Monday and I am awake early aware that the Builder Badgers are coming today. I make warm drinks for my partner and I and then get ready for the day. The Builder Badgers arrive so there is a quick strategic chat with them followed by coffee making before I have my breakfast and check my messages and socials. As the Badgers create a spoil heap I start an early draft of todays blog intending to write letters during the day before the Tesco order arrives this afternoon. Its a cold day so I suspect I will also be making a meal. I start to try and write a Villanelle , a form of poem that some of the local poets have been working with. There are very specific rules as follows: 1: it has 19 lines with a specific rhyme scheme, 2:it has five three line verses called tercets and ends in one four line section, a quatrain. 3: the 1st and 3rd line of the first tercet are repeated in the last lines of the following tercets, the 1st line becomes lines 6, 12, & 18 and the third line becomes line 9, 15 and 19. 4: the rhyme scheme is ABA for the tercets and ABAA for the Quatrain. There that’s it a simple sort of poetry by numbers really. Apparently thought up by the Italians or the Spanish. So, here is my first shot at a Villanelle for Villanelle.

428

Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill
with any weapon and fashion to inspire
she took their lives in ways to thrill.
This was no ordinary way for blood to spill
nor was it how most gave up the ghost,
Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill.
The boots below the tailored twill
would step ruggedly upon a neck
she took their lives in ways to thrill.
no end of ways for hearts to still
liberating souls a darker art
Oh Villanelle Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill.
From acrid poisons to electric drills
Villanelle ran the gamut of invention
She took their lives in ways to thrill.
For body disposal pigs fit the bill
their voracious appetites up to Villanelles,
Oh Villanelle, Oh Villanelle how she loves to kill
she took their lives in ways to thrill.

                                                                             428  20-01-2025

   

There you go poetry by numbers with a hint of literary sarcasm. The builder badgers are done by lunch time for the day and tomorrow they bring in all the new materials and get rid of the spoil heap, so, so far so good. While I wait for the Trump inauguration ceremony, I cannot resist, I write letters only to be interrupted by the Tesco order arriving. With that squirreled away I take my letters to the post office and pick up a paper and return home.

What followed was a scary event: the inauguration of Trump, I had decided to forego the world indoor bowls championship but wish quickly that I had not. The actual “ceremony” was all that you could expect from an infantile 250 year old country, it was the inaugural speech that was frankly terrifying, very right wing, no sign of green issues awareness (drill and be dammed), expansionist (Panama canal reclaim) , authoritarian (no recognition of the complexities of gender or representation) and isolationist ( import tariffs on everything not American). All this in the name of patriotism and “under one God” labelled “common sense”. I should have stuck with the bowls.

The evening starts with the meal I put in the crockpot earlier and then settle down to an evening of drafting the blog and reading while my partner has her singing lesson. As I run out of energy I will find some TV to take me to bed time, night meds and the expectation that I will be up early to greet the builder badgers.

Sunday, a grey misty Sunday and I am woken by my partner with my customary hot water. I take my vitals and then get my breakfast and morning meds. The plan for this morning is to go for a Sunday walk, a better option than the gym, I think. So once ready my partner and I get in the car and drive to the local reservoir. Its a pretty big reservoir and is a challenge to get around. We set off in our boots and begin our circumnavigation of the reservoir. There is a battle field of moles, everywhere we look their little hillocks of fresh soil dot the paths and fields. There are of course the usual birds that come with open water, swans, ducks, coots and moorhens. The hedgerows have been flailed so its easy to spot the numerous birds flitting in and out of them, including several robins. The reservoir walk is 2.5 miles and I think its a long time since either of us has walked that far. We plod on stopping once or twice to recharge and to admire the view, its been a really long tie since we have taken this walk. As we come close to the end of the walk we come across the cormorants. Magnificent birds just sitting there looking out over the water.

