DVT DAY 151

Today has been a list of stuff: mundane mostly, except for the start when I woke up realising that Isadora Duncan died in the year Virginia Wolf published To The Lighthouse and wondered why, as far as I am aware they never met. So I searched Amazon and found she wrote an autobiography, so I ordered it. After such an interesting start it was always going to go down hill. So I spent the morning in the shed typing up poems, only 65 to go. At lunchtime I hosted my open forum alongside a colleague and then retreated to the shed to write the notes up. I felt mildly crap all day and it was an effort to get changed to do forty minutes on the bike. Apart from the weekly Tesco order check and the usual chores like putting clothes away there was not much to my life. My evening hit rock bottom when I found myself watching football and cutting my toe nails at the same time out of boredom. The most joyous thing in the day was a picture a friend sent me of what her children were doing with the play edition of “Who Gives a Crap” toilet rolls. They come in bulk and the play edition have bright design wrappers on each roll which can be used to build things like castles. Its a genius idea and I am wondering what other products could have play versions. The pretty covered toilet rolls from “Who Gives A Crap” make the cute koala on ours seem really passé. So on that note I am going to raid the cupboard for a snack as I am hungry and take myself to bed. Actually I am still pissed off with my oncologist, I seem to be making all the effort to try and keep myself well and fight my end and he just doesn’t give any sign of recognising that and even worse not willing to support me by giving me the means to get the feedback which would help me know if what I am doing is working for me.

DVT DAY 150

Today has been a day of domesticity, a day of mundane tasks that keep the world going, that provides. So by the end of the day my washing is done and hung, MOTs booked, garden watered and trimmed, dinner cooked and cleared, and new ice hockey shirt worn.

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Oh almost forgot, dead bird removed from pond before attending an open forum for therapeutic community clinicians.

The best part of the day was taking the time to take pictures of some of the flowers that are still coming out in the garden.

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It never ceases to amaze me that my garden goes on and on blooming throughout the year with such spectacular beauty.

My evening post meal gave me time to read an e-letter from a friend and watch some football before writing the blog. In the midst of the mundane there was no time to train, so tomorrow I will give myself a new target and push on a bit. I’ve eaten no sweets for two days now, which is a feat for me, so I find myself distracting myself to avoid the sweets I have stashed away. Its a part of the battle to get my weight down and to not feed my cancer with more sugar than I can help.

DVT DAYS 148 & 149

Yesterday, Monday, was a bit of a duff day really having started with the dentist ad moving onto the aggravation of my partner being told by the garage that they wanted £600 to replace two seat belts and tensioners. Without working seat belts there will be no M.O.T. So a lot of my day was spent watching videos of a wide range of iffy blokes doing things to cars. However as life is perverse the one thing these videos told me was that I did not have the right lubricant for the job so it meant a quick trip to Amazon to order it for the next day. The rest of my day was on board the bike and watching the end of series two of Stranger Things before going to bed dog tired.

Today Tuesday has been a day of achievement. I managed to retreat to the shed and write letters this morning. I even manged to get them in the post early before I settled down to a late morning meeting to discuss the Open Forums. A productive morning and one that will hopefully bear fruit in the near future.

Its car time. I empty out my partners car and examine the rear seat belts that were laying around like lazy snakes on the back seat. Very little if any recoil on them so I try to take the interior panel off but although they pop out at the top they are pinned in at the base. No way in there. I can see the mechanism though a grill in the panel. I am able to get a screw drive through the slots and very slowly rewind the seat belt back onto the spindle. The first belt has a bit of recoil in it and although slow will rewind very slowly. The second one is far more obdurate and difficult to rewind and shows no sign of recoil at all. I get as far as I can and have to pack up and wait for my lubricant to arrive. I thought I would climb on the exercise bike but before I could change into my kit Mr Amazon delivered my special lubricant.

Back out in the car I push the lubricant nozzle through the grill and give the first belt drum a squirt and gently pull the belt and let it recoil, I do this over and over again and add lubricant to the belt as I let more of it wind onto the drum. Within a couple of minutes the belt is running in and out on recoil as it should. One down, one to go. The second one was more of a problem as it had no recoil at all so I pulled it out as far as possible and then tugged it hard till it clicked as it should when in an accident. I did this three or four time while adding lubricant and slowly the belt. started to rewinds as it should. I lubricated the mechanism more but also lubricated the belt itself. In no time at all the belt was running smoothly and the recoil working as it should. So job done, £600 pounds saved. The MOT will be done at the garage that looks after the Wolf. So everything is back in place and now I face an evening of anxiety as Brentford play Fulham for a place in the premier league. I shall distract myself with Stranger Things.

