DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) DAY 8

So let’s be clear. I started this blog on the 1st September 2019 as a way of keeping a record of my experience of prostate cancer and as a way to keep my family and friends informed of how I am. I figured that it would help people keep up to date without having to ask or have difficult conversations .It also meant that I could learn how to live with cancer and to accept that normal mundane life goes on for me. The normal boring stuff is no longer normal and boring for me, it is the everyday stuff to of which life comes, or as a friend put it, it reflects the generative power of everyday life. So I guess my blog will at times appear boring and mundane but always the fight is going on inside to maintain direction and to keep making meaning from my life. I mention this as it seems that I am slowly gaining a wider audience that appears to be leaving lots of comments. Part of this is technological cyberspace accident and malfunction as many of the comments are repeats and some of the functioning of the software is beyond my understanding. I am learning how to keep up with the most recent comments on the most recent blogs.

So if you are moved to comment on the current or recent blogs then I will respond. Where new people stumble across my older blogs then they are unlikely to get a response. I am hoping in this way that the original purpose of keeping family and friends in the loop will work. As I face the possibility of being confined to my home I want to find all possible ways of staying in touch with all those I love and care about. One thing that having cancer has reinforced is that it is the people in my life that are the most important and significant element in my life. As a neighbour tells me that another neighbour has been told they must isolate by the now godlike nhs111 it seems the general anxiety has crept up close. A friend tells me that their wife has self isolated and that this means a difficult time ahead. It seems that there is an inevitable creeping towards social paralysis and social distancing where those that find their own company difficult will suffer the most unless they are able to adapt. None of this of course deals with the lack of food delivery, lack of food and toilet rolls on the shelves or the inevitable bump in the birth rate in nine months time as the fertile population of England endeavour to bonk their way through the crisis. No matter what the crisis the carbon based mammals of this planet seem never to lose the ability to copulate to save themselves.

To all those other people who have stumbled across me and my blog you are very welcome and I am content for you to share the contents of it, make comment (although I may not be able to acknowledge you) and to take from the blog anything that you feel is useful. One or two people have asked how to contact me. There is a contact part of the site right at the start, which I hope is working.

My dyslexic journey is of indeterminate length although probably foreshortened by my cancer and is going in phases from Chemotherapy, to the Fingers Crossed Phase (the three months post chemo where we wait and see what effect chemo therapy has had), then comes a meeting with my oncologist, “he who made a pact with the devil”, on the 24^th of March 2020. At that point I shall slide into another phase. If all has gone well and there is nothing the medics can or want to do I will be sent off with a three month telephone call and an annual consultation. I have dubbed this phase “Fuck off and die”. If there are things that the oncology crew want to do and can do without reducing my quality of life out of sight then I shall find a name for this phase if and when it happens. I have been criticised for naming my “fuck off and die” stage as I have, it has been suggested that it is negative and not positive and forward looking. Looking forward I am going to die, which does not mean I cannot have a rollicking life between now and then but it is the reality. I, as an existentialist, much prefer to keep death alive and well in my life as it means I pay attention to the here and now and appreciate what I have and what I am experiencing. “Pay attention” is my watch word, phrase, thingy.

Back to the mundane of life as today I wake up and know I am going to the GP for a B12 jab and blood sample taking. So in deference to the GP nurse I take a bath during which I have breakfast and check my e-mails. It is a lovely sunny day and it is a pleasure to lay in the bath with the window open listening to the birds. Once clean and wrinkly I get up and dress, to help with the bed making and some other chores. Of course at 10 o’clock I retreat to the spare room to self stab, right side today. I find a spot of flab and do the deed. Today it stung again but hey ho I’m alive and I think my calf is beginning go to go down in size. It is not long before it is time to go to the GP surgery. My partner accompanies me as she wants to check an issue on her medications. I have a brief wait before being called in. I produce my blood sample slip to be met with “I cannot do that today it’s too late, the bloods have already gone!” I point out that this is the time I was given, but to no avail. So the bloods that were supposed to check if I was having a bad reaction to the blood thinners will have to wait till Friday when I have my other bloods done. I take the B12 injection, this also stung more than usual. We leave with my partner having sorted out her medication. Still the village co op has no toilet paper or biscuits. We buy a paper and rolls for bacon rolls and walk home.

Bacon rolls go down a treat as I do the crosswords and then run off a post retirement work questionnaire. I might get to do that at some point. A friend calls and updates me on a work call that he took part in and we chat about the effect of the corona virus on us. My friend may have to cancel several trips but worst of all he will not be able to watch his beloved Rangers. In my turn I doubt I will get to see Leicester Tigers play again for a while.  My partner and I decide on a trip into town to get her a new phone. Town is almost empty as we walk to the O2 shop and engage with the salesman. It’s all straight forward apart from the tech bit on how to get the information of the old phone onto the new one. We write the instructions down and also the codes for getting an air tie discount, buy a new case and screen protector and go to find coffee. So there we are in an almost empty Costas with our coffee and buns. The Belgian iced brioche was a mistake, far too much sugar in it but I ate it anyway. I am becoming averse to anything that is sugary, apart from honey, as I see it as a poison that will make my cancer worse. Apparently those impish cancer cells feed on sugar as well as testosterone in my case. It’s a real bug bear as I have a very sweet tooth as my mouthful of nhs fillings testify. We drive home to prepare tea from the overnight marinated chicken and to write the blog. I write it earlier in the day than usual as I suspect that once tea is over there will be a period of technology wrestling to get the new phone up and running. Wish us luck as we wrestle with the new red i phone.