Friday and wake slowly and sort out my cyber stuff until my partner bought me my morning hot water. I take my vitals, all good and then get up. Before I get up I write a to do list, first one for a while. A brief breakfast follows and I get stuck into my tasks. I do the Tesco order and move onto filing in the publishing questionnaires that the Americans have sent me. It takes me ages and before I know it I have reached lunch time but the forms are done. I have a light lunch and then get back to my chores list.

For a short time I up date my heart pressure excel spreadsheet and then get my washing in. There have been messages during this time and some organising to do but I focus on getting a copy of my book to my son in Sweden. So I fish out a suitable envelope and dash to the post office and send it on its way. By the time I get home I am about out of spoons and return to my poetry editing. I end up completing my cataloguing all my poems and then list the ones I have used in the first two collections and start to list the ones I want to use in two future collections.

Its evening and I am totally out of energy, so I eat tea and slip into a night of TV and finally drafting the blog. My last acts are to take my night meds and set the dishwasher going. I am concerned that it takes me so little effort to feel so tired. I do not know if I have fallen into sloth through fear or lost confidence that I can drag myself out of my present state. The result is that I feel guilty that am not trying hard enough to pull this round, that I am not really fighting as hard as I can. I think I am trying to look after myself and trying to recover but am I? The old argument for therapy is that when you are inside a jam jar you need some one to read the label, it feels like I need someone to read my label right now, but I have to get to them.

Thursday! Already, time seems to be going so quickly and I feel I am not getting any better, but then I won’t, not quickly. I am wakened by my partner this morning bringing me my usual hot water to start the day. Its good for my digestion and seems not to aggravate my body in any way. I check my emails and see I am to expect a phone call from a publisher this afternoon, so I check the links they have sent me. It is world book day and a friend sends me pictures of her two daughters dressed as Alice in Wonderland and Amelia Fang, a feisty ten year old vampire from the books of Laura Ellen Anderson. Amelia Fang was not around in my day so she is new to me but looks fun. Her daughters look splendid and has obviously put loads of effort into the costumes. I would like to share but that would be an intrusion. There was no world book day when I was at school and I suspect it would have passed me by if there had been one. I was well on my way along my dyslexia journey by their age and never got to read a book until I was fourteen when, after encouragement from a scout master called Doug Crook, I read Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck. I was hooked and read everything he wrote. After that I moved from author to author reading everything that they had written, a trait that is still with me and a expensive one. I meet my match in Balzac, I never got through all 52 novels and I was devastated to find they are written as a sequence, which I had cut across. I moved on to another author. Any way today is world book day so it is apt that I should be talking to a publisher.

I finally get up for a late breakfast and then luxuriate in a bath listening to the Infinite Monkey Cage. This episode was from CERN and a light hearted discussion about the the Higgs Boson. Once wallowed I prepare for my phone call by rereading the information on the links sent to me. I also check my Amazon book account and discover that at least three more people have bought The Cancer Years: So Far. With my preparation done I draft the blog and then wait to see if my phone call actually happens.

To my pleasant surprise the woman from the book company rings me on time. She is very clear and had clearly read my emails to her and had a good idea what I was looking for. She explained that the company was a printers and did not have a publishing function. They would of course hold stock and send it out if I forwarded orders. In essence I need a distribution platform. I have my Amazon platform and my YouTube channel, but this is not enough. Alternatively I would need an agent. I am not sure that this vanity poet wants to become a business and have an agent. I thanked her for her help and clarity. So it seems that I either find an English publishing house or stick with the Americans. I decide to try the Americans again and send a short and to the point email and then settle down to read for the rest of the afternoon. To my surprise the Americans ring apologising for the mix up in the communications. We make a deal which means I get my next collection published and that both collections get published globally. I make my payment, get the receipt sent through and then send them the zip file with the collection and other pages in it. It gets acknowledged quickly so it seems I am now well into my second project. I’m going to be a global poet, mostly unread but available. This is true vanity poetry.