The walk finishes with my partner and I recovering in the car before setting off to one of our local garden centre coffee houses. The hot chocolate and toasted tea cake goes down well before we return home. The rest of the afternoon I spend watching snooker and the end of a Harry Potter film.

The evening comes around with food and time to catch up with drafting the blog while TV provides some media wall paper. It has to be an early night today as once again we have the builder badgers in to continue the block paving around the house and putting in a bin stand, so that means getting up at 8 o’clock and sorting out the car parking. Its going to be a demanding week. So tonight its finalising the Tesco order and making sure that I have everything organised for my week, which includes my pre operation assessment.

Friday and I am woken by my partner saying there is a chap at the door with a water meter in his hand. I am instantly in war mode as I am not having a water meter in the house. I ask pertinent questions and ascertain that the meter in the street that was put in back in 2019 as a replacement for an old style stop cock has come to the end of its working life, because the lithium battery has gone flat. Once I had got that I indicated my understanding and watched the two man team dig around the access flap in the street and responded to them when they waved to me when they had completed the job. I returned to bed to do my vitals and check my messages and socials.

I finally get up and make some breakfast before checking that the builder badgers are on course to arrive on Monday. I do some chores and just as my partner finishes work at lunchtime with the intention of us going to lunch I get a phone call from the electrician who wants to drop in to look at the kitchen lights that are not working. So delaying lunch I hang around for the electrician who arrives quite quickly. After some unravelling of the light fittings he determines that the transformer is dead. He researches what replacement is required and the cost. He checks the price with me and puts everything back and leaves promising to contact me as soon as the new part arrives.

My partner and I go out for lunch. We go to a farm that is a antiques centre as well. After a very strange route we arrive adn head for the tea rooms. The most notable thing is the stench of farmyard manure. We do however decide on the farms shepherds pie and warm drinks. Having eaten we do not stay to peruse the containers loaded full of old stuff surrounded by the pong of farmyard. Back home we put the cover back on the garden swing seat and pop to the shop to get a paper and confectionary. Of course my first activity is to do the days crosswords.

The evening rolls round and I consume a film and a TV series. Its all very vegetable on a sofa but I also spend some time getting ready for tomorrows poetry Stanza. Eventually I get to do my night meds and get to bed.

Saturday and its Stanza day, I make warm drinks for myself and partner. I check my vitals, which are all good, and look at my messages before getting up for breakfast. I start to print off today poems while my partner goes out to lunch with a friend. Its time to fill my drugs wallets for the next two weeks, a fiddly job but one of the routines that keeps me organised. The Stanza time comes around and I log in, there are quite a lot of people on the zoom meeting today so as I log in at 2pm I find several people already there. So for the next 3 hours I listen to new poetry, read my share out loud and have my contribution critiqued and commented on. There are some really bright people in this group and their interpretation are fascinating. I guess I am slowly becoming one of them, which may or not be be a good thing. This session has some really lovely poems in it, so it feels like time well spent and a good brain feed.

The meeting ends and I settle down to catch up with the blog and sink into the evening. There is food, conversation and TV before it gets to medication time and bed. Tomorrow I must train, where is the question, garage or gym?

Thursday and I seem to be returning to the pattern of my body only wanting to deep sleep in the mornings. That’s not just an impression but something my fitness App is picking up as well. I think it may have something to do with where I am in my 28 day injection cycle. It appears that I fall asleep quite quickly, probably out of fatigue, but then wake up about two hours later to then spend the next four or five ours not able to settle. At about 5 in the morning I then drop into deep sleep which may last, on and off for the next 5 hours. Its a real inconvenience as it means I am getting up late.

So after such a night I check my messages and socials, have a quick look at the news and adn take my vital. So today it is welcome to CYCLE 21 of my “new” chemo. I have been on the current chemo pills since June of 2023, so that’s 19 months. From what I have read that’s quite a while for this particular chemo, and my oncologist has given me enough to last till the middle of March. So all I can do is keep taking the tablets and monitoring my physical arithmetic. My regime of training seems to be helpful, but I still have to balance my energy each day, some days are low energy days others seem to be better but not anywhere near my old self.

