes her way to the the first chores on her to do list of the day. We are both battling in our own ways. Conversation over I get up, check my vitals, have breakfast and then wonder what to do, so I return to reading Chalmers book on The Conscious Mind. For anyone that has read it, I need a conversation about Zombies, yep zombies, apparently they are an important philosophical concept in the argument about the nature of consciousness. My reading is only interrupted by the post , which is renewal notice for mail redirection. I complete the renewal and return to the book and its zombies.

At lunchtime I go out and do business with my solicitor and then return home. I quick trip to the village shop and the café and its time to go home and relax. I sit in the garden chatting to my partner and then get on with nothing in particular. The garden guy arrives and we have a strategic chat about the autumn offensive on the garden. Part of the garden is going to be remodelled and some trees removed. I return to reading my book, this slides into the evening and world athletics, films and drafting the blog. By midnight my spoons are spent and I go to bed, with a sense of well being and a sense that I am getting over the side effects of my Monday injection at last. I’m looking forward to a good day tomorrow.