Friday, and my face is good, no pain so crack on. No bacon, a crisis, so its on to a peanut butter bagel and coffee. As soon as I can I retreat to the Shed to write letters and thoughts about Elders. It pours with rain all the time. I am rescued from the beat of the rain by a friend ringing me and chatting families, parties, work and the management of energy to get through everything. Lunch is a coffee taken in the shed. It continues to rain. At 2 o’clock I open my Amazon deliver of fish food and relieve my fish’s hunger. I also stick down the wound covering on my cheek with Elastoplast spray on skin. A stroke of genius. I then head off to post letters, collect my drugs prescription and deliver my surgeons letter to my GP all in the dystopian rain. I return home to change into my training gear and get myself to the shed to train. Its still raining.

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By the time I have finished training its time to order take away and settle down to watch Leicester Tigers lose a cup final by one point. I write the blog and go to bed. It’s still raining and the forecast is for more.

Slash and dig day has arrived. It is this Thursday that my sebaceous cyst gets exorcised. So I am up early and eating a muesli breakfast to sustain me for the day. Hot black coffee goes down a treat as I get my bag ready and order fish food for my hungry fish. I leave having a shower to the last moment in a bizarre attempt to be as clean as possible for the hospital, how mad is that, I even breakout a brand new pair of pants and a new pair of soft trousers. All this stuff is easy to take off, I’ve played this game before and have excellent hospital coping skills. So the time comes to leave for the hospital and it throws it down with rain, I drive to the hospital stopping to fill the car with petrol on the way. At the hospital I hop out and leave my partner to drive back. I stand in the rain and ring the mobile number on the door in order to get in. After a couple of minutes a person appears and lets me in and asks me to wait until she can do my paper work. She checks my paper work, gets me to sign some papers and then escorts me up to the surgery ward. Actually it is a suite of private rooms. I am shown in and told to wait for my nurse to come and prep me. Me being me I take pictures of my facilities

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My nurse arrives and measures my vitals while filling in more paper work on me. I answer the same questions I have answered before and listen to my instructions, change into the robe, have a piss before I go to the theatre and press the button if I need anything. The nurse leaves and I look at the notes she has left. Of course I photographed them. It appears I am very healthy. Bit ironic really given my underlying cancer.

Once the pictures are taken I get into my robe, ties at the back as instructed. I cannot resist a selfie.

My consultant comes to visit me and runs through what is going to happen to me and draws a kiss on my check to signify what work is going to be done. He also tells me that I am last on the list of four and he will get round to me about 4 o’clock. He waves farewell and tells me the nurse will be back.

I settle down to my three hour wait and break out Helgoland to reread some of the chapters on Entanglement. I read for a while and then become aware of feeling a bit odd and not sure why. Then I realise I am thinking about the month I and my partner spent in a hospital room for almost a month in Jamaica when my cancer caused my kidneys to collapse on me. I spent hours passing time in a state of existential anxiety fighting to be positive and to keep myself alive. I never realised till now how much that experience had embedded itself in me. The difference this time is that I am here by choice, in fact paid for the honour of it, but never the less the hospital sounds around me and the waiting trigger those Jamaican days. I do what I always do in these situations, I write. I drag out a writing pad and and set about writing my head out of myself so that I can do this for what it is. By ten to four I am ready and obediently empty my bladder and sit waiting for them to come and get me. At four two nurses come to the room and do more paper work and then escort me up two floors to the theatre level, which is decidedly chillier than the rest of the hospital.

And so it begins. The team introduce themselves and then they perform a ritual dance of checks and double checks. The anesthetist introduces himself and cuffs me up and clips a SATs monitor to me. My scrubs nurse introduces herself and proceeds to wrap me up in operation covers. My surgeon arrives and we get to work, anesthetic first injected into my face, the first couple were slightly painful but after that I felt nothing, it was clearly good stuff. The surgeon got to work and gave a little running commentary of how things were going with things like “well that’s got all of that out” and “oh its dry your anticoagulants don’t seem to be working.” My eyes are covered with wet bandages to keep out the intense light of the operating illumination so I can only feel some broad sensations but being sewn up is unmistakeable. I forgot to count but it was clear he clipped internally and hand stitched the outer layers before putting on butterfly clips, which he then covered with a dressing. All done I was de-mummified and allowed to sit up. I was all for walking back but they insisted that I be wheeled down to my room. The nurses encourage me to rest and to wait for my tuna bagel to arrive. As soon as they left I of course take a selfie.