After my checks I take a shower and then return to sorting out the poems for Saturdays poetry Stanza meeting, it appears that quite a lot of us have poems we wants to present including some new people, which is exciting. I have breakfast, clear the kitchen and then get ready to go to the chiropodist. It is my bimonthly pleasure, which I look forward to. So I arrive early and spend some time on the phone till my chiropodist is ready for me. She has a brand new chair that is colour co-ordinated with the treatment room, which is very relaxing. I wipe off my socks and get in to the new seat, which feels like getting into a rocket ship and is very friendly. My feet get a warm dunking in some magic fluid and then she sets to work on my feet with an array of tools. Its a great feeling and then there is the final rub down with a cream to finish to all off. My feet sing with joy as I pop my socks and shoes back on. It’s a delicious feeling and lifts my mood no end. I pay my bill and spring heel back to the co-op car park, where I pop in and get a paper and a sandwich.

Back home I get to work on the days cross words. This goes well again although there is a word I have not come across before, which is always nice. You always know the compiler is struggling a bit when the definition of the word starts with “archaic”. I am feeling clean and fresh but know I need to train so reluctantly I get into my training gear and head for the garage and the rower. Its a temperate 6 degrees. I set myself to row for 30 minutes as I know that sessions at this end of the day tend to be hard. I get going and by the end of the time I have gone 6+kilometres, so its a reasonable session.

Once recovered I change in to lounge wear, record the session in my journal and hit the recliner to star to draft the blog. Tea follows and tonight it will be the the final episode of Blindspot for ever. It will be a relief to get it over and done with. I’m going to have a rest from binge watching series for a bit it can all too consuming, especially when there is still good poetry and books to read from Christmas. I will how ever sneak in a televised football match in as well tonight, I find I can stream the football with the sound off and still watch what ever is on TV, or even read. So that is my plan followed of course by my night meds and the hope that I can shake off my current sleep pattern. Its unrealistic to think I wont get up in the night, my prostate cancer and medication see to that, but it would be nice to sleep soundly enough to be able to get up earlier and have more of my day.

Wednesday and I am just about awake when my eldest daughter hands me a phone and on the other end is a woman, who turns out to be a nurse, asking where I was at 9:30 for my pre operation assessment. It turns out that the letter from the hospital has not arrived. We have a quick chat and confirm contact details and she says that the booking bunnies will will be in contact wit me. I just have enough time for breakfast and the morning meds before a person from the bookings department rings me up. There is another brief conversation and I get a new appointment for the same time next week.

So onto house chores like clearing the kitchen and then after a quick lunch I start to write letters. I also find that the Poetry Stanza members are sending their poems for Saturday’s meeting. I download them and put them in a folder and return to deciding which, if any of my poems, I am going to submit. After some thought I decide on one of my more recent ones that is in keeping with what is being submitted by the other poets.

425

My poems are the whore house
of words.
Driven by desire 
to be seen as I sink.
Bought and paid for 
like a funeral mass.
A vanity that is all, 
can’t help myself.
These are fleeting pleasures,
more masochistic
bound up in knots
and thrashed out
to divert time
and compensate for
what’s been lost.
I’ll hang about 
on literatures street corner
showing a bit of ankle,
not brave enough 
for full on
tits and teeth,
until there are 
no more punters,
no tricks to turn.
I shall lounge
in the snug bar
of the last saloon
wrecked and waiting,
deserted by my pimp
and idly scribbling
on the back of
beer mats
and wondering if
there are benefits 
for this old 
slag.

							452 07-01-2025

With the decision made and sent I return to the letter writing. Once I have completed my writing I go to the post office and send them off and getting a paper. Once home I settle down to do today crosswords. The evening comes around with a meal and then some football. At the end of the evening I draft the blog, take my meds and think about tomorrows visit to the chiropodist and the need to train again.

