Sunday, and I wake up with aching ribs, the hang over from my Wednesday fall. I make warm drinks for my partner and I we spend time lazing in bed reading and chatting. I weigh myself to see if the vow of no chocolate, biscuits and cake during October has made a difference. I weigh in at 97.4 kilos, a decrease of half a kilo in the first eight days. I’m good with this and hope that the rest of the month goes well. After a bacon sandwich and morning meds breakfast my partner goes off shopping and I watch a world cup rugby match. As Argentina finally over come Japan and my partner returns I am taking bits off the hoover to dehair it prior to vacuuming through the house. The morning is a domestic one as I run the machine over all the surfaces and on occasions suck up a spider who has come inside for the winter. Having completed the chore I am out of spoons, no energy at all and I retreat to the spare room to lay down for a while until I recover enough to take my vitals, which are all okay.

I should explain that although the tittle of the blog at the moment is CHEM II DAY X that I am in fact taking continuous cycles of chemo therapy. Currently I am on cycle 4 day 27 of a 28 day cycle. I have no break between cycles so I shall be starting a new cycle, cycle 5 on Tuesday. This will be immediately followed by cycle six before my next oncologist review. At the end of cycle 5 I will have a monitoring blood test to see if my PSA level is reducing and then one more before my oncology review. This continuous cycling will go on until my PSA starts to rise again and then it will depend if there are any other options. In the meantime there is no respite from the side effects, the main one being fatigue. It is the fatigue that is most effecting me in an increasing way. When I can’t train I lose my biggest weapon to counter the fatigue, which is what my sore ribs is stopping me from doing at the moment. Its a real hurdle, all I can do is make an effort to make this coming Monday another start again Monday.

So after resting and doing my vitals I watch another rugby game and start to draft the blog. The evening will be a quiet one of reading and Strictly result show, before more meds and bed. Then I will try again. As far as I can see there are no other options.