Tuesday and I wake into “recovery” day, the day after my twenty eight day jab. I am sore and feeling the usual tiredness and pain. I take my time getting up and spend the morning and most of the afternoon taking things very slowly, but a friend has sent me a present. It is a subscription to the National Theatre at Home. It means I can watch Jodie Comer perform her solo performance in Prima Facie. It is an extraordinary performance, absolutely riveting and a tour de force. How on earth she managed to perform this piece night after night is beyond me. It is one of those pieces that has stayed with me all day and into the following day. By the evening I am tired, very tired, all I am good for is watching football on TV and getting myself to bed to try and get some sleep.

Wednesday starts early with my partner getting up to go and visit her mother. I take advantage of this and also get up early, this afternoon is the planned oncology review. I get into my training gear determined to get back into getting fit. Having taken my morning meds I go to the garage and strap myself onto the rower. A half hour session will be enough today, just to get me moving and making sure I do not leave it too long to train again. Its been five days since I trained so time is passing. It feels like a difficult thirty minutes, it feels like I am not moving smoothly and every pull is a real effort. At the end of the session I am just pleased to have got over the 6 kilometre mark. That will do me for a recovery session as this time in my twenty eight day cycle.

With the session recorded I take a breather and watch The Housewife of Willesden on the National Theatre at Home website. It is a modern reworking of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath. A thoroughly enjoyable way of winding down. My partner returns from visiting her mother and we chat for a while. I now wait for my call from the oncologist. Its at least a two hour slot to wait and in the time I am waiting my partner and I examine the map of England and think about where we might take a break. Eventually the oncologist rings. (Perhaps a good play tittle).

It is not my usual oncologist (he who made a pact with the devil). There are the usual questions and I dutifully report my average blood pressure over the current cycle. I also feedback my GP putting me on a Vitamin D treatment. The chap I am talking to notes that I have been on Enzalutamide for almost two years and drops that most people do two years on this drug but that they think I might go for three years. Now that was a revelation. No one before had told me that so I end the call with the agreement that I will have another three cycles and be sent another blood form with a view to another review in twelve weeks time and that my PSA level will continue to be monitored as the slight rise this time is not seen as significant. So its carry on Roland and get back into the groove for three months.

The evening is slipped into and as my partner is out with a friend dining I cook myself pasta and settle down to draft the blog while watching a pulsating football match. I am flagging and take my night meds knowing that I have to be up early tomorrow to go to see the hand and wrist therapist. All over the last few days I have been exercising and binding my hand to get my hand recovered. I am doing my set exercises and regularly massaging Nivea Crème into my operation scars. It is a kind of background recovery programme that I have running all the time. When it comes to going to bed there is my splint to strap on, so its a twenty four hour process. I am assured that if I do not keep this programme going the scar tissue will pull my finger back down into a crooked shape, so it has to be kept up.