Tuesday and I wake to the sound of my partner going off to work, so I check my messages and socials before taking my vitals, which once again are good. I get up and get into my training gear before making myself a giant crumpet breakfast and taking my morning meds. The garage has warmed up a bit since the last session so I set myself up for an hours row. Once the machine is set I get going. Its a tough session to start with and it doesn’t get any easier, so by the end I am dripping in sweat and just pleased to have made it. Its an average session but I have made 11+ kilometres and 700+ calories burnt off.

I record the session in my journal and then set about clearing the kitchen and emptying the dishwasher. With that out of the way I have room to make a turkey mince pie. Turkey mince is pretty bland so I pile in a lot of veg, chilli flakes and a sauce with white wine, herbs and brandy in it. There is a moment of respite as the pie filing bubbles away and the potatoes for the mash topping boil. I take the opportunity to have a chunk of panettone and a glass of Lucozade to see me through the afternoon.

The pie comes together like an A team plan and sits and waits for the end of the day. I crack on and put the bins out and then sit for some time deciding which poem to take to this months poetry Stanza. I fail to decide adn instead go for a shower followed by a session on my partners eye sauna while listening to restful music. I do my nails and put the oven on ready ofr the pie just as my partner returns from work.

With the post meal debris cleared away its time to start to draft the blog. It another mundane day in the life of this cancer fighter but one that has been navigated well. There is a football match on TV involving my favourite team tonight so I shall watch that on my laptop without sound whilst watching whatever my partner has chosen as an evenings entertainment. There will be night meds and a last look at possible poems to present before sliding off to bed and another nights sleep. I will probably go with 426

426
Fuck me I am addicted to Crunchies
Chocolate covered honeycomb
A blast from my childhood
come back to haunt my adulthood.
Once big enough to satisfy 
but now a weedy runt of a bar
the cunning confectioner 
sells them in multi packs,
one for now and now 
and now and now. 
I could walk away 
I could honestly 
because I know 
that down the aisle
Frys Turkish Delight 
lays in wait.
This poem cost me a Crunchie,
my conscience a smidgeon
of guilt.
Compared to my 
 other sins 
it’s a pleasure, 
especially when washed 
down with a 
Red Bull,
diet of course!

							426 09-01-2025 

Sunday was of course a rest day, with third round FA cup football matches to watch after I had lazed in bed in the morning. With my vitals taken and my morning meds taken I was alone in the house as my partner and eldest daughter went off to the gym. With some time to spare before the football I drafted a letter to the reviewer who had reviewed my collection, The Cancer Years: So Far, thanking him for the kind and unexpected review. I wrapped copies of the two further collections in the series in bubble wrap and prepared the package to go tomorrow. Not sure what to expect, perhaps nothing, but I thought the guy maybe interested in the development of the series. He may not of course give a toss, so whatever it is, I will live with it. With that done am ready for for a good football game and I got one.

So after extra time and the thrill of a penalty shoot out it was time to eat and continue watching the series Blindspot. It is coming to and end thankfully as the story line is becoming more comic book as the writers struggle to get to an ending that could be feasible, I fear it is a series that has got beyond them and I sense an inconclusive ending. Its all fantasy to bed time, night meds and the final clearing of the kitchen before I get to bed.

Monday and I wake after a good nights sleep to my partner up and busy, She brings me hot water as I take my vitals and organise myself. Breakfast is simple accompanied by my morning meds, and then I am off to the post office to send my package of letter and books to the reviewer at the Lancet who reviewed my first collection. There is a bit of a stumble at the post office as it turns out that I have not got the right post code on the packet. I get it sorted with the help of the post person and return home with a paper.

