Tuesday and I am up early to make warm drinks and answer the door to the Screwfix man who is delivering shelf brackets so I can mend the laundry room shelve that collapsed yesterday. With my hot water taken I get up and start to prepare the area for the repair work while my partner cooks me a bacon sandwich. With breakfast and morning meds done I check my phone and there is a text message telling me to watch a load of pre chemo videos. I follow the link but it is unobtainable, so I use the nhs App to find them and then watch them. No surprises, its the same old drill and terrors as it was before, using quaint graphic figures doesn’t make it any better. On returning to the text after my viewing I note that my pre chemo nurses interview (by phone of course) is scheduled for Tuesday the 23rd of December. So I was right I am being pushed into post Christmas treatment, not what I wanted but I guess unless they plan to start me on Christmas Eve its going to be post Christmas and probably in the New Year. At least I know now and plan accordingly.

I now await the arrival of the wood screws I ordered to repair the laundry shelf but as I do so I start to draft the blog and make plans for Christmas. All goes well, I finally finish my Christmas wrapping and my screws arrive. I spend careful geometric time screwing my new shelf supports in place and clearing away my tools. A quick journey to the post office sees a parcel winging its way to Sweden and an investigation into a missing letter. When I get home I spend ages making a claim against the post office and sending a holding email to a car parking firm. All this before tea.

The evening is mindless recovery with a lot of TV, and crosswords until finally I down my night meds, put the bins out with huge amounts of extra cardboard, finish drafting the blog and going to bed. Tomorrow is “ring the onco boys and girls” so that should take a while.

#

Monday all I want is a call from the chemo nurse. I wake hoping and by 5 o’clock my hopes have gone for the day. Another day wasted, another day my body as been under attack with no response, without the chemo it needs. Despite the diversion of lunch at Staunton Harold and the fun of driving Elsie I find myself humourless and grim. without dates planning anything related to Christmas, Santa runs, posting is all up in the air. I write nothing except ager and frustration, I’ve no idea what I shall take to the poetry stanza meeting this Saturday, its all so bloody grim. So having had lunch out I return with my partner, me to clamber into the loft to retrieve table centre making materials and to hang the advent calendar up. My partner beavers away wrapping things for Christmas. There is post and an envelop marked “nhs”, so I eagerly pounce on it thinking it might be my chemo appointment, also its just a poxy advert for having an eye test at home. I’ve discovered that I am getting worse at waiting. If there is nothing tomorrow it will be me back on the phone asking what’s going on. I can’t help feeling they are going to put me off till after Christmas, if this is the case I need to know. So we drift to the evening when the highlight will be Tesco delivering provisions and I draft a truncated and irritable blog. I share a poem written when the caring professions caught me on a bad day when they sent me their automatic feedback form , the day they told me my current prognosis was 12 to 18 months, roughly, depending, sort of maybe, I’ve not got a crystal ball.

478
“as a valued patient”
the text says 
as it asks me 
to rate 
my last visit.
What the fuck 
does this mean?
“a valued patient”
that is dying 
but provides employment,
makes all that training 
worthwhile, student debt
tolerable and 
the caring professions 
feeling good?
“a valued patient”
full of pharma,
giving profits
and status to industrialised
caring and potions?
“ a valued patient”
nameless,
full of numbers,
a feedback
data generator
in order to show
the medics 
and the medicines 
work?
“as a valued patient”
who has just been told,
fuck off and die?
You can shove 
your survey 
up your arse.
And yes I am angry 
and I am glad for it,
as it lights the fire
in my belly
that stokes 
me up 
to fight
what is beyond 
the grasp
of statistics
and questionnaires.
“as a valued patient?”
You piss me off!


					478 27-11-2025

So the evening passes and I take my meds and go to bed to wait another day. It appears that waiting is what I now do even when I choose the most pro active option.

Saturday a day of puttering focussed on ticking off the pre-Christmas jobs. At last I have swapped the office chairs round from office to Shed and vice versa so that now the cheap comfortable one is in the office and the one that has more handles and levers than the Millennium Falcon and is grossly uncomfortable is in then Shed. The birds and Squirrels are all fed and with the arrival of the garden guy the shrubs have had their winter prune. With these mundane tasks under my belt I attempt to write the remaining words for the new website. It goes okay until I try to send them to my techno person. There is a huge and unproductive waste of time, which does not reach a satisfactory conclusion. I make a dash to the post office to stock up on Lucozade and buy a paper. At least when I get home I have a crossword to do.

