Wednesday rolls up after a bad nights sleep. That will teach me to mix chilli con carne with Indiana takeaway on the same day. My partner is up and on her way to see her mother, but brings me hot water before she goes. I take my vitals, which I realise has become my morning meditation. I ask Alexa to play meditation music as I settle down to take my temperature, oxygen saturation percentage, heart rate and my blood pressure. The blood pressure is taken a couple of time following the medical guidelines. So there is a period of deep breathing as I crank up the blood saturation to an acceptable level, followed by a period of relaxing where I try to still the monkey of the mind until my blood pressure drops to an okay level. All in all it can take up to twenty or thirty minutes, so I guess I’m doing a regular meditation time each morning.
I get up and tentatively make a breakfast I think my stomach can take and then I set about the chores. By the time I am ready to train I have filled soap dispensers, tidied away my clothes and organised for a tiler to come and give me quote to re-tile the office floor. There are other various bits and bobs that get done until finally its time to train, or rather I cannot avoid it any more. I go to the garage and set the rower up for an hours session. All I want to do is earn enough PAI points on my fitness App to get me over 100, that’s all I want. My start is slow and it is a struggle to get into any kind of rhythm but with a training music selection in my ears I grind on. By half way I am at least a minute and an half down on my standard and I am feeling no better but I try to push on. As I get closer to the end I realise there is an outside chance of making 12 kilometres. I push as hard as I can and eventually at the end I have sneaked it. I am knackered, but go me!
This was a fight, but I made it.
It took me a while to recover enough to eat the cheese on toast my partner had made for a late lunch before I went for a shower. It takes me a lot of calories to shower after training so by the time I returned to the sofa read and listen to a new episode of Mark Steel’s In Town (Oakham) I am without any energy spoons at all. The book I am reading is a gift that came with the stern warning not to watch the Will Smith film version of the book. It was a very clear instruction but I have already seen at least part of the film. I Am Legend is the book by Richard Matheson. As soon as I started reading the book I knew why I had been warned off the film, its a terrific book, so much more depth and sense of jeopardy than the film.
Excellentbook.
By the end of the afternoon I am even more knackered and begin to draft the blog until tea is ready. Thankfully it is plain and stomach friendly so I get it down me and return to the blog. My partner and I start to watch seven bodies in a Mexican morgue. It comes to meds time, taken with a bite to eat and then bed. Hopefully tomorrow will bring joy on the office floor front.
Another Tuesday and I am awake at eight and ready to do my vitals and crack on. My partner gets up and prepares to go to the gym, I’m having a rest day. My vitals are okay and I go thorough my ritual message search and email responding, when there are some. Today am determined to get into one of my new pairs of trousers and see what its like to tuck a shirt into the inside of my trousers, not done that for a long time. I get dressed and appraise myself in the mirror, its far better than I expected and certainly better than naked. So once up there are drugs to take and breakfast to be had, while my partner is off to the gym. There are books next to me that were a gift so I pick up the poetry book by Carrol Ann Duffy, The World’s Wife, a collection of poems that tell the story of famous men from a women’s perspective. My favourites are The Kray Sisters, Frau Fraud and from Mrs Tiresias, but there are several others that made me laugh. Once started it is difficult to put down.
I think I may have recommended before, but if not, I certainly do now.
I do put the poetry down when the post arrives and I find a hospital one for me. Once open I discover it is for another bone scan, which is good, but it is on the same day as my soft tissue scan. There follows a phone call to rearrange the date to the day after my other scan. Isn’t that typical you wait for ages and two come along together. So on the first one I will have a marker dye pumped into me and on the second one radioactive stuff. After the latter, I will be drinking water like a fish to make sure I am not radio active the day after as I shall be traveling to see my pregnant youngest daughter. Life is never straight forward.
I head for the garden and fill the bird feeders and then return to the poetry until my partner returns from the gym. Lunch is to be at a garden centre close by. The food is okay and we chat about family and some of our history. Of course getting used to being retired was in there as well. Feeling replenished we return home, me to put my washing in and laze while my partner knits. All is well until we remember that the bed needs fresh bedding. We are quite accomplished at this task now and it is soon sorted but we are both out of energy so cooking is out of the question and we take the Indian take away way out. So as I wait for my evening meal to arrive I draft the blog. Just the tumble dryer to sort, the cold frames to close, the bins to put out and life will be fine and dandy. There is no football and no half watched serial so it could be Rom Com night before my night meds and bed, having retrieved my clothes from the tumble dryer of course. All the while I have the sense of being in limbo until my scans get done, the steroids take full effect, my bloods get done and ultimately my next oncology review is completed in mid November. Until then it is chug along time, with some outings, birthdays and anniversaries to remember.