NEWSFLASH: BRENTFORD 1

FULHAM 2. GUTTED

DVT 147

Here is todays learning tip; when the car key battery runs out using it trips the car alarm. Second learning point: the bloody alarm keeps going on Mazda even if you disconnect the battery! Third learning point: A back up car key that has also got a spent battery makes the situation worse. Fourth learning point: there is no fuse for the alarm system. Fifth learning point: if your lucky the car will start on the twenty fifth attempt and stop the alarm. In the meantime as you frantically try to stop the alarm get a family member to ring the BBQ hosts to tell them you are going to be late.

So after much aggravation and the pleasant surprise of a neighbour taking the trouble to check the car is not being stolen we make it to our friends to spend the afternoon in their garden eating barbequed chicken, beef, lamb, sausage and accompaniments. Most important was the conversation and the opportunity to talk to someone who has not shared your house for the last five months. So it was lovely to chat outside in the garden for a full afternoon. It was also nice when the car started to come home. Of course the first thing to do was replace the battery in one car key and order another ten batteries from amazon.

A quiet evening watching Strange Things before writing the blog and watching the dentists video in preparation for my visit to the dentist tomorrow morning.

DVT DAY 146

August the 1st, I am now a non shielding citizen. Freedom to mix with the virus infected population, social distance, wear trendy face wear, refuse to shake hands, and wash my hands as many times as I like with out explanation or feeling obsessional. From now on I can go to pubs and not talk to strangers, dine out and be far enough away not to hear other people eat, avoid barbers and act strange and blame it on lockdown syndrome.

Of a more prosaic nature I spent my morning completing the mending of a sewing machine, most satisfying to take something apart, replace parts and make it work again. So feeling a glow of achievement I retreated to the shed to spend an hour on the exercise bike of which a quarter of an hours was done wearing my altitude training mask. A shower and I settle down to watch the cup final. Dinner and an evening of Stranger Things and running off the new sowing machine manual from the internet. Tomorrow I go BBQing at a friends house, a family outing to assert my new freedom. Other adventures will follow. I hanker after the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, museums and art galleries. My poetry project will be completed, my painting continued, and perhaps newer things embarked on.

DVT DAY 145

Today was a shed day, so after a breakfast of noodles I made way down to the shed and settled in. Today I resurrected my poetry project and spent hours typing a bunch of poems into the laptop. I’ve unfortunately reached the ones I wrote when I was twenty one or younger. Some nice ideas but very young in accomplishment. I got as far as those that had been dated or could be located between two dates. My only option was to number them all in sequence from the start of the file as I was pretty obsessive about filing my poems right from the start, so I am confident they are in date order. So after some basic sums I find I have got 76 to go. I figure if a work at it steady a bit at a time I will have it done by the end of August. Then the fun starts as I will need to continue the numbering to the other poems I already have on the laptop. I clearly moved from typewriter to computer at some point, all I have to do is merge them and hey presto the guts of the book are ready. Apart for a pit stop ham sandwich I kept at it all day till about four o’clock when it was time to clamber up onto the exercise bike and grind out 40 minutes of pain in sweltering heat. If I had waited an hour I could have trained through the thunderstorm that hit us early evening. I just feel sorry for the Tesco delivery person who presumably is out delivering in this appalling weather. So we eat dinner and wait the arrival of Tesco before watching the final two episodes of series one of Strange Things and perhaps test run the mended sewing machine.

DVT DAY 144

Well an average day became a good one today when I went to the shop for the first time and did real shopping amidst other masked folk, except of course the arrogant chippy owner who just wandered around like he did not give a shit. No more fish and chips for me.

Apart from al the low potassium stuff I bought I posted my latest letter and then sauntered back in the sunshine , rather pleased with myself. Into the shed to think and read before my lunchtime open forum. Always interesting to hear how others are coping in the COVID crisis and dealing with the less law abiding members of society. A brief break for lunch and then it was time to write up the notes from the session. I find it an interesting process recalling a meeting and my own reflections.

All this fun had to come to an end as it was time to clamber on to the exercise bike and burn off some calories. I spent the first fifteen minutes with the training mask on continuing to try and boost my lung power and also my blood count. A hot afternoon and so I spent three quarters of an hour on the bike. Having recovered I took to the sofa and registered us all as voters and then began the blog. Dinner was of course Thursday night tuna pasta followed by my one cup of coffee for the day. So tonight I shall idle away mending a sewing machine while my partner has her singing lesson over skype. If I am lucky I will get to watch some Strange Things.

DVT DAYS 142 & 143

Tuesday was oncologist day. I had done my home work, got my blood test results in front of me, I had listed my questions and knew what I wanted from him. The arsehole rings 30 minutes after the appointment time, like I haven’t got other things to do. The exchange was so brief it border on the indecent pre ejaculation of a teenager in a hurry, it went like this; “Hello Roland (marks for getting my name right) how are you? (not waiting for a response), your dehydrated you need to drink more water, I’ll ring you again in four months and send you a blood test form. Me; “I ‘d like blood test forms in the interim to monitor my PSA and my now elevated potassium levels”. He who has made a pact with the Devil, ” No I will send you one ,see you GP, its up to him, drink more water and your kidneys will take care of the potassium, goodbye.” It was that quick. I know I am, in prostate cancer terms, a star pupil and that he is probably busy but the rapidity of the interaction must be a record. The inly time this bastard is going to be interested in me ,(and no then as a person) is when I am on the way down and “medic meat”. Then he will try any thing to keep me alive in any bloody condition. I was left feeling that I am in this on my own, which his existentially true, but in terms of feeling that I have any sort of ally in the medical team, forget it. That coloured my Tuesday and frankly I coudl not be arsed with a blog.