The evening is all pie and chips and Strictly. The family watched and are mostly agreed that Balvinda is doomed. We shall see tonight. We move onto stranger things, the new episodes. Its strange watching adults pretend to be kids with parents played by actors who cannot possibly and plausibly be their parents. It seems to have lost its naive charms, no doubt good will win and all the actors will breathe a sigh of relief and go back to auditioning for adult roles. There is football to watch and then meds to take and finally bed. I’ve missed my youngest daughter and family not being able to visit this weekend and hope their colds and feelings of grottiness soon pass.

Sunday and I wake up quite late with all sorts of stuff in my head. My only resort is to write, so I scribble this in the dark on my phone.

481
I'm asked if I have a plan.
I have children's toothbrushes,
steroid tablets, and all the 
paraphernalia
to self inject.
I've had a pre-emptive haircut,
number three all over
as I anticipate it
falling out.
A new set of clippers 
to control any patchy growth. 
I have made sure I have a suit
that fits me, 
an act of faith, 
that at sometime 
there will be a need
to look smart,
a funereal perhaps?
Hopefully like butcher
Beynon's finger,
"not his own".
I wait
and listen
for the call,
the invitation to the 
chemo party, to submit
to the poison from the 
Yew tree, that will stiffen
the tubercles and kill the cells
that are busy devouring me
as I wait.
I am becalmed 
in a beautiful boat,
left with my enemy 
and the ever present battle,
waiting for reinforcements
that may never come,
held back for other foes
or redirected to those with
fewer birthdays behind them. 
A life of Pi but with an
invisible, untrainable tiger.
I wait
and try not to get excited,
to contain the anticipated
journey across the seas.
But as this silence 
and this pause goes on
my energy drains
and I cannot bear
the non arrival.
Does Goddo ever appear?
I feel like the luckless slinger
in whom everything sinks.
My one lament amongst
a life of joy,
and so
I wait.


                                                               481 14-12-2025 

I finally get and dress and make breakfast for my partner before she heads for the garden and I start to draft the blog for yesterday and today, but not before I finally find a football shirt desired by my Swedish grandson. The afternoon I spend listening to football on the radio and then I sort out my quartermasters stores. I find hideously out of date bread flour and yeast along with some aged biscuits, which all get disposed of. Knowing what we have in store now its time to update the Tesco order. With the chores done I settle into the evening which is quite full of TV. The Strictly semi final result show is on followed by The War between the Land and the Sea. By football highlight time I have taken my night meds and looking for an early night. All I want now is a phone call from the chemo nurse as soon as possible, I need to be able to plan.

Friday and today is the day I get shorn of my locks. I have time to have a hot water and to have my morning meds but then its time to go to the hairdressers accompanied by my partner. As we are early and had no breakfast we sit in the gym lounge and order food and drinks. It was nice to have the time to relax and nibble through a bacon sandwich before walking through to Bex the hairdresser who has the salon at the gym. She has been my partner’s hairdresser for years and mine too before I decided to grow my hair post chemo the first time.

When we arrived there was another client in the salon being coloured but I was soon beckoned to a chair while the colouring magic was at work on the other client. Of course my partner took a pre cut shot of my hair back and front.

Bex began her work by scissoring off my ponytail and layering out a lot of the bulk in my hair to enable the clippers to go through it. So then the clippers work started with a number 4 to get it all started and when the bulk was off it was changed to a number 3. We chatted the whole time about the effects of chemo and about taking what control I could, so the other client was party to a conversation she probably was not bargaining for this morning. Here’s a short clip of Bex in action.

After all the clipping is done Bex washes my hair and blow dry’s it. When I go to pay she refuses saying she was honoured to have been asked to do it. She is a diamond with a huge heart. My partner and I thank her very much before we leave and make our way to a garden centre for lunch.

By the time we arrive at the garden centre I have ordered a new beard trimmer to keep my face in sync with my head. We also know that my youngest daughter and her partner with our grandchild are all still feeling grotty and unwell from the colds they have had over the last few days so they will not be coming to stay over the weekend. It is a wise decision but of course my partner and I are disappointed, but sometimes its best to be wise. We will find ways around this till the new grandchild arrives over the next four weeks. While at the garden centre I top up my fat ball stock as the birds in the garden have taken to the new fat ball feeder like crazy and we have far more birds in the garden at the moment because of it.