Monday rolls around and I have survived the nasty shock of shopping on a Sunday at at a retail park. My partner brings me hot water before going to the gym to bob about in the water (aqua aerobics) and I slip into my meds ordering day routine, I take my vitals, which are good, and then order my regular drugs on line. There is then the now ritualised wait on the end of the phone as I ring my GP’s surgery to book my 28 day injection. When I get through I explain who I am and why I need an appointment (28 day injection). The reception recognises me, which is lovely, and then offers me an appointment on the Wednesday, the 30th day after last 28 day injection. I point out that its a 28 day injection and she then finds me a “squeeze in” spot for 11:25 on the Monday. I thank her and ring off. In a moment of reflection I recall a comment by my partner about my poetry and of course I scratch out a few lines.
468 Half Eeyore, half Polly Anna, but it seems only Eeyore drops onto the page. My partner grumbles "what about the happy stuff". She's right of course and I wonder "where does the good stuff go? " Seen but overwhelmed? Felt but swamped, in a war where only the poppies get noticed at the end. There you go again! Bloody Eeyore!
468 06-10-2025
I get up and get into my training gear and descend to the kitchen for breakfast. I need to clear the kitchen and empty the dish washer before I can get my frugal toast and fruit juice. I listen to the Infinite Monkey Cage for a while and then get to the garage to row, I decide that I will have a go at a 45 minute session and see what happens. I’ve not been feeling great lately so I am intrigued to see how it will go. I am surprised as I manage to get over the 9 kilometre mark and burn 600+ calories, which pleases me greatly.
Not a bad session, I need it to kick start a more intensive training period.
The effort has taken a lot out of me so I relax and eat the last remaining poached pear from Saturday and listen to more Monkey Cage before having a shower. Having a shower is at the moment interesting as occasionally the shower head will stop and flash up “LP” (low pressure) on its display and turn itself off, turning having a shower into a type of hygiene roulette. So it was today, having lathered up nicely the shower just stopped and it took some minutes and several resets before I could be become sudsless. One of the up sides of going to the gym is that its a free and dependable shower, perhaps I should over come my resistance to the gym environment. Feeling refreshed I slip into one of my new pairs of leisure trousers and realise I need another belt, ( the down side of getting fat), so smelling fresh and sweet I get onto Amazon immediately and select a couple of leather belts in my size. With that done I start to draft the blog while I wait for Tesco to deliver. When they do its all hands to the pump to get it all squirreled away and then back to the blog. As my partner is at her singing lesson tonight there will pie, crafted during the afternoon and then we slide into the evening. The reality is a dubbed Japanese film followed by Have I Got News For You and then my meds before getting to bed.
The great challenge is choosing the right clothes!
Saturday and I wake up knowing that I need to get ready to meet friends for late lunch. So I spend time doing my self maintenance chores and getting ready including a shower and checking that Elsie, the new car, is ready for the outing. By the time I am ready I am cutting it fine. The place where we are meeting has been closed and reopened as an upgraded restaurant. The five of us arrive in dribs and drabs and get shown to the table. Having settled down to drinks we chat about how we are and what is going on for us. I give everyone a copy of Man to Man and they give them back to me and insist that I sign them. We order food and an as the meal goes on we drift into the state of the world and I guess like so many other people try to make sense of what is going on in the world. It comes to paying our bills for the meal and because we are smart people we get the sums right first time. There are goodbyes and a next date for December is fixed.
I drive home to an evening of something I do not remember and get to my evening meds. Finally I get to sleep.
