CYCLE 3 DAY 14

Today was a day to wake and to rouse as it is 21 day injection day. This is the injection that strips me of testosterone. My depot injection for the rest of my life. It is little wonder that I do not leap from my bed with joy on these days and find it difficult to motivate myself. I make the effort for the nurse and select appropriate underwear, clean T shirt and spray myself liberally with deodorant. I am due to be stabbed at 8:30 so I have time to get a paper on the way to the surgery. I log in and settle down to do the quick crossword while waiting along in the reception area. I do not have long to wait and soon I am handing over my injection kit to the nurse and adjusting my lower wear so as to provide access to my lower stomach area. Left side this time, I like that the nurse remembers which side it is. She probably looks it up on the notes but right now I like to think she cares enough to remember. I note that thought and wonder what is going on for me. A quick scratch and a prolonged injection. The stuff is quite viscous and takes a while to get into me and under my skin. No blood, no plaster. We arrange a date for the next one and I book a blood taking session for later in the week prior to my next hospital appointment. There is no end to this fun, literally.

I get off home and make myself a fried egg sandwich and coffee before clearing the kitchen, putting on the dishwasher and then emptying all the waste paper bins around the house. Its a sort of obsessional tidy up before I do anything in terms of work. When I finally do get into the office I am tempted to play solitaire but resist for a while and book my train tickets for Wednesday’s meeting in London. The post arrives and most of it goes straight in the recycling bin, except there is a note from the financial ombudsman saying that they were very busy and that they would get round to our claim when they could. I’m tempted to follow this format with the inland revenue, I am sure it would go down a storm. This is a long paragraph and the reason is that as far as I can tell “spellcheck” works on the first block of text and there after is unreliable, so I am ploughing on with the cunning plan of chopping the paragraph up in to smaller ones once I’ve finished. At least that way sausages get spelt right, apparently my dyslexic version causes amusement to those that rad the blog. In my head sauceages is perfectly reasonable.

By lunchtime I realise I have sunk. Sunk to such an extent I almost find Jeremy Vine interesting. Things are bad if that happens. I am partially stir crazy but too apathetic to do anything about it. I give myself a stiff talking to and write a to do list, with several things I have already done just so I can give myself the boost of ticking a few things off. I am sure I am not alone in this. I make the supreme effort and get the Wolf out of the garage and load up my gym kit. Attack attack attack is my attitude to this lethargy. I drive to the garage and fill the Wolf and check its tyres. Feeling perkier already. On to the gym where the lounge is full of ladies who lunch, I go straight to the changing rooms and get ready. First off I row for fifteen minutes, puffing an blowing at the effort. The rowing machine always punishes me most when I put on weight and today was no exception. I am at my most uncomfortable and self conscious when I row over the top of an expanding gut. I tell myself its the drugs but this is a partial truth as I have a sweet tooth and indulge it too often. Then on to the cross trainer and put it on my Sunday level of 15 and grind out an hour. At the end of the session I had shifted 917 calories, that’s more than ten chocolate digestives! Oh the bliss of the shower especially on the middle of the day.

Normally once changed and drenched in deodorant I would hang around and have a drink but today I was off to Sainsburys to indulge in a toasted tea cake and coffee whilst the Wolf got a well deserved wash and polish. It was nice to take my time and then wander the aisles to see if any new food sensation had hit the shelves but it was the same old same old. I ended up with a can of olive oil, plain nan and a giant cannister of deodorant. By the time I had played with the self service facility and got cash the Wolf was looking bright and shiny. Off to the garage now, feeling really quite perky, where I explain that my “best” car now sounds like it is trying to tear its own wheel off and can they rescue me. They agree to come and collect it tomorrow and I feel an instant wave of relief. I realise just how stressy I had been about sorting this out. Done, all I have to do is wave the car farewell tomorrow and wait for the phone call to give me the diagnosis and the cost of repair. This does not sound like cheap fix but I will wait and see.

During all this my son rings to say they still have not received my birthday card for my grandson. First job when I get back was to check the post office tracking system. According to this the Swedish postmen had tried to deliver it on the 22nd and left a note to say how it could be collected. All this communicated to my son, who now faces and arm wrestle with the local post office. So now on to making chicken curry for tea, and slobing in front of the TV for a while until blog time. So here I am have done a heavy gym session and long to do list. What started out as a lacklustre day has turned out quite productive, however my body is nagging me to go to bed and rest, which I am now going to do once I have completed my end of day rituals.

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