Once home I set about trying to ring the specialist prostate nurses but they are unavailable, I suspect they have been drawn into the flu chaos that is going on in the hospital. I ring the numbers they have on their message service, which are the oncology secretaries but there is no answer and no messages. I try another number and get a message to ring yet another number, which is the actual chemotherapy suit. At last I get through to someone and after the usual name and number giving I end up being told I am on a waiting list and that next week someone will contact me about a nurses talk and only then will I be able to have an appointment to actually start the chemotherapy. My rational self knows about all the constrains, the pressures and the harsh realities of running an in demand service, especially in the middle of a flu epidemic at Christmas time, however it is difficult not to feel that no one else understands the sense of urgency and that as far as they are concerned “if you die you die” before they can get organised to see you. Its the equivalent of ” Fuck off and die” but of course no one really thinks that, except in those moments of stress and feeling overwhelmed by the demands. So the best I can do is wait to be contacted at the start of next week, or not. So I am no closer to starting and as a distraction I order swim wear. My intention is to go the gym to use the pool as I am scared to get on the rower in case I piss blood again like I did last time. I think it was because I trained on consecutive days, but I cannot know for sure. I either have to try again, gently and/or find another form of exercise which my body can tolerate, swimming, or at least walking through water might be my best option. At least with my short hair it will make using the showers and changing area more viable for me. I finish off some odd Christmas shopping and then start to draft the blog by the light of the Christmas tree.

The evening becomes dark and there is Returning to Paradise and Have I Got News for You to look forward to not to mention the new Stranger Things episodes. It feels like it has been a demanding day but really it boils down to a hair cut, so its time to suck it all in and get on with things. So I will relax tonight and take whatever easy options come my way and look forward to an unexpectedly free weekend and to try and fill it with things, or not, whatever feels right. I am sure that there will be unexpected Christmas cards to deal with and the last minute gifts.

Its Thursday and as my partner goes off to her physio and to her aqua class I check my vitals and get myself up. First task of the day was to try on my new suit to see if it fits. Its my only formal clothing that I now own which hopefully fits me. I get into the suit and I keep wondering if it is really burgundy as it was advertised. Of course I could not resist a photograph of myself.

Satisfied that I have a suit that I can pass in I get into something more relaxed and make breakfast and take my morning meds. I settle down to update my blood pressure spreadsheet. I note that the bird feeders and squirrel feeders are empty so I pop out into the garden and refill the feeders. In doing so I spot that one of the rose plants has flowered. It is just so strange to see a new rose at this time of year. Of course I take a picture.

When that is done I get my “When I am gone” instruction book ad start to complete it. Its full of things that do not apply to me and a lot of the information needed is well documented in my existing filing system. I fill in as much as possible before my partner returns, but before then a friend calls and we are able to catch up. We talk about the Christmas run in and what is going on for us. This is followed by a message from a shop in town to tell me that my partners Christmas present is ready to collect. So when my partner returns we drive into town. When we arrive I take my partner to the shop and get her to try on the gift. It fits perfectly and so it is gift wrapped and then forgotten.

Once home my partner and I gather up family presents and deliver the to my partners brother and chatted over a warm drink. Retuning home the evening crept up along with its football and food. I had hoped my appointment letter would arrive but I was disappointed. Tomorrow I am going to have my hair cut before the chemo takes it. In the past I have reinvented myself in order to move forward, it seems that I need to do this once again to take me through the next phase of my life. A new suit, short hair and a new look to face the future with. My gamble is that I have the strength to carry it through.

Its is Wednesday and I wake up sore from my 28 day jab on Monday, it appears not to be easing. My partner goes to see her mother and I sip hot water before jotting a poem and then getting up.

480

I discover that
Anzac biscuit
travel well.
That toasting biscuits
were dipped 
in wine.
this is the kind 
of shit I fill
my head with 
while I wait.
There is no sign
of my new chemo.
No call, no date
and it grinds me down.
Every day a wasted 
one while I 
am eaten alive
by out of control cells.
Its a torture
of industrial health care
during which I dip 
my digestive
in my tea.

                                                       480  10-12-2025

I get up and make breakfast and then I up date my blood pressure spread sheet. With that done I down my morning meds and get on with more Christmas wrapping and organising for the festive season. This goes on all morning until until my partner returns and we lunch together. Finally I get to go to the post office with my partner and send parcels and the last remaining cards. The mail today brought a hospital letter but no the chemo appointment letter I was hoping for but the consultants letter to the GP summarising the last review and my decision. The afternoon is spent relaxing as I catch up on the crosswords and sorting out some more chores, and and yet more planning.

The evening comes around along with tea and I settle down to draft the blog. I’m still feeling sore but tomorrow I think I need to get to grips with some outstanding gardening and some final Christmas checking. Tonight there is of course football but most importantly the last episode of Shetland. Of course there are meds to take and then another night of interrupted sleep.