Today has been much better. An early call from a friend started the day well and then a productive morning in the shed was a lift from yesterday. Before I escaped to the shed my eldest daughters belated birthday present arrived, an Olympic lifting weights bar. They weigh the same but the grip is a slightly smaller diameter to accommodate a full hand grip. I think the deliver guy was a bit bemused by the long tube that weighed so much. By lunch time I was ready for todays Open Forum which turned out to be an interesting hour.

I headed for the garden and put in some edging round along one bed. Content with my effort I got ready to train. I did an hour on the bike and remembered to drink a load of water as I did it. I would not want the oncologist to be disappointed would I. I complete my session, pack up the shed, and clear the kitchen before turning my attention to the blog. Tonight Brentford will try to overturn a one nil deficit to Swansea to win the promotion semi final. I am not hopeful and fear a night of disappointment.

DVT DAY 141

Today is my eldest daughter birthday so it was up early, breakfast and off to the tropical bird garden just outside the village. It was a treat she asked for and we soon got in to the swing of things finding birds to photograph and to feed. There are birds who are gentle and will gently take a grape or a peanut from you but others are over anxious and will lunge at the food and often miss. The hornbeam who I offered a grape to was of the latter type. We dispersed our bags of food around the birds we meet and the odd goat. Then a real treat we went to the café and sat socially distanced as we ate and drank. Then it was home time.

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Home and I find a pile of Amazon boxes for me. Mostly indulgencies, cook books and a new watch strap. So an afternoon of setting up my new DBA radio and fixing a new watch strap until it was time for a TEAMS meeting and some discussions about future work. A useful meeting, they mostly are, but this one meant I need do nothing extra for a while. Meeting over we work our way to the birthday dinner and the opening of presents. By the time we get through this my youngest daughter WhatsApp’s us for a chat that sees us all dive into different rooms to avoid the chronic feedback on the phones. A good chat, and then we settled into our evenings. before bed. Tomorrow is my oncologist three monthly call so I’ve been rereading some of my cancer books tonight. The more I read the less comforted I feel, but I have nothing to ask the oncologist. The more I read the more I know how the dye is caste.

DVT DAY 140

A lateish start to the day but one that came with bacon, egg and bagel, a new low potassium breakfast. I spent time finding low potassium food charts and tables and putting them on the fridge. The whole process is quite depressing. I had hoped to find a decent phone App, but having looked a t few I decided to abandon the process. Below are a couple of posters I found and suck on the fridge.

Having depressed myself with how much is good for me that I dislike and do not eat I resorted to Amazon to order a couple of low potassium cook books. I would return to Amazon later for more essential goods. Having done all I could bare to do about food I checked my emails and found and e-letter from an old colleague and friend. It was a very chatty letter and a real pleasure to get. Read it slowly over an orange squash, as I had already had my one cup of coffee for the day. I am considering not having coffee early and to wait for the postman, that way of I get a letter I can read it over a coffee, which is a good way to respect a letter.

Time for an afternoon bath before the final football games of the season, much to be lost and won on this day and I will be able to watch one of the crucial games. Later my team Brentford play the first leg of a semi-final play off match to get into the premier league. Perhaps more of that latter.

The bath was run with bubbles and I clambered in taking my altitude training mask with me and a book. The one below that for some reason the parents of my youngest daughters boyfriend sent me. I read the chapter on prostate cancer of course.

The bath did two things, firstly the discovered need for a portable DAB radio so that I can listen to programmes in the bath, easily solved by a quick Amazon sorte, and second; the need to eat flax seeds. Apparently flax seeds are really good and have no potassium in them but also it has been shown to reduce cancer risk and slow cancer progression. Amazon are sending me a kilo which I shall consume as biscuits, smoothies and breakfast cereal. What was depressing was the overall consensus of opinion on all front that leafy green vegetables are good for you and that a plant based diet is good for you all round. I hate leafy vegetables and plant type foods so its not an appealing prospect to radically change my diet. All this research, reading and Amazoning was done while wearing my altitude training whilst slowly jogging horizontally in the bath. Well at least the first 20 minutes. Most of the research in the chapter that I was reading also noted that exercise has a profound effect as well. At least I got that right.

Football came and went as did dinner so now, having cleared the kitchen I write the blog as a distraction from thinking about how Brentford are doing as their match is nowhere on TV that I can get. It half time and no score.