Monday and I wake up about 9 o’clock after an interrupted night, feeling listless. It the anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. Four years ago I was delivered the message and I started my journey to chemotherapy and beyond till here I still am in Chemo II. I get up have breakfast and feel spoonless but there is meds admin to be done. I make an appointment to have my bloods done before going on holiday so that the results are available for my oncology phone appointment on the 6th of July while on holiday. Something to look forward to on my birthday on holiday. I continue to contact the oncologist’s secretary to see if I can get a repeat early prescription for my new meds. She promises to talk to him and ring me back. She does and the answer is I am going to have to go without my new meds for a week. I suspected that might be the answer as the oncologist will need to see my blood results and know my blood pressure results from my monitoring before signing off my prescription. At between £2500 and £3000 a pop for 28 days I am not surprised there is a lot of caution and paperwork.

I go to the Shed to write letters. Its a while since I have been in the Shed and I notice somethings appear to have been moved. I remember that the door was left open one hot night so I suspect the squirrel and possibly a cat, or both, have been in for a look around. I write until a friend rings me and we have a long chat about how we are and what is going on for us. Recovering from long COVID is indeed a long haul as there are so many different skill sets that need to be brought back to a working level. Organisations seem to forget that recovering people also have families to provide for and to nurture, they do not just go to work and then sleep. So my friend is persisting in building up her skills across the board at a rate tat is sustainable, which of course is never fast enough for an organisation as they want everything now. My friend goes off to eat and hopes I enjoy my birthday and rearmament presents she has sent me. My partner gives my a lunch roll and I continue to write letters. By two thirty I am flagging so pack up the Shed and return to the house and reload the garden camera with batteries and return it to the garden. I go to the post box and return to do my afternoon vitals. I do them , all normal and fall asleep. This is definitely a low spoon day. I am woken by the Tesco deliver at five o’clock. Luckily I had moved my car off the drive earlier. I had intended to train but I just could not raise the energy to do so. Its a real double blind on these days when I have no energy. Training is supposed to be the best thing to reduce the side effects of the drugs, but the major side effect is feelings of tiredness. You can see the catch 22 in this. I decide that I shall train tomorrow and go for a good nights sleep tonight if I can get it.

I sofa my self with my laptop and start to draft the blog before tea. I shall dine and then watch England play North Macedonia in the European Qualifiers. (7-0). I get side tracked some how an order a solar power pack/charger. I have vague thoughts of making sure that on holiday I can be sure to power my phone and laptop cheaply, no point in having sunshine if it doesn’t do chores for me. I am also looking for ways to reduce our electricity usage. I note we have a lot of things on standby so I might try an experiment in July and turn off everything on standby to see if it actually makes any difference. But for now its a slow journey towards my night meds and oblivion.