Having done the business with the Americans I start to watch a football match and each tea before my partner goes to her weekly singing lesson. I get a surprise call from a friend who has begun to complete a full return to work after battling long COVID. There are still of course bad days but she has managed to get to a situation she could not have contemplated some months ago. We talk about how we are and how our families are. Its a real pleasure to talk to someone outside the family and to share a conversation. We end our call as she collects one of her daughters from an after school activity. I return to the football and there I stay for most of the evening until I return to the blog for the day. I take my night meds and go to bed to read. I have publishing chores to do tomorrow, so the adventure continues, I just need to sort out the every day stuff.

Wednesday and I wake up groggy and go back to sleep. I do eventually surface and do my vitals and check my cyber messages. I wait until I am ready to get up and then have a brunch. While my partner goes to see her mother I go to the Shed. Its the first time I’ve made it to the Shed for a long time. I light the candles and then sit down to write letters and that is where I stay until its time to get to the post office in time to get the letters on their way. With the Shed packed up I get ready to take the walk to the post office. It doesn’t sound much but it makes me anxious in case it restarts my symptoms again. I walk slowly and make it to the pillar box. My letters are popped in and I check to see if a paper is available. It isn’t. As I walk home I get a call from an English publisher but I miss it.

Once home I check my emails and find one from the publisher, I of course reply and arrange to be called tomorrow afternoon. I also get another surprise, a letter from one of my Scottish relations who shares information about that side of the family. It means I have to update the family tree and it also means that I now understand some of the family history that my sister and mother knew but had not shared. The way the family has changed is a surprise but it does mean that I can make an accurate picture of the family tree.

The evening starts with a meal followed by a film and silent football on the laptop. With that out of the way I caught up with the drafting the blog. Of course my final act is to take my night meds and get myself to bed in the hope that sleep engulfs me. Its been a slow day but at least I got to spend time in the Shed.

Tuesday after an appalling night. The post 28 day jab reaction has been ugly. I’m very sore and shaky when I wake up, I’ve no energy and I feel chilled. I just lay in bed trying to get warm and stay calm. Little by little I start to do stuff like check my phone and send messages. I check my accounts to find one of my pensions has gone in and then check my vitals. Blood pressure lower than normal for me but in the normal range. My son is going for an interview today so I message him and wish him luck. I watch an episode of Would I Lie to You on my phone after my partner brings me hot water, toast and my meds. I top these up with yet more paracetamol. I try to read for a while but eventually I begin to get hot and have to get up. So I am out of bed at noon, which feels ridiculous, and get to my end of the sofa and start the blog. It feels as if I have zero energy, not a spoon in sight. It seems to me that my reaction to my 28 injection is getting more pronounced and that generally my body will tolerate less activity. Its difficult to fight, thankfully my head is still good. I can do small head steps easier than physical steps at the moment.

The afternoon is spent doing crosswords and continued reading of The Book of Form and Emptiness. I give my feet a blast on the reinvigorater and continue to rest. I try to feel chipper but I don’t feel it even though I spend a bit of time ordering some feel good items. I eat tea and catch up with the blog before I settle down to watch football while my partner goes to have a coffee with a friend. I shall continue to rest and wait for my body to recover. There will be night meds and then bed. I’ve no idea how the night will go.

Monday, its a jab Monday, so I get up slowly, having done my cyber checks and taken my vitals. In my cyber messages was this:

I think I get caught up in thinking that I am the person in my head, the young energetic person with youth on my side, ambitious and with limitless energy rather than the actual seventy five year old with stage four metastatic prostate cancer person that I am. Its important that I do not define myself by my disease however to remain moving I have to balance the management of it and what ever else I wish to do. Every day I get now is a real gift and an opportunity. The opportunities now are more cerebral than before but since my journey started I’ve managed holidays and trips, joined my local poetry stanza and published my first book of poetry. Along the way there has been some dips like managing my sisters death and the other challenges that family life brings so all in all the past four years has been an interesting learning curve. It has been a time of much reading in order to keep my brain fed with the result that I have read much more than I would have done and almost without exception the books have been new and outstanding, to which I owe much to friends who either point me in the right direction or gift me “must read” books. At the moment the balance is a bit more of a juggle but with smaller steps I should e able to keep moving forward.