Sunday and having slept well enough I have breakfast and get dressed. I have done my vitals and suspect that the Steroids maybe lowering my blood pressure. I also weigh slightly less than before the Steroids but probably because I have cut out sweets and goodies. Just so many confounding variables. I then make a really stupid decision. I decide to go to M&S on the local shopping campus to return some oversize trousers I bought on line. I take my partner as we need food and some other bits. I drive to the retail park and its packed. It takes ages to park and then there is a long walk to M&S. The refund goes to plan but I can feel myself loosing it as I hot flush and increasingly become irritated by humanity. I find trouser racks and grab examples of what might fit me and head for the changing rooms. There I try to inadvertently try to queue jump but the queue gets pointed out to me and I wait till a booth becomes available. I find two pairs of trousers that sort of fit me and and get them paid for as soon as I can. Then its on to the food hall. By now I am hating the whole experience, the people, the activity the whole thing and there is more to come. With the evening meal sorted there are vests to be brought by my partner. We wander into the women’s section and sort through the under wear till finally w have what we want. By now I just want out, how stupid was I to even contemplate doing this on a Sunday, I must be loosing whatever judgement I had. The place is full of meandering, tottering people who inexplicable stop moving and look around like sheep surprised by sheep dog. It is hell. My partner and I make it back to the car. As we go some woman is saying to her child “why do you think I am going to say no?” the child in tears says ” because I’m crying” , the woman says ” and why are you crying” and the girl sobs ” because you hurt me” and the woman says “Excuse me!” I have walked on by now just wanting to be away but I then hear the same little crying out ” no daddy, please daddy”, I actually stop and turn round but cannot see where they are, I go onto the car and drive to our local garden centre where I chill over a milkshake.
I finally get home with some plants and bulbs and watch a rugby match before I start to poach pears in wine for tonight’s desert. With my pears gently simmering in the spicy liquor my partner prepares the main meal. It all comes together well and the family eat just in time to be siting in front of the TV for Strictly Come Dancing, the result show. There is a terrific amount filler in the show but it eventually gets to the end and the bit everyone is there for. It is of course the big barrow boy with two left feet, no musicality or sense of rhythm who goes. Thank god I don’t have to watch a chirpy chappy drag himself round a dance floor for any longer then necessary.
I start to catch up on drafting the blog to the background of the latest Cillian Murphy film Stevie. Too much of the film too familiar to my old life. I finish the blog and and take my meds before bed. Tomorrow I start a new round of meds admin and Tesco order delivery. Today has taught me to be cautious when I choose to go out into the world and to be wary of a world I am not sure I belong in any more. I think I might be going down with a dose of anthropophobia.
Thursday and I am up early and running on automatic to get myself to the GP surgery to have my winter flu and COVID jabs. So having downed my morning meds I walk to the surgery and I am met by the receptionist who finds my paper work and ushers me into one of the injection booths. I find my usual jab nurse in the next booth and say hello. My nurse checks I am who am and then sticks the COVID in my left arm before sticking the Flu jab in to my right arm. It is extremely quick and gives my time to have a quick chat with my usual nurse and confirm my next regular cancer jab. I am soon in the local co-op getting a paper and making sue I avoid the sweet aisles.
I get home and set about the days cross words until my partner returns from her bobbing about in the water class at the gym. We drive off to a local garden centre and order what was to be a lunch of modest proportions. I order what I think is going to be a ploughman’s lunch and it turns out to be a feast of ham and cheese and loads of salad stuff. What was most outstanding was the two huge pickled onions that defied being eaten fully. The amount of ham was stupendous and by the time I had munched my way through it all I knew I would not need tea later. The garden centre is preparing for Christmas and there are a lot of staff being busy creating a winter wonderland, or at least a bright and shiny consumer grotto.
Christmas is on the way
Flying reindeer to please the buying public.
Leaving the garden centre involved walking past the sweet and food area so having dallied at the “Weird Fish” area we drove home. Once home I settle down to recover from my huge light lunch. I am soon watching an early evening football match, which gets followed with several episodes of Blue Lights. My partner goes to bed and I take my night meds but I begin to feel crap so delay until gone one o’clock.
Friday and I wake up late, do my vitals and finally get up, my partner having been to get her winter flu jab. I am feeling the effects of yesterdays jabs and potter about getting breakfast and then bring my blood pressure data base up to date. I work out the average for the previous chemo cycle, and I work out the averages for the first of few days of the Cycle that started with the introduction of steroids. It is noticeable that my average blood pressure seems to be dropping since the introduction of steroids. However I withdrew sweets and goodies at the same time so I may have introduced a confounding variable! Life is never simple. Having done my sums I grit my teeth and try on the trousers I ordered. To my relief they do not fit, they are too big, Yippee! This means a trip to M&S to return them and a proper “trying things on” shopping adventure.