On returning home I get my washing into the machine and settle down to do the days crosswords. I zip thorough these again as my washing chugs away until its time to go out for a snack at lunchtime. My partner drives us to a small garden centre where I can indulge in hot chocolate. I am not very chatty, today is an effort but I get through the snack and walk round the the rather run down garden centre, including their cut price Christmas decorations. I miss a call from a friend but catch up with the voice message later. Having bought nothing we drive home where I shove my washing into the tumble dryer and then take time to catch up drafting the blog. This is being one of my mundane days, where everything is an effort and I am short of energy. By half past three I am ready for a chunk of panettone and a go of my partners eye mask sauna.

I slide into the evening and while my partner is at her singing lesson, half way through my football match the Tesco delivery arrives, so I am solo taking in the weeks goodies and playing squirrel. Post squirrelling my partner and I watch more of the increasingly improbable Blindspot. So I drift into night meds and an early night. Its been a day of sluggishness and a sort of itchy scratchy ill contentment, feeling like I am surrounded, tomorrow I shall train it out of me.

Saturday and I wake after a reasonable nights sleep to find my partner already preparing to go out in to the deep frost. I check my socials and my messages and then with a burst of will power I get up and get into my training kit. Breakfast is a giant buttery crumpet and hot water accompanied by my morning meds. After a short procrastination I head for the garage and the rowing machine. It’s 0 degrees, freezing in other words, I do not think I have ever trained in such cold conditions, at least not since I first joined the cancer club. I use a training App to monitor my exercise activity and general fitness called Zepp and today I want to tip over the 200 PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence) points. This is an App that monitors and calculates all sorts of things and claims that those people who keep their PAI above 100 live longer by about five years, based on a Norwegian University of Science and Technology study that has been going on for 35 years and based on a sample size of 230,000 adults. It is called the HUNT study and is lead by Professor Ulrik Wisloff at the faculty of Health and Medicine Sciences.

My only concession to the cold is long socks, apart from that I am wrapped up in my usual read track suit with my ear buds in to listen to radio to keep me going during the session. I set the session for 45 minutes and set off in the freezing cold. Despite some entertaining radio this is a hard session and it feels like I am having to pull harder than usual just to keep going, perhaps the cold weather is affecting the rower, I do not know so just get on with it. As I get towards the end of the session I can feel myself loosing energy quickly and have to make an effort to get to the end of the session. When I check the monitor I find I have managed 8+kilometres, which is a surprise given how my body feels.

I get out of the garage quickly and into the warm of the house pleased my session is over. I grab a red bull and record my session in my journal. My partner is still at the hairdressers so I clear the kitchen and then hoover round the house to try and make sure the rest of the day can be lazy for everyone. Just as I finish my partner returns and goes off to shop for food at our favourite garden centre. In her absence I watch the first half of a football match and then shower at half time before watching the rest of the game. I have very few if any meaningful spoons left to spend this day so I take to drafting the blog whilst listening to Radio 3’s Mindful Mix. It is still only mid afternoon and the light is beginning to fade so it must be getting close to the time for a slab of Panettone and some writing and reflection time.

The evening rocks round, my team Brentford loose in the third round of the cup to a lower division team, so not a good result at all. There is an evening meal and a TV football match after which more of Blindspot before I take my night meds and go to bed hoping for a good nights sleep before my intended rest day of a Sunday. I might even get to go and feed the duck tomorrow.

Freezing Friday and I wake to messages and social media. I take my vitals which are all good and slowly get up. I find my household sitting on the sofa watching the news and I soon join them with comforting crumpets and morning meds. With breakfast out of the way I have time to update my vitals Excel data base so I can keep track of my blood pressure averages over chemo cycles. So far the last two cycles since my “heart fiasco” have been normal so I am content. I will be happy if things stay as they are till my next oncology review in early March. My partner and eldest daughter go out and leave me to start the daily draft of the blog.

