Sunday, and I try to get up and about to be able to see my youngest grandson before he and his mother leave for home. I just fulfil this before they leave. I spend a large part of the day on the recliner in the lounge watching endless Poirot reruns until there is football to watch. By the time the football ends and sees Scotland crash out of the competition to a last kick of the game goal I am spoonless and retreat to bed. I go thorough my now familiar night routines of fitting a night bag, taking my meds and settling down early knowing that at some point in the night I will take more co-codamol to aid my sleep. This is what happens.

Monday and its 28 day injection day, which means I have to make it to the GP surgery by 9am. I am on a mission. With what energy I have I get up, take my meds and sort out my night catheter bag then comes the big challenge, having a shower. I remove the restraining straps and and get myself into the shower, slowly and carefully. I am fully oiled up with the anti bacterial shower gel the hospital supplied when the shower stops working and flashes LP at me, meaning the water pressure is low. This happens if the mains water is run somewhere in the house. The LP sign persists and in the end I go to the down stairs shower, fed by a hot water tank and not the mains to finish my shower noting that the washing machine is on, hence the LP in the other shower. The whole process is knackering.

Eventually I finish my shower and get back up stairs to change into my going to the doctors clothes. I choose training undergarments from my gym kit as they provide the right support and means of hiding my pipe work. With these and a little gymnasts self adhesive strapping I am able to get mobile under some normal clothes. There is time for toast and water before my partner drives me to the surgery, where I book in and gingerly take a seat. When the nurse calls me I have to get my partner to give me a hand to get off the chair and walk with a very nautical gait to the nurses room. I am soon jabbed with my 28 day regular injection and as an added bonus today I get my three monthly B12 jab in the arm. Then its home. I not that the mock orange is now in full bloom and smelling sweetly in the warm sunshine.

I nap for an hour to recover from the mornings efforts and then I start to do admin. There are numbers to ring to follow upon my TWOC (Trial Without Catheter and not as I always knew it: Taking Without Owners Consent, the most common car thieving offence). The trail of numbers that I call eventually leads me to an answer phone service where I leave my details and enquiry, they say they will get back to me, I wonder if they will. I move onto prodding the Hippo Bag company to come and collect the waiting Hippo Bag that they said would be gone by now. I chat to the chat bot who promises to email me back, at least I can see my collection is still pending on my account. With lunch time looming the post man arrives with my quarterly Poetry Review to be quickly followed by another delivery man. The late brings a surprise. A fathers day present from my youngest daughter and her son. Its a zip through hoodie with a photograph outline of me and my youngest grandson cuddled up together on the sofa with a message embroidered on the sleeve. I love it instantly and message my youngest daughter to say so.

Lunch time arrives and its time to do my routine comfort making process before a bite to eat. I eat lunch on the patio with my partner and do the crosswords but after a while I feel uncomfortable and return to the house. I retreat to bed to doze, which I do fitfully and as the afternoon continues my usual post 28 jab pain starts to kick in. I try to relax though it but eventually I resort to co-codamol. As I wait for for the pain killer to kick in I revisit the blog and note I have have had no response from either the TWOC clinic message line or the Hippo Bag chat bot with its promise of an email. I’m tired and feel myself loosing energy all the time. This is all I shall manage on the blog today, I need to rest and get myself comfortable and pain free. It could be a long evening and night, perhaps there is poetry in there, it feels beyond me at the moment.