I return to my laptop and jot a note/ poem and then start t catch up with the blog while I listen to The Infinite Monkey Cage. while my partner returns from the gym and puts a “knitting to” film on the TV.
467 It’s a confusion, I’ve no idea what is making me feel like this. My cocktail of medicines, inoculations and add-ons is playing havoc with my mind. All of this pharmacy allegedly keeps me alive but keeps me in fugue. This bewildered wandering through my mind and body crashing wave like against my personal universe not knowing what chemical is responsible for what. I’ve no helm by which to steer myself. Is this me, or have I wandered away and become a luckless vagrant not sure anymore that I have a history? I stand and hope something wears off and I get to once again glimpse the mirror and recognise a person I can be.
467 03-10-2025
The evening creeps up towards tea through the continuing teeming rain. I guess there maybe food, rugby and Blue Lights, but I am sure there will be night medication and then bed before a tomorrow that will include dining with friends. I’ve already run out of energy spoons and hope I recover enough spoons to enjoy tomorrow and to feel more chipper.
Wednesday and I wake up to find my partner was readying herself to visit her mother. I have a hot water, take my vitals and get into my training kit. I have a muesli and yoghurt breakfast which I mix meds into and then have a brief rest before going to the garage and the rowing machine. I really did not feel like training but its been four days since my last session and I need to keep the chemo side effects at bay. My choice is a 45 minute session as I need PAI points. Right from the start I know I am in trouble, every stroke is an effort, for what ever reason my body is reluctant. This session is a grind from beginning to end and I am relieved that I at least get over 8 kilometres. Its a below par session.
In the end I fall short of par by 280 meters
I shower and emerge just before my partner returns and makes us lunch sandwiches. There is time for a quick rest before we go and get our nails done at the gym beautician. I have my usual subtle sparkles but today I add a Halloween ghost to one of my nails. I wait for my partner in the gym lounge and jot a couple of things.
465 Its with a dash of steroids that I enter a new realm of battle. The fear of a football head and still bigger gut has lead me to eschew all the sweets and goodies of comfort and rebellion. The last jelly baby has gone, the biscuit barrel empty it's time for discipline; that act of Will that says "I fight". Once again the iron inside has to be found and from it caste resolve, I will live to see my unborn grandchild.
465 01-10-2025.
I have a ghost to keep company to Halloween
When my partner is finished we drive home to rest before dinner. I watch some football while I draft the blog. There is more House of Guinness for the evening and finally meds and bed. My body has no idea what is happening to it and I am not sure my mind is far behind it at the moment.
Well the past weekend and start o the week has been a mixture of enjoyment and spoon sapping activity. Of course Saturday was a fine balance of women’s word cup rugby and getting to hotel where I and my partner where staying in order to participate in a Murder Mystery. We managed to see the third place game and then pack the car and get to the hotel with fifteen minutes to spare before the final. Thankfully the result came out with the right result for the cowboy hat makers.
Having celebrated the England win it was into the smart casual gear to attend the murder mystery. In sorting out smart casual I was plunged into despair when I found ALL my smart casual trousers do not fit me anymore! I had already moved from a 36 inch waste to a 38 inch waste. None of these fit me now! I am left with a pair of jeans and two pairs of shorts, a couple of hippy draw string casuals. What this means is I am going to have to go shopping and actually try on trousers otherwise I will have to turn down invitations to events and of course funerals, weddings and christenings. I settle on the cargo jeans but to add a bit of class I wear a lovely pair of black brogues and an up market Dickies work shirt, very trendy.
My partner and I find ourselves on table 15 with six other people. There is the usual introductions and then we were off on the murder mystery, four people playing five roles between courses. People were conscripted to play small roles and clues could be bought, sold or traded, with or without chicanery. At the end all was revealed and prizes given. Our team did get the perpetrator right, it was the undertaker with a gun in the bed room. Our limerick also got read out but no prizes. By the end of the evening I was knackered and was pleased to get to bed and sleep reasonably well.
Sunday morning saw good weather and a slow drift down to breakfast in the Orangery . Part way through the full English my partner spots Sandi Toksvig at another table. Of course we did the “is it or isn’t it” oogle and decided it was. Breakfast over we got the car packed and I drove us home. In the afternoon I watched a couple of rugby games and became aware how much I was craving sweet stuff and the need to eat. I figured this was driven by the steroids as it is common side effect and drives weight gain. As a compromise I dug out a box of bread sticks and nibbled some of them.