My day progresses to writing the first letters of the year. It is an important moment of the year for me as keeping up my letter writing as a way of staying in touch with friends I value and care about is big issue for me. At the moment my Dupuytrens Contracture makes using my favoured pen and ink tricky so I have resorted to typing using a script font. Its not the same but it does add the additional factor of readability to my letters at the moment. There are some household chores to do but I soon return to the key board and continue to write. All the while I listen to Radio 3s mindfulness selection. Its so refreshing to just have gently music on in the back ground, not lift music or caned music but proper classical music that has been toiled over and thought about. No adverts, opinions, no extraneous noise just music that does not try to force its way into my ears. I seal my letter using some of the sealing wax I received as a Christmas present. Before venturing out into the bitter cold where the streets where still white with frost I layered up and made sure I was as warm as could be. I made my way to the post box and back without mishap.

Once home set about the days crosswords, some tricky stuff in them today so it took me longer to work through them, but I eventually came out triumphant. having nibbled Panettone along the way. My mind turned to the evening meal and on having explored the possibilities I was off to the village shop to get potatoes for jacket potatoes because this is the sort of weather that is just perfect for them.

So the evening is a rough and ready meal and then there is a TV quiz show to watch and then some football before I can finish off drafting the blog, take my evening meds and get to bed ready for the weekend. I’m still stunned by yesterdays review of my poems in the Lancet, its going to take a while for this to work off.

Thursday and I have another good nights sleep, so I am feeling quite chipper as I wake up and check my news feeds, messages and socials. I’m up and in my training gear before a crumpet breakfast and then its off to the garage. Its 2 degrees and a bit nippy. I set the session for 45 minutes and crack on. It is hard work but I get to the end mercifully quickly as I’ve got bloody Jeremy Vine in my ears. The session is not a PB but it has warmed me up.

I am pleased that I am managing to get to train again, there were months when it was not possible without pissing blood ,it was a major source of distress, so this run of being able to train is a real blessing. I record the session in my journal and then recover with the last piece of Christmas cake and some Lucozade. As I have changed out of the training kit I have another twenty minute session with my partners eye sauna whilst listening to one of radio threes relaxation sessions. Life cannot be all here and now relaxation so I gird up my loins and set about clearing the kitchen and emptying the dishwasher and getting it ready for whatever action it is going to see later. The secretary of the surgeon who is going to do my Dupuytrens contractor operation rings me back and says she has seen the quote that the private hospital has sent me, and that the other private hospital is sending me a better deal on the understanding that my after care will be extra from a specialist hand and wrist Occupational Therapist. It is a bizarre feeling having hospitals price matching and in effect touting for my sickly business. So I now await new paper work to accept the new offer and my January 30th hand job. Probably not the best way to describe it.

With the med admin done I set about checking the car tyres on the cars and making sure the pressures are up to speed. Its not complicated it just means jiggling about with the portable compressor. Fortunately our little compressor is quite bright so that once the desired pressure is set it gets on with the job and stops when the pressure is right. It neatly runs off the cigarette lighter port on the car. With the job done and the pressure measuring dust caps back on the tyres I retreat inside to the warmth of the lounge intending to write letters but instead I find myself reviewing the poems I’ve written lately and then with a Red Bull and Crunchie bar I start to write. Its a strange feeling, once I start there is no stopping it, it just gets going and I have to see it through, so I end up writing two.

426
Fuck me I am addicted to Crunchies
Chocolate covered honeycomb
A blast from my childhood
come back to haunt my adulthood.
Once big enough to satisfy 
but now a weedy runt of a bar
the cunning confectioner 
sells them in multi packs,
one for now and now 
and now and now. 
I could walk away 
I could honestly 
because I know 
that down the aisle
Frys Turkish Delight 
lays in wait.
This poem cost me a Crunchie,
my conscience a smidgeon
of guilt.
Compared to my 
 other sins 
it’s a pleasure, 
especially when washed 
down with a 
Red Bull,
diet of course!