Monday, its a 28 day jab Monday, so I am up early, showering and getting ready to walk down to the GP surgery. I am the only person in the waiting room, gone are the days when we all sat in crowded room and coughed all over each other. I am immediately called in by my usual nurse and I ritualistically hand over my boxed injection. Once I have popped onto the couch and loosened the appropriate clothing the nurse is sticking the needle into my midriff. It initially stings and then burns a bit as the stuff is pumped into me. There is a lot of fluid to go in so this not something that can be done quickly. When done I wrap myself up again and the nurse and I check our diaries. This time it is not possible to book the next jab, so we wish each other merry Christmas and I go to the co-op to buy a paper.

When I get home I settle down to do the crosswords and nibble a bun. As the day goes on my jab gets progressively sore and I resort to taking paracetamol. My partners friend arrives mid afternoon and they disappear to chat and drink tea. I remain prone on the recliner and eventually fall asleep. By the time I wake up its time to eat. I watch the first half of a football match and when joined by my partner and friend I watch a Christmas Rm Com. It was one of those virginal moral stories of true love over coming obstacles and ending up in idyllic Christmas marriages signified by a single, long await, kiss. With the fun over, fun because you have spent the entire film spotting the continuity gaffs and the savings the production team made by referring to characters who never actually appear. Like the sous chef who is talked about as arriving but never actually appears. I won’t mention the in car scene in which the driver did not wear a seat belt.

I take my meds, set the dishwasher going and retire to bed feeling sore with a back ache.

Tuesday arrives and I wake to find my partner and friend readying themselves to go off to a Christmas market. I turn back into sleep until I feel up to getting up and making breakfast. I then seem to acquire a lot of things to do. So I settle down to ordering the outstanding Christmas presents required and wrapping those that I already have. Continuing my busy time I receive my new suit. Its box is battered and wet, fortunately the actual clothes are in plastic bags. I unpack my new suit and a hanger for it in my new emptied out wardrobe. I try on the jacket and find it is a right fit. So I know I now have a decent suit that I can wear should the need arise. With so much done I turn to drafting the blog, where I find that I had not written anything about yesterday, an indication of how crap I felt. I am waiting for a letter from the hospital with my appointment for chemo to start so when the postman delivers a single Christmas card I am somewhat disappointed. I continue to drat the blog until Amazon deliver yet another present that needs to be wrapped and stashed away until the recipient visits soon. So the mid afternoon arrives and I make lunch as the first European football match starts. It is one of those weeks, football week. Already I am running out of energy. It will be meds and bed for me hoping I can get through it without paracetamol.

Sunday is a a slow start, warm drinks and chat before I get up to bacon sandwiches and morning meds. With the essentials out of the way it is time to play “electrician”. Having discovered that the landing light fitting was faulty yesterday I need to look at the fitting. So I flip the fuse box switches and get to work. Initially the fitting looks fine but I rewire it. When I flip the fuse back the light appears to work. When I put the whole fitting back together it ceased to work. Nothing for it but to strip it down again and start over. This time all goes well and I am able to pack away my kit and move on.

I put in a load of washing and then my partner and I dress the Christmas tree. Yesterday I put the lights on it so today it was putting the drops and baubles on. Every year I meticulously wrap every item in tissue paper and store them in boxes before they go back into the loft. So when it comes to dressing this years tree each drop and ball needs to be unwrapped. Always the drops are put on first to give the shape to the tree, then the balls, angels, and novelty items are added. Finally it is done and it is time put the storage boxes back to in the loft.

There is time to watch half a football match before I don my head torch and venture into the garden to fill the bird and squirrel feeders. I am not prepared to leave it till tomorrow as I have my 28 day injection tomorrow and I cannot predict how I am going to be. I have time to pop the washing in the dryer before doing some tidying up. The evening arrives and over a curry I watch the Strictly Results show, bit of a surprise there, and then it was on to The War Between the Land and the Sea. By news time I am back drafting the blog before, adjusting the Tesco order, having a shower and my night meds in anticipation of my 28 day injection early tomorrow morning. I am hoping that I get a date for my new chemo induction quickly and that chemo follows as quickly as possible after that. For me every day counts.

Friday and its my partner’ birthday so the day is a slow one and a day of celebration. After making breakfast for my partner there are cards and presents to open. I discover my dosettes are empty and I have to take time to refill them for the coming two weeks. All part of maintaining the scaffolding around me to keep me steady. Its a pouring rain day but we walk to the florist in the village, a first for us. Our aim is to find a new Christmas wreath for the front door. We look the stock over and choose the one on the florist door. Its a bright one that has incorporated peacock feathers, so I’m sold on it. Once home it is immediately installed on the front door.