The evening was creeping up and I found myself watching The Sound of Music! The disturbing part was I got into it to such an extent that when dinner was called I ignored it and ended up with my bowl of pasta seeing me through the Von Trapp family escape to Switzerland. The rest of the evening is taken up with the House of Guinness before meds and bed.
Monday rocks up and it is to be a busy day. I have breakfast and my meds and then spend quite a lot of time drawing up the shopping list for the evenings dinner with friends. We are going to have freshly made smoked salmon pate followed by lamb shanks and finish with poach pears in red wine and spices. naturally cheese, biscuits, coffee and mints to follow. So with shopping list in hand my partner and I drive to the super market. As we get out of the car we come across an argument between a young woman, who is taking phone pictures of a car that she claims has scratched her car and an older man. The old man was foul mouthing her and denying he had done anything. It was at the point he called her a “silly little girl” that but my partner and I stepped i. we had no idea whether the man had or had not scraped the car but no way was he getting away with abusing and bullying this young woman. We asked if she was okay as she was clearly upset by the denial and the abuse. We asked if she had all the information she needed for her insurance company, which she said she had so we advised to just get in her car and leave, which she did as the man continued to abuse her. I hate it when men think they can bully women into submission like this guy was trying to do. Bastard. My partner and I walk off to shop leaving the man complaining to a couple of women who had wander across. the shopping went well and we were soon back home unloading the goodies.
My partner went off to garden and knit while I went into chef mode. Its all about timing, tings always take longer than the recipe says it will, especially the preparation part. I started with smoked salmon pate once I had cleared the kitchen. No actual cooking required just popping the ingredients in a blender and getting it all to the right consistency and then it the fridge. The heavy chefing came with the prep for the lamb shanks, preparing the sauce that the shanks were to be cooked, but wit a bit of fiddling I get them into the oven to bubble away dead in time. The decks cleared it was time to turn to the poached pears. Because these can be eaten warm or at room temperature it allows altitude in the timing. I soon have them poaching in the spicy liquor of red wine sugar, cloves, cinnamon stick and blackberries. With the potatoes ready to be cooked for mustard mash it was time to clear the kitchen while my partner set the table and sorted out the cheese board. At last the kitchen was ready to final prep and dishing up with about twenty minutes to spare before the guests were due to arrive. I changed my sauce splashed shirt and had a short break.
That moment when the kitchen is ready to dish up.
The guests arrive and we are all soon tucking into the food and chatting merrily about how we are and what we have been reading and doing. All the food goes down well but it is noticed that I omit the ice cream with my poached pear and do not have any of the post meal mints. There is brief conversation about where my cancer is and the addition of steroids, it prompts my to give them a cop of the anthology. I also note that one of the guests makes reference to an enlarged prostate, but I do not pursue it. I am not sure why, perhaps the site of two oldish blokes discussing prostates was not thought a good experience for the other diners.
The meal comes to an end and the guests say farewell to us, including my eldest daughter who had returned from her art class in time for the left over olives and after eight mints. I am wiped out and my back is aching big time, I try to help clear up but all I am good for is taking my meds and getting to bed. My back is very painful and I think about more paracetamol but I resist and do eventually get to sleep.
Tuesday and my partner is up and getting ready to go to the physio and then onto “bobbing about it the water”. I take my vitals, which are good, and then get up to an empty house. Breakfast and my meds+ steroids goes down okay and then I spend the morning catching up with the blog. I stop only to measure my waist in anticipation f trouser shopping. I am appalled by the result, which I am too embarrassed to share. I immediately give the idea of going shopping and get onto the M&S website and order some trousers in my new voluminous size. I really hope they do not fit but I have a nasty feeling they will. I then continue drafting the blog until I am up to date at which point I start on my mental list of light bulbs that need to be changed.