							426 09-01-2025 

427
I idly read my last clutch of poems 
and I see that cancer is not there,
have I become complacent,
a host with Stockholm syndrome?
It is true I am in awe 
Of its fabulous cell chemistry,
Its ability to find a way,
Of how molecules stiffen,
bridges become rigid 
and the constant flux of 
what washes through me
as pill after potion is tried.
The measure of my metastases
by noisy magnetic tubes,
wonderous machines, 
my only arithmetic of life. 
For much of my time 
I feel a fraud and think 
“I should do better”,
be more fun, more adventurous.
Be the partner, lover, 
I once was, and then:
then fatigue catches up with me,
my mental to do list 
outstrips my available spoons,
my energy gone 
and I sit on the recliner
trying my very best to
feed my brain 
to retaliate and be something.
My friend said:
“he needs to be seen” 
as I put poetry into the world
and seek the words 
that will encapsulate
me before its too late. 
Much of this life is mundane,
a routine, trying
to remain,
a life, unseen, new terrain
but it is a life,
and I cling to it,
for family, friends and 
the endless wonders
that it brings.
It is a revel of the ordinary 
amidst the exceptional,
a celebration of unique
ordinariness,
and I love it. 

							427  09-01-02025
 

I just about get to the end of my musings and I realise the night has arrived, winter night has gone quickly black and I turn my attention to drafting the blog for the day. The website analysis that comes with platform that I use gives me surprising information , apparently people from all over the world have a look from time to time, which might explain the spikes that occur now and again in the visitor and visit figures. Strangely the most views come from Hong Kong, America, Russia and from places like Mongolia. There are of course some European ones. Clearly people stumble over me in there browsing I hope they find the experience comprehendible, it must be a baffling experience for many or just plain boring and easily swiped by. No one ever leaves a message or comment so I assume they pass through and leave us family to get on with things. Either that or the traffic analysis I am getting from my platform provider is just plain wrong.

Tonight I am not sure what I shall do, there is no football to watch and I am tiring of Blindspot. Perhaps this is to be a reading night. What I do know is that tomorrow needs to be a letter writing day, even a Shed day. I have bought my annual correspondence diary and await its arrival so I need to get going on writing my first letters of 2025 to all my correspondents and recipients. It feels important that I do this as I have not seen many of my friends for what feels far to long already and I miss them.

STOP PRESS:

I have just discovered that my first book of poetry The Cancer Years: So Far was reviewed in the Lancet Oncology section! No one asked me or contacted me but here it is, I am flabbergasted!

The Lancet Dec 2024

Volume 25Number 12p1507-1676, e617-e704

The Cancer Years: So Far (Book Marketeers, 2024) is the first publication from Roland T Woodward, a retired chartered forensic psychologist who, since being diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer, has posted a regular blog that reflects on living with his incurable disease. A raw and powerful collection of poems, the self-described compilation of “light and wonder” gave Woodward an outlet for all the feelings of loneliness, fear, and defiance that cancer provokes. Woodward’s candid poems reveal the day-to-day emotions of a man who feels the helplessness of his condition and repeatedly rallies against it. The first poem in the collection, numbered 335, portrays that helplessness. With its speaker declaring that “Nothing now is real”, 335 laments that when living with cancer, the world “no longer gives us meaning”. A few pages later, number 339 expresses that life is like “sitting by the pool” with “No sun | No waves | No laughing children | Or ice cream cones”. However, the end of the poem signifies the shift to resistance that Woodward upholds through the rest of his collection: “This is where, in my woolly, | I make my stand”. The poems that follow depict a shared and vulgar defiance towards the prostate cancer that Woodward refuses to let rule his life—as the speaker declares in number 348, “don’t expect me to be nice about it”. Woodward offers readers an empowered position towards illness that they may find hard to come by on their own. Number 349, a poem that considers Woodward’s struggle for meaning and value in a world that “holds no interest”, ends with a sharp expletive aimed at the disease. At the extreme, number 355 takes a traditional English sonnet and fills it exclusively with expletives and the word “Cancer”. By embracing his resistance and challenging his disease, Woodward can reconnect with his own identity and realise the value that can be found in life when he is in control, not his physical condition; and, by proxy, he offers this method of resistance to his readers.

What can I say?