My tuna bagel arrives with my coffee in a small silver pot and china cup and saucer. I am very hungry and before I realise it I have got it down me without capturing it for the blog. I sip the coffee through a straw to start with but quickly get fed up with that and just drink it normally. I figure I might as well just get on with it as normal.

Once I have eaten I decide to dress and get ready to leave having rung my partner to tell her I was done. The discharge nurse arrives and takes me through the paper work adn makes sure I understand what the surgeon has said to me. It al goes well adn she pops out. The surgeon reappears to say goodbye and exchange mobile numbers so he can organise my stitches being taken out in a couple of weeks time. He reminds me to cream my wound once a day till the tube runs out and then he is off. The nurse returns and asks how I am getting home and at that moment my partner rings to say she has arrived. I am escorted down to the exit, the nurse insisting on carrying my bag. I am driven home to a tea of mince and rice coked by my eldest daughter, which was very welcome. To my delight my new England Ice Hockey jersey has arrived. This years word ice hockey championships start in a days time and England play Russia on Saturday, which is going to be on TV.

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My evening is taken up with unpacking my bag, getting back to normal and writing the blog, all the time I am waiting for the anesthetic to fully wear off and for me to begin to experience the pain that all the medics advised me to take paracetamol for.

In all this has been the messages from family and friends that have been supportive and kind for which I have been immensely grateful.

Wednesday and I am up and breakfasted early as I am attending the community of communities annual forum today. Today I do not take my blood thinner medication in anticipation of tomorrows surgery. I settle down in front of my laptop and log in to the annual forum. I spend the rest of my day until 4 o’clock involved with the forum. The most affecting part of the day was a session labeled “conference gallery”. It contained presentations by therapeutic communities of what the spirit of their community is. I was taken aback to see presentations from TCs that I was responsible for setting up and had managed. One of my old TCs had created ceramic hero bears to acknowledged the efforts during COVID of their staff team. This TC is in a prison and to see the residents of prison acknowledge the positive relationship with the prison staff in this way was breath taking. The bears themselves were an inspiration. At lunch time I popped out to post letters and then took a phone call from the hospital nurse checking that I was not a COVID risk. She told me that if my COVID test had been positive I would have heard by now so I can assume that I am clear. The forum comes to an end for the day and I put my dressing gowns in to the wash to take with me tomorrow and go to the gym to train. I row for thirty minutes and when I finish I relaid the gym flooring in the garage.

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We eat tune pasta tea a day early at my request as I fear I might have a very sore mouth tomorrow and be restricted to smoothies for a while. I settle down to watch football and to write the blog. Currently the family has a lot to deal with with the complexities and worries of arranging continuing 24 hour care for my partners mother and my surgery. Hopefully by Friday all this will be resolved for a while. At the moment the household is on perseverance and adaption mode.

Tuesday, a work day, so I am up and breakfasted and in front of the laptop by ten. A work meeting that was called at short notice in order to sort out some training dates and to be made aware of some work that is coming up soon. At the end of the meeting I stay on to chat to a colleague and then get on with the admin coming out of the meeting. At lunch I share soup with my partner and get ready to go to the Shed to write and train. I write letters as the rain pours down, there will be no way that the garden guy will be able to do anything today. I train on the bike for and hour. I feel sluggish and unfit, I think my coming surgery is more on my mind than I care to admit.

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I climb off the bike and get myself together. I wander the garden, which is now in sunshine and snap the abundance of life that is there.

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I change and perform my chores of clearing the kitchen ready for the evening meal. I move onto my Amazon package which contains feet for the bathroom duck board and a pack of shower curtain clips. Tooled up I go to the bathroom and add feet to the duck board and curtain clips to the wall. Just the little things that make life slightly simpler.

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Tea and then an evening of some football and writing the blog. Tomorrow is a day full of on line conference activity, so I hope to be inspired, informed and entertained, however I expect I might get interrupted as the day goes on. The day will go fast and before I know it Thursday will arrive.

Monday, its COVID test day. So I am straight into the shower and in no time at all I am shoving a bristly stick down my tonsils and gagging like a pig with a strawberry stuck in its throat, followed by a ten seconds of nasal chimney sweeping before securing the stick in a tube with some Ribena like fluid in it. The vial goes into the plastic bag with its paper work in the outer bag. All has gone to instruction but I have a question. In the bag is a ball of cotton wool that the instructions clearly say has to be left in the bag and sent with the test vial. Why? I drive to the hospital and drop the COVID test into the collection box in reception and return home to the comfort of a bacon bagel. After that it was all down hill while I waited to have my pre surgery assessment by phone.