After attending to my ears, I am three days into a four day ear wax demolition project, which I took up after people kept telling me the TV was too loud and am I deaf, I set abut becoming the light fairy. There are a couple need changing, which I do, I then turn into the toilet roll fairy and top up the reserve bins. With the internal chores done I turn my attention to the block paving and set to work de-weeding and de-mossing the front and side areas. I am lazy at this an resort to a chemical weed killer that I have tried an tested before to good effect. It is a tedious job but a necessary one if the new frontage of the house is not going to turn in to a slippery slop. I have ordered road salt for the winter to make sure the frontage does not turn into an ice rink come the cold and snow. It is also a good way to kill weeds. With that over I return to my laptop to draft the blog and settle down for an evening of football and the House of Guinness before meds and bed. This is my fifth day of of no sweets, biscuits and treats so I feel my non specific grumpiness syndrome (NSGS), rearing its ugly head soon. Tomorrow I’m having my nails done and may well find myself sporting a Halloween ghost.
Friday, todays the day the steroids begin for real. So I wake up and spend time doing stuff to avoid the new little white pill. I set up my vitals record for Cycle 30 which started yesterday and took my vitals. They were okay but not as good as they have been. I finally get up and get dressed before making breakfast. I go with savoury bagel and orange juice to have along side my morning meds now enhanced with Steroids. Is taken a long time to get to this point in the morning, just plain old avoidance I guess. This is the day I start my getting fat avoidance strategy, so there are no more sweets, biscuits and goodies for me, that was until I found a solitary jelly baby amongst my journals. So I set myself up and ritually ate my last jelly baby as a transitional object to cement my commitment to my new diet of restraint.
The last Jelly Bay sacrificed on the alter of my drugs dosette.
With the ritual done and out of the way I walk over to the post office and buy small posting boxes so that I can send people copies of my anthology. Once home I sign a copy of the anthology and add a virgin copy to the assembled post box and return to the post office to send it on its way. I eye the sweet aisles and resist, after all the Last Jelly Baby was the agent of all sweets. Once home I settle down to do the daily crosswords and I am quite pleased with how they go. Feeling quietly good about the crosswords I attend to messages and emails. Most of my electronic stuff is rubbish it occasionally there are things that need and answer, today there were several of those. The post brings me the consultants notes from my last oncology review. It is as I remembered it including the consultants idea about revisiting the idea of radiotherapy. I am openly not keen. With everything done I fill the bird and squirrel feeders and inspect the garden before finally getting myself into my training kit and into the garage for a 30 minute row. It is the end of the afternoon, early evening, and I am tired so apprehensive about how a row will go. I set off and feel crap, I’ve no pull in my shoulders and no drive in my legs, I feel doomed not to reach my expected standard. I gradually work my way to the end of the session and with a big effort at the last 5 minutes I get through the 6 kilometre mark. I am pleased with this, especially as my partner and I are away over the weekend and I will not be able to train till Monday.
I manage my par for 30 minutes, that will do me!
My efforts get recorded in my journal while my partner cooks tea. This evening we will watch men’s rugby on TV as the season kicks off and then it will be meds and bed for me. I am hoping that my renewed life style of exercise and the sweet treat abstinence will counter act the steroid side effects, this is the first day, I am guessing its going to get tougher.
Thursday, my last day of waking up in York, I only have bits and pieces to pack as I did most of it last night. So I get up and go for breakfast. I was not in the mood for a full English so went for a restrained muesli and toast meal. With that out of the way I loaded Elsie the car, paid my bill and set off for home but not before I had a staring match with the local squirrel that came to see me off.
The hotel squirrel sees me off the premises.
The drive back home was smooth with just one stop. I’ve decided that Elsie is a quite laid back car as the electronics at just a tad slow to respond. The brakes are fine but the infotainment system is a big sluggish and not very intuitive, but I am getting used her. I get home safely and unpack my stuff immediately including a late birthday present from one of my friends who described it as an unseasonable birthday present.
My unseasonal birthday present now in the office.
There is post waiting for me, including a scan appointment in October and some other bits and pieces that need seeing to. I have drugs to collect from the hospital pharmacy but I am not up to driving so I decide to Uber it. This is either sheer laziness on my part or a piece of self kindness that is reasonable. Once dropped off at the hospital pharmacy I am dealt with very quickly. The pharmacist is very thorough and takes care to ensure that I am aware to carry my steroid club card with me everywhere, especially to the doctors, dentist and any hospital appointment. So I have another thing to juggle in my life routines. She hands over the drugs and wishes me luck, never a good sign. I go the nearby hotel and order a return Uber that arrives very quickly. The driver is nice guy, I know this because he switches from the dreary news about zero emissions to a classical music station playing the Scottish symphony. When I arrive home I compliment the driver on his choice of music and he tells me about the German composer responsible for the piece.