So as I sit this morning looking at the sunshine I start to draft todays blog early. Before I go to the GP surgery later today I will hopefully type up a couple of new poems and maybe write a letter. After that I will see what small steps I can find to take.

I lunch on bacon sandwiches before walking down to the GP surgery. It is a real effort and i arrive feeling crap. Once called in I hand over the jab and soon the nurse is sticking the needle into me. I am ushered out and I start the semi shuffle back home but I become so enraged with my self that I force myself to go to the Co-op to get a paper, they have none, and a bag of chocolate buttons. As I walk home I become more angry with myself and mutter the odd motivational “for fuck sake Roland get a grip”. Judging by the look a fellow pedestrian gave me I obviously said this a bit louder than I intended.

Arriving home I cannot believe that I am so out of condition and salts. I settle on the sofa to cool down when I get a message from my eldest daughter to check my accounts. I do, and find that the solicitor is winding up my sisters estate which means the rest of my inheritance has landed in my bank account. I do not really care if its a fiver or five hundred but it signals the end of more than a year of death admin and that is a relief.

I start to type up a couple of poems that I wrote recently and add them to my “all I have file”, whilst thinking about putting another collection together to try out a British based publisher. I update the blog before returning to the poetry project and my Ruth Ozeki book.

I am feeling rough when I go to the toilet and find I have blood in my urine again. I am so pissed off that the little walk I’ve taken has induced this. All I can do is rest, drink water, put my feet up and rest. It means I cannot help lift in the Tesco order when it arrives later in the evening, and feel like a chocolate fireguard. I’m seething inside at feeling so fucking useless, all I can do is grit my teeth, and try to be rational and take it tiny steps at a time. By the time Only Connect (the impossible quiz show) is on my mid day injection is getting sore and I down some more paracetamol. Tonight is a night I go to bed early and curl up and hope I sleep as long as possible or as uninterrupted as little as possible. So I down my night meds and retreat from it all. What a day.

Sunday and before you know it, it is mid morning. It seems that the new mattress is doing its job and allowing a longer nights sleep. I weigh myself. It is not good, I come in at 99.9 kilos. It is the result of my inactivity over the last two weeks and my sweet tooth that is doing the damage. My partner and I breakfast and I take my morning meds still including the antibiotics. There are some things to do that I have let slip over the past week including ensuring the squirrels and the birds get fed. I venture into the garden and fill the feeders. While out in the fresh air of my garden I take the opportunity to drain the water butt. Such simple tasks but ones that I find drain me of energy spoons. I get everything back into the the shed and then take in the garden camera.

There is very little on the garden camera except for one appearance of our local fox. With this done its time for a late lunch and a bit of rest. I have rediscovered my foot stimulator, which is not something I get to say often, but I really enjoy that tingling feeling in my feet. It is strange watching my toes twitch as the current flows through my feet and in to my calves. It is oddly refreshing. The challenge of course is to move the intensity up. So far I am up to 65 on the dial so there is a way to go to 99. With singing feet I do a bit hoovering and then watch a rugby match. Everything is being done in small bursts.

The evening rolls round to the evening meal and the world athletic championships. This is the evening I start to take prophylactic paracetamol before tomorrows monthly injection. I am mentally stealing myself for the walk down to the GP surgery at midday tomorrow. Its not so much the actual injection, although not pleasant, it is the following 48 hours where it becomes sore and I feel like a withdrawing junkie. So I am preparing myself. All I can ask is for is a good nights sleep and no worsening of my symptoms.

Saturday and I wake first and make my partner tea in bed. We chat before I take my vitals and check my cyber messages and litter. Once up I make a light breakfast and take a walk to the village chemist to collect my monthly order of drugs including Mondays injection. Yep its that time of the month, which means come Sunday I will be taking prophylactic paracetamol. Anyway I walk home picking up a paper and some doughnuts on the way. By the time I get home I feel absolutely knackered. I had planned to go to the gym while my partner had a pedicure at the club spa. but I could not face it.