Amongst the things I did were order shower curtain retaining clips, feet for the bath duck board, check out the world ice hockey timetable of games, order my England ice hockey jersey, finish reading Helgoland, re-read Fa-Tsang’s Treatise on a Golden Lion and move the car so that the Tesco delivery had access. Lunch came and went and still no call from my Nuffield nurse. Eventually my call comes through and I spend half an hour going over my recent medical history and drug intake. Apparently the only things I need to take on the day is a clean dressing gown and a pair of slippers as they walk their people down to the theatre and it can be a bit chilly and revealing in a hospital gown. So there is an instant dilemma, do I take my heavy duty but very warm and cuddly gown or one of my more oriental and floaty ones? I am inclined to go for the warm and cuddly option even if it is bulky. Post interview I read some more and attend to some work emails. Tesco deliver so there is some squirreling away of goodies to be done. I prepare the evening meal, a chicken curry which gets to bubble away till the household stops working and is ready to eat. The evening is a bit of a downer as Brentford loose the first leg of their play off semi final. I return to reading and to writing the blog. Tomorrow I continue to isolate until my surgery with a couple of meetings to do and a virtual conference. I’m finding it difficult to motivate myself at the moment hence I have not trained today. Today feels a bitty day with little achieved and I feel the need to do better tomorrow.

Saturday and I wake up in a strange bed. First the first time in over a year I am away from home and waking up in a strange place. So we get up and make breakfast in this small and quirky Airbnb. Every thing is new and has to be looked for and the electric oven is a challenge. Basically it goes well and soon we are settled down and reading while we wait to here from our youngest daughter and arrange to meet. Eventually we get the call and get ready to walk up the hill to meet them. Outside their intended house we meet them and the parents of our daughters partner. For an hour we wander round a house peering at things and noting sizes. There are of course things that get spotted for future rectification but it is a good house. Having been thoroughly nosey we retreat back to the quirky Airbnb have a picnic lunch and a chat about what we had seen and the nature of Cinderford. We give our lucky pair a lift to my daughters partner’s parents house. We do not go in as I am wary of mixing too much with people before I go for my facial surgery. Back at the cottage I watch the cup final on my laptop and have the pleasure of seeing Leicester win the FA cup for the first time ever. We eat tea and settle down to read the evening away interrupted only by a session of Mock the Week. Any early night and we retreat to the loft bed.

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Sunday and again I get to wake up again in the unfamiliar bed. This time its a brief breakfast before loading the car and heading for home. The drive was fine and had the added luxury of wine gums. By lunch time we are home and I am in the garden putting in edging.

The rest of Sunday drifts through washing, drying, eating tea, readying for tomorrows COVID test and trip to the hospital and of course performing the Sunday Tesco order revamp. I write the blog waiting for the football highlights to relieve the tedium of a poor BBC adaptation of The Pursuit of Love.

Friday awake and focused, this is a travel day. So it means if I am going to train today I need to straight away. I am in the garage double quick to do half an hour on the rower. The intention is to be gentle however I still manage 7 kilometres, which is not bad.

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I shower and check my packing before taking the car to the garage to check tyres and fuel. Then it was a trip to the garden centre to get food to take on the trip. Once provided for we have lunch and I take my drugs. By one thirty we are ready to roll with everything packed and ready. Just before we leave my eldest daughter returns from circus school and I do the speech about not letting anyone in, that we have not ordered anything and no one is expected to be doing anything for us. Then we are off. A couple of hours driving and we arrive at Artisant Cottage in Cinderford. It is a small but quirky cottage which we like straight away.

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We are met by the owner who is very cheery and welcoming. We sit on the patio and recover from the journey with a coffee and notice one of the quirky adornments to the patio.

Having settled in we go for a walk in Cinderford. It is a strange town laying between one that is dying like so many old mining towns but also showing signs of recovery in its housing market, certainly not short of take away food places. We walk up the High Street towards the centre of town where with a quick diversion behind Lidl we find the house that my youngest and her partner are buying. We give it the once over from the outside and walk round the block to look at its garage and parking space. Tomorrow we will get to look inside when we met my daughter to have another house viewing. We return to the cottage and cook lasagne and relax over coffee before watching a couple of programmes on the lap top. My partner goes to bed and I write the blog. I am curious to see how I sleep in this strange place and what dreams I might have.