Once in I spend time reading about my new steroids. I have been prescribed Dexamethasone. Of course the first thing I do is Google it and read the information leaflet that comes with it. As usual the side effects section is horrific along with al the precautionary notes about time scales .and not being able to just stop it. Its a scary read. My main issue was to decide whether it is going to be better to take it in the morning with breakfast or at night. Having read all the possibilities I decide to take it in the morning.
bewildering array of “information”
Still more stuff to consider.
Having made the decision on the morning for the slot for the new steroid I refill the dosettes to include the steroids, just an add on to the meds admin to be done from now on. As I have decided to take the steroids in the morning so I shall start taking them tomorrow morning, so the blog with its new heading becomes a reality on day 2 of cycle 30 and Friday the 26th will become the first day of denying myself all the sweet and processed things in my diet along with more rowing and exercise. I am really very apprehensive I hope this is going to be worth it in terms of holding my PSA in check otherwise the next oncology review in November could be bleak.
With the admin done I start to draft the bog nibbling my last treat of jelly babies before tomorrows start to abstention, and as I do so the garden guy turns up to mow the lawns. I am hoping for a quiet evening and an early night, perhaps some football and the last day of steroid free medication.
Wednesday and my alarm wakes me at 7 o’clock in a chilly hotel room. I struggle to the surface and take a shower before getting organised enough to go for breakfast. My morning meds are taken and I realise that this is the last day of cycle 29 of my Chemo. Tomorrow I will start cycle 30 and, providing I get back in time to get to the hospital pharmacy, will be the first day I actually start taking the additional dash if steroids. One of the side effects of steroids is to put on weight! This means that from Friday I have to cut out all the processed food and sweet stuff that I love. My exercise regime will also have to increase, I cannot face going back to looking like I did in my first chemotherapy that had steroids attached to it. I had a football head and developed body folds I felt ashamed off, I cannot go back there again, so once more I have to find the effort to resist and to fight extra hard. Basically if I want life as I want it I will have to fight for it, the alternative just speeds up the inevitable and I am not ready for that. I treat myself a huge buffet meal wanting to get my monies worth but also I feel I have not eaten that well over the last couple of days. I am missing home brought about by feeing anxious in the hotel environment and out of my normal routines. It, I mean I feel ill at ease fearing that at any moment I could become ill without a safety net, maybe this is what people mean when they talk about venerable people. Any way having downed my vast breakfast I return to the room and gather up my laptop and journals and return to the lounge area of the hotel. I hang my “please service my room” tag on the door of my room as I have yet to be serviced and need my bins emptying, bed making up and fresh towels. Its difficult not to take it personally that I have been un-serviced, it plays into my “they only want my money” paranoia . Anyway I pick a lounge booth, catch up on my journals and type up the poem I wrote yesterday, which of course I include below.
463 It’s back to hotel food, a rare trip alone to see friends. My room is cold, the front desk pimped from when I was last here. It’s the equivalent of all front and no knickers. Of course I kill the time by writing as I wait for food and drink. Why do people find lemonade and blackcurrant odd, or perhaps it’s the sparkly nails and long white ponytail? I had forgotten what it is to be alone in public. Looking odd but really normal, hiding a body at war. It is all smoke and mirrors but when was it ever different?
463 Holiday Inn York 23-09-2025
There is an hour or so to kill before a friend is due to arrive for lunch so I read and scribble having drafted the blog as far as I can do for this morning. A time to process my visit so far and wonder why on earth the hotel thinks that it needs to play music all the time, bad soft pop music, it’s “musac” of the worst kind and not conducive to anything other than irritation. My friend arrives and we go for a short walk across the Knavesmire and then back to the hotel for a lunchtime sandwich. Again it is good to catch up and hear how someone else is doing and what is going on in their world. My friend is on the way to a funereal so we say farewell and I retreat to my room for a nap before visiting another friend for the evening and a bite to eat. I also collect my belated birthday present. By 10:45 I am tired and drive back to the hotel to take my night meds and to get to bed. I have enjoyed my time in York immensely but it is time to return home in the morning. There are new drugs to collect and the start of cycle 30 to get under way. I also need to process all the conversations I have had and the experience of being away from home for four days.