I tried to distract myself by watching snooker, athletics and writing a couple of poems but I continue to feel pretty rank. Of course I am scared that I am going to slip back to how I was last weekend and try to relax. My partner makes lunch and I continue to try and rest doing crosswords and keeping an eye on the athletics. I read for a while but I am becoming more and more frustrated with myself. Its the pervasive feeling that something is not right that constantly niggles at me. I think it is partly to do with coming to the end of my 28 day injection cycle. In a moment of frustration with myself I drag out the Circulation Max Reviver and give my feet thirty minutes electric stimulation. I take a rest and read for a while in the quiet of the bedroom before my partner askes me to run my eye over a draft document. It takes a little while to get my head in gear but I manage it and help send it off to her brother to read and comment on.

All during this time I revert back to drinking a lot of water and trying to remain as hydrated as possible, my anxiety is high and I am twitchy about any exercise in case I trigger a worsening of my condition. Its the swings from feeling relatively well and positive to the sense of apprehension that is difficult to manage. Staying calm without apprehension is the difficult. I would like to just get on with things but find myself regularly assessing whether I am doing the right things to keep me as well as possible, which leads to a sense of vulnerability. I know I want to be active, to not fear the Real World and to get out and about but fear exercise adn effort will trigger the bleeding into my bladder. I feel between the devil and the deep blue sea. My solution is to take one day at a time and set really small goals, like fill the squirrel feeder, type up poems and prepare for the next attempt to publish. I try to stay organised and to make contributions around the house. Every so often I check my social media. I did post something on LinkedIn and was surprised how many people responded in a supportive way. Everything else has been muted.

The evening passes and I end up drafting the blog, taking my meds and going to bed. Before I do though I challenge myself to think about the day and whether its been as bad as I feel it has been. Its true my gut has been off and I have lacked energy but I did get a lovely card from a friend in Scotland, I’ve drafted two poems and read for a while. I have also toyed with a thought I had when I woke up. I have been watching a lot of Mock the Week clips of scenes we would like to see. I thought about the one that goes “Things you wouldn’t see on an exam paper”. My thought for that one was: Religious Education, Question 1 “if there are no right or wrong answers how will God score you?” It amused me at the time. Electrocuting my feet was fun, I shall do it more often. Of course the major positive of the day has been no blood in my urine or pain. Its amazing what we take for granted, and what cancer forces us to reconsider. I also noted the first cherry blossoms of the year on a neighbours cherry tree. In fact Spring is everywhere. Note to self, “join in”.

Friday and I wake to yet more rain. I am brought my usual hot water and I skip through my cyber checks and then on to my vitals, all good, before donning my leopard head slanket and making breakfast. I do nothing of note for a while and then have a shower. Showering is taking a lot of spoons at the moment, a friend who is continuing to battle long COVID has confided that taking a bath is less heavy on the spoon economy. I fully agree with her. However I shower and then have the task of drying my now long hair. Once I am dry and coffered I dress and feel much better for the experience and join my partner in a bacon sandwich for lunch. As she goes off with her brother to see her mother I get ready to go out to the post office.

Its cold outside but I am wrapped up warm as I walk slowly to the post office. I am sending paperwork to the solicitor who is still dealing with my sister’s estate a year on from her death. It feels as if the end of the death admin is in sight, which will be a relief to us all. Having sent the documents guaranteed and trackable post I treat myself to fruit pastilles, chocolate buttons and a can of diet coke with a paper. The can of diet Coke is a rare treat from me as all I have drunk for days is hot water and very berry herbal tea. Once home I do the cross words and have my treats before settling down to read my Ruth Ozeki book. This is how I drift through the afternoon, that and messaging my son in Sweden, until my partner returns and I start to draft the blog. Today is very much the needed mundane of recovery from my recent ills.

The evening has world indoor athletics in it and at least one comedy panel game, beyond that I have no idea, although I like to think I will read for a while. There has been no telephone call from the Americans about my book, despite them saying they would ring back. I guess I will have to email them and nudge them. So I tentatively feel I am getting better from my set back but need to be careful with myself and grow the confidence in my body back to a position where I can function in the Real World again. I understand now how people can loose confidence and become averse to going out.