There is a lot of mundane stuff and Christmas stuff that gets done during the rest of the day until its time to go out for a celebratory meal in the evening. The weather is foul but the restaurant is snug and warm and we dine in comfort with good food. At the end of the meal I decide I will have a small Armagnac with my decaf coffee. It’s an irrational choice but sometimes I just think I’m sick of doing the right thing all the time, right drink, right food, right exercise, right right. Just occasionally I like to do something normal, if unwise. After the meal and back home there is time to catch up with a couple of TV series that I’m following, then its time for meds and bed.

Saturday I wake up tired and late, I take my vitals, all good, and then book a Tesco delivery for Monday. Before getting up I give into a wave of something and write poem to get what ever it is that has swept me.

479
I just want it out there
on a page
in ink, by my pen
that I am lonely
and scared.
It's the waiting
to be called
for the first 
cycle of
the rechallenge.
Like an old gladiator
who knows that each
time in the arena
could be the last. 
There come a point 
when skill and experience
are no substitute
for strength. 
Each new conflict 
maybe the one
that Caesar
lowers the thumb
and for the first time 
the crowd roars
for the adversary. 

                                        479 06-12-2025

I finally get up and grab a bagel and drive my partner to the garden centre with the good butchers and buy a lot of meat to see us through the coming week. Loaded down with provisions we return home and I begin to contemplate the annual erection of the Christmas tree. After a snack and the second half of a football match I start to get the tree from the garage. All goes well and then its time to get into the loft and retrieve the Christmas lights and decorations. In the process of opening up the loft I discover that the landing light fitting is faulty. By now its dark so it will have to wait until tomorrow. I retrieve the lights box and the light up animal bag. I am soon putting batteries into plastic illuminated animals and placing them on the window sill to welcome people in.

With the animals done I set about putting the lights on the tree. Its not an arduous job but tricky at time. Finally I get it done and the boxes away in the loft and bring down the decoration boxes. I’ve no intention of dressing the tree alone apart from a few new clear drops until tomorrow.

I eat the evening meal and watch Strictly with the family. Finally I get round to drafting the blog against the background of a a series called The Flight Attendant. I get to the point where its time to take my meds and get to bed. Tomorrow I need to mend the light fitting, help decorate the tree and prepare for Mondays 28 day injection, yep its come round again, while I am in the throws of waiting for chemo the old stuff keeps rolling on. That’s the deal, that’s the grind.

Thursday and there is nothing in the diary. I wake up take my vitals, all good there and get up and dressed in order to accompany my partner to the gym. On arrival there is a conversation had with my partners hairdresser who has the salon at the gym. The upshot is that I now have a date and time to give up my hair. On Friday the 11th I shall shed my 6 year old hair, trim my beard right down in preparation for the onset of the chemo rechallenge. I’ve all ready done a quick “equipment check” to make sure I have the things I need to support the chemo. Children’s tooth brushes as my gums will get raw, antiseptic wipes and all the things I will need to self inject for the five days after the infusion. So I am slowly gathering my resources and putting my plan into place. It gives me the illusion of “doing something” but I know the real “doing something” will be the moment they stick the chemo (Yew tree goo) into my arm, that’s when it is really game on.

Once I am booked into with the hairdresser I settle down to eat my bacon bun and sip my black americano. While my partner does her “bobbing about in the water” class I sit and read The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, another present from a friend. It is an intriguing book with a disturbing premise where like Brave New World can be rewritten only in the Memory Police things disappear along with the ability to remember them.

Once my partner has finished her aqua aerobics and joined me in the gym lounge we head for home. Once home I set about researching stair gates again having thought through the options and the discovery of low profile gates. Eventually I find one that fits our needs and order it. With this major chore done I take a trip to the post office to get rid of our Christmas cards. I arrive just in time to get the cards into the evening post. I collect some supplies and return home. There is time to put all my too small trousers into storage bags and stow them away in my “maybe I’ll get into them again” storage space. A quick Hoover round and I am ready to stop for the day. I take the chance to watch the highlights of the first day of the second test in Australia. Looked like it was going tits up but Root got a ton and and the tail end fast bowler got 35, so the day ended with the Brits due to come out for the second day with a decent score thanks to a final wicket partnership.

The evening arrives and I eat tea and start to draft the bog with Celebrity Race Across the World on in the background. So the evening winds it way towards night meds and some last minute organising for my partners birthday tomorrow.