Thursday and I start with a phone call from a friend as I lay and read some more of Carlo Rovell’s Helgoland. I get to the section on Entanglement and intuitively know I need a quiet long moment to tackle what appears to be the most important section of the book, so I get up and go for a smoothie breakfast and coffee before logging into my first Teams meeting of the day. Its a team meeting to discussed the Open Forums and to think about what comes next. It goes on till people drift away and I and a colleague grab a bit of time to talk football and the lighter things of life. A large number of postal packets arrive but they do not get opened until I’ve had my egg noodle lunch and got ready for my next meeting. My next meeting is an open forum and to my surprise a small number turn up this week. It is productive and there are new observations about how services are moving on with COVID but face new challenges. At the end I explain that my co host will be there fro them next week as I will be having some minor face surgery that day. We say farewell and I move onto opening my packets. The first one is my COVID test that I need to do on Monday and take to the hospital before I isolate prior to my surgery. It also contains the bill and a request for payment. My next packet contains two presents. One is a surprise present that I can open now the other is an early birthday present that I have to promise not to open till my birthday. This is the second person who has sent me a very early birthday present, I wonder if they know something I do not or that people just want to do nice things now and not have to wait. I am touched by my early “can open now present”, it is a hand made T shirt made to measure and looks ace. The other package I squirrel away till July. Its time to change and train so I get myself to the Shed adn climb up onto the bike to do an hour. It goes well and I feel that I am getting fit again.

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I return to the house to shower adn try on my new T shirt. I ring the hospital to pay my invoice for next Thursday and then clear the kitchen ready for tea tonight. I watch some TV during tea and then while my partner has her singing lesson print out instructions and directions for the airbnb we are going to tomorrow. That sorted I pack my overnight bag ready for tomorrow and tick it off my list. Just the car and food to do tomorrow morning now. I sit and write the blog before retiring to bed and reading some more.

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Wednesday, and I get from bed to a breakfast bacon bagel with a youthful leap. Apart from a call from a friend nothing happens until I meet up on Zoom with the Elders group. The group spends an hour talking and exploring what we are about, what we think we can offer and the way we will offer it. The bottom line is that we are eager to meet in an embodied way later in August as we all feel that we need to do that to have the time and experience to move ourselves forward as a group. I like this group it is one of the very few places I get to share and explore with like minded people the issues we all face. Amazon deliver my new writing paper and envelopes along with an “Important dates” book. I of course head for the shed but not before a piece of Quiche, which was a surprise. I am filling in my new “Important dates” book when my daughter brings me a slice of walnut cake, life is full of surprises and this is a good one. I settle down to write a letter using my new paper and to play with my Chinese character practise book. Spring is literally the symbols for plants and sun.

I finish my letter and close up the shed before changing into clothes that are acceptable to go to the post box in. Errand done I prepare to train but I get a text about my bank account. I ring my bank and spend an inordinate length of time trying to talk to a human. I eventually get through and have it confirmed that the text is a scam, so I follow the advice and block the number and erase the text. So much later than I had planned I get in to the garage and load myself onto the rower. I am determined to go for a personal best today and choose to go for the one hour row at level 5. So from the off I am at it. The result? See below:

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Well Go me! That is a good PB and I am feeling it, but very pleased. I change and eat tea adn decide to write the blog early in the evening so that I can pay attention to the Repair Shop and also the excellent Great British Sewing Bee. Good old fashioned domestic repairing and creating things that provide a real sense of admiration for the people that can apply skills. Having had my fill of admiration I shall read and watch football.

Tuesday, Yalom day, or it will be at 7 o’clock tonight when I attend a webinar at which Yalom is talking. But first I get a smoothie breakfast and head for the Shed. Its a letter writing morning. That is exactly what I do all morning. I consume mini cheddars and a bag of chocolate buttons while writing. I reach a crisis point of running out of decent writing paper so immediately order new from Amazon. With luck tomorrow will see me with more pretty correspondence paper and envelopes. Its an indulgence but the people I write to are worth it. A friend rings and we chat birthdays and shopping, its nice to get a call while in the shed as I can chat while looking out over the garden while listening to the rain on the roof. At lunch time I cook noodles and take my letters to the post box along with my drivers licence that I’ve cut in two as instructed by the DVLA when I was renewing my licence. Back home I change into my training gear and return to the shed. I decide to go for a long session on the bike and see how I mange it. The answer was pretty well.

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I recovery from efforts and return to the house locking the Shed up for the day. Once in the house I record my feat and have another chat with a friend. My body was ready for the shower I treated it to. Its a fun packed evening as I watch Leicester beat Manchester United and make Manchester City this years premier champions and then I join a Webinar to hear Irvine Yalom talk about this experience of death and grief having lost his partner of some 75 years. As always he was very candid about what he was experiencing and how he was coping with it. I came away with quite a lot to digest. However no time to reflect as I had washing to put in the tumble dryer and a blog to write to the accompaniment of Mock the Week. All in all a good day. With luck I will get my clothes folded and be able to read some more of Helgoland.