Thursday, and the day starts with my usual rituals of checking my phone and drinking hot water. That out of the way I check my vitals, all good as usual. Then its up for breakfast followed by a morning of editing poems. I ring the prostate nurse and leave a message asking for advice. By lunchtime I am tired and make myself a couple of rolls to be interrupted by the solicitor who is managing my sister’s estate ringing me. She brings me up to date and promises to send the final account by end of the day. I carry on reading my Ruth Ozeki book waiting for the Americans to ring me and do the book deal. They never do, bastards. On the bright side the solicitor is as good as her word and sends the final accounts through to be signed off, so I have some admin to do. The prostate nurse rings me back and we have a chat about starting my blood thinners again The evening rolls round and I watch the final episodes of Payback and then take my night meds before heading for bed.

Its been a slow pedestrian day, to allow me to rest and to get a plan together. I’ve rested but not really got a plan, I do know that I need to get out and to become more active again, so that is my next priority.

Wednesday and I wake up feeling somewhat strange but I put it down to the change in my medication. I’ve been on blood thinners for four years so I guess coming off them for a few days is going to be a bit odd, coupled with the antibiotics, its no surprise. I lay in for a bit before doing my vitals, which are all good, so the arithmetic of my life is still sound. I get up and have a plain breakfast with my morning meds. When I check my to do list and my cyber stuff I realise I have not posted yesterdays blog so do that before I move onto other stuff. My partner and eldest daughter go off to the hospital pharmacy to collect my next three months of chemotherapy. Today is the start of cycle 10.

My eldest daughter has talked the solicitor of my sisters estate and manged to get a response from her and in theory there will be an update soon. With that out of the way I can get on with the pressing matters of the day, like keeping warm and doing the meter readings. My intention is to contact the publishers of my book and ask them to do a second one, called the Travelling Years, which will comprise of poems I wrote in hotels and restaurants when working away from home. So my maintenance project is to prepare the manuscript to send. I also have another new book to read. It was a question on Mastermind about the Buddhist nun who wrote an award winning novel. I just caught her name as the answer and thought that it sounded interesting, so I hunted it down on Amazon and order it. Amidst all of yesterdays ups and downs I had forgotten that it had arrived. It starts with a young bereaved boy who starts to hear voices but realises they are the voice of the things around him. I am hooked already, so now I have two books on the go.

I read for quite a long time and get drawn into my new book, it is very much “up my street”. I am so taken with it’s first thirty pages I log onto Amazon and send my book sending friend a copy before returning to it. My partner goes to see her brother as they continue to wrestle with their mothers full time care. It is clearly a huge juggle and not without its stresses. While she is gone I draft an email to my American “publishers” but also follow up on the contact that my partner has found for a reasonably local publisher. I create an account with the new contact and use their instant quote facility to get and idea of how much they charge, which is reasonable, but an unknown quantity. I plan to ring them tomorrow to have a chat about what they offer. I also plan to ring the Cancer specialist nurse to ask about the discontinuation or reduction of my apixaban as it appears that my current management plan is working so far.

The Americans ring up and make me an offer. They want to publish my second book and distribute them both across twenty platforms on a global basis. They quote me a “special” price, which is a bit of a “gasper” but not so far beyond the quote pro rata that the English company has quoted. I tell them I will think about it and to ring me tomorrow. I am not sure where I stand at the moment, I do not want this to take over my life, I see it as I view gambling, it has to be money I am prepared to lose, but then this is about vanity nothing to do with high class poetic quality. I always said I wanted to publish stuff so that family and friends would have more of me, those bits that are not often, if ever, on show. Given my circumstances, time is of the essence and there is a lot to get through.

I go into the evening with projects on my mind, with football on the agenda and really good book to continue reading. Despite everything it would appear there are still fruits to be plucked in this life. Of all the things that I have done since my diagnosis this blog is the thing that I think is most useful both in achieving its original intention of keeping family and friends aware of how I am doing without the need to start difficult conversations or wondering what to ask or how to ask it, and giving me an outlet for the experience of dealing with my cancer. Everything else is being icing on the cake. I must not get hung up on how many books I sell or views I get, that way lay true madness. So tonight I am able to start Cycle 10 due to my partner and eldest daughter collecting my Chemo meds for me, so it is onwards for me.