Tuesday and I wake after a reasonable nights sleep. I take my vitals, all good there, and for the first time in a while I have the urge to write so I begin to scribble in the back of my vitals record book. As I am doing so my partner comes in and asks if I am writing a poem, I stop and drink the warm drink she has brought but I return later in the day to finish off the poem.

450
Bemused
Bewildered
and befuddled
I do not understand,
where has my metastasis gone?

Scans
Screening
and searching
all say the same thing,
my metastasis is nowhere to be found.

Joy
Jubilation
and jollity 
should all abound
but it seems I have doubts,
how can my metastasis not be there?

Problematic
paranoid
perturbation,
a truth that’s hard to take,
I’ve lost my malevolent  metastatic status. 

								450 15-07-2025

Its an odd feeling that I have been grappling with since being told four weeks ago. I’ve lived with the reality and thoughts of having tumours in my back and lymph system for almost exactly 6 years ago to the day. It is the metastatic element of my prostate cancer that gave me a very high Gleeson score and it was this element that drove the oncologist to declare that there was no cure for my prostate cancer. That there would be palliative care and pain relief but no cure. He could give me 18 months more life with chemotherapy to which I added the 8 months I was due according to the survival curve data giving me a life expectation of 26 months, yet here I am 6 years down the line with no metastasis and a stabilised PSA of 1.7. So yes I am confused. The simple explanation is that I have responded consistently well to the treatments over the years and that I should be joyous and focus on how well my prostate is holding up. The truth is I have been taken by surprise and I am not quite sure what to make of it all. I am sure other people would be celebrating but I find myself being very cautious my faith in medicine and my body is not high and I suspect that at any moment there might be a nasty surprise. Its a strange feeling to be both winning and losing at the same time.

After breakfast I get ready to train having left messages for the garden Shed guy to ring me and having finished writing my strategy plan for taking my poetry forward with Ruler’s Wit and sending it to them. So I find myself strapped onto the rower for a 45 minute session spurred on by running motivational pod caste. Its a tough session but I get to the end happy with my 9+ kilometres, not a personal best but a solid row.

I record my session in my journal and have lunch whilst quietly listening to comedy programmes on the smart speaker. When I have recovered enough I shower and finish off the poem before starting to draft the blog, until my partner returns from seeing her mother with her brother. And then a real surprise, a hoglet appeared in the garden at 5pm, so early in the night for the little one, so of course it was fed and photographed before it trundled off in the direction of next doors hedge.

The evening comes around, there is an evening meal and then an evening that includes the new series of The Great British Sewing Bee. Night meds and then I am trapped by The Scent of a Woman as I finish of the blog.