Thursday and its the evening and I am here drafting the blog. I cannot face doing the usual “Thursday and I wake…”. So today I will just say that I spent part of my time sorting out the new poetry collection. The rest of the time I spent with my partner having my nails done in the same subtly sparkly way I did before and then took my partner to lunch. We raided M&S where I bought more short sleeve shirts on account of the heat and then came home to watch tennis.
By the evening I am hot and bothered and tired to the point where I cannot concentrate. I try to draft the blog, but the TV is on, and nobody is really watching it and I have a hot flush. I just had to get out of all the “noise” . So here I am laying on the bed trying to keep cool and calm and trying to draft the blog. Its one of those moments when it all comes on top and I have to retreat away from everybody and everything. I’m trying to drink a lot of fluid because tomorrow morning. I am having bloods done for Wednesdays oncology review. I am not confident it will go well given my rising PSA, my backache and the fact that the oncologist is seeing me in person. It just feels there is so much to control and keep hold of at the moment while trying to hold my own and move on. Writing this helps as I get stuff out of me into the world where I can see it and deal with it, my poetry does this to. I find being overwhelmed by the “noise ” distressing and I cannot afford to be like that. I shall try to relax for the rest of the evening and then take me night meds and sleep but not before remembering to change the latex cover for my scared finger as I wear my night finger splint. It is all this kind of stuff that has to be kept a grip of. It feels never ending and I do not know if anyone notices, which I suppose means it must be going well.
Wednesday and I wake early to my partner going to see her mother with her bother. I drink hot water and take my vitals, which are all good. I take my time getting up as it is warm but by 7:45 I am in text conversation with the publishers as there is a minor problem with the book. Apparently there is an issue over the text size on the spine of the book. There is some toing and froing and in the end we seem to get to a resolution. Once up I get into my training gear, take my morning meds and head for the garage and the rowing machine. Its five days since I last rowed so it has to be a meaningful session, I set the rower for an hour and set off. As I get into the session I begin to think about a poem that is forming and press on to the end of the session. By the end I am drenched in sweat and know I have worked hard. I retreat to the recliner and record the session in my journal and it is then that I realise that I have rowed a personal best. Bit of a surprise but a most welcome lift.
Excellent a PB for me, lots of calories burnt and a good distance.
I take time to process the information and then return to the book text conversation which seems to be going well. I am still resting when my partner returns, so I make myself a late breakfast and join her in the sunshine on the patio. My back is aching and I am not sure what it is, rowing or something else? As I sit under the sunshade I write what came to me whilst I was rowing.
449
Pull; pull; pull; pull; pull; pull; this is a man at war, trying to save himself. Pull; pull; pull. This is the effort required to fend off chemo effects. Every muscle, every joint stretched and contracted to keep the rhythm going. Pull; pull; pull; the metronome needs to tick there can be no stopping until the clock runs down, till the figures on he monitor tell the story of kilometres, of calories and strokes. Then and only then can it stop. This is how the relentless malady is faced and challenged. In every pull, defiance, In every pull, conatus. Pull; pull; pull.
449 17-06-2025
My partner and I spend time potting up seedlings from the cold frame. Some are a bit leggy others more robust. We take a time out for a lolly break and as we do so the garden guy turns up. I am tired and hot so retreat to the recliner where I take paracetamol and begin to draft the days blog and prepare for the Webinar I am attending this evening for the publication of two poetry pamphlets by people I know.
Tuesday and I am exhausted this evening. Today I managed a shower and an early morning visit to the dentist, and lunch at the pub with my eldest daughter. There was a burst of energy when the people putting my book up on Amazon contacted me and later when I found it was in my cyber bookshelve being processed, but it will be 24 to 48 hours before it becomes available. As for the rest it was all about planting sunflowers out in a pot vacated by a pot bound Acer and sitting chatting to our guest for the evening by the warmth of the chimenea. So the world moves on, but for now all I can do is take my night meds and go to bed. It does not sound much but its all I’ve been able to manage today but now I am spoonless.
Monday and I wake to the sound of my youngest grandson having a bit if a morning cry. It does not last but it spurs me to get up, take my morning meds and eat bacon sandwiches with the family for breakfast. With that done its time for me and my youngest grandson’s father to get to work putting together the racking that I have bought for the new storage shed. There are three sets to put together and on opening the first box it looks like there are no instructions apart from a picture on the packaging. We set off putting the stuff together with the tiny hammer that was in the box until we come across a set of instructions slipped between the shelving boards. We make every mistake possible on the first set but by the time I have got the soft flooring mallet and WD40 from the garage we are flying. After a drinks and ice cream break we cruise through the work and by lunch time the racking is done and ready. The racks are placed up against the house to store them for the week and the shelves get put in the summer house for safe keeping. Ironically half way through the process there is a phone call from the shed supplier reminding me that I owe the half the cost of the new shed.
With the job done and the tools put away my grandson and his parents leave to journey home. My intention was to have a quiet afternoon to recover but I suddenly find myself ordering train tickets for my son and his family from London to Leicester for their visit from Sweden in a few days time. Apparently Swedish cards were not being accepted by the ticket agency. So I order the tickets and get them sent to my son. In the middle of this I start getting texts from my publishing folk at Ruler’s Wit as they get into my Amazon publishing account to load up The Cancer Years; Ordinary Brave. There is a lot of toing and froing but it seems we are almost there. There will be a slight delay before it becomes available on Amazon but it should not be long. My partner and I drive to the local garage to fill her new car with petrol and return just in time to receive the Tesco delivery.
Early evening arrives and I eat tea with the family and whilst doing so mend my partners i-watch with a tiny drop of super glue. In a final fling of energy I install the new squirrel feeder and then retreat to the recliner as my partner goes for her singing lesson and I start to draft the blog. Its going to be a slow evening as I have no energy left. The coming days are going to be trick as the dentist looms, we have a visitor for a night, and I have some bloods to be done alongside some other stuff to be done. June started out as an empty month and has got busier and busier. I am hoping that there is going to be a new poetry collection to give copies of to the oncology team on the 25th, then I can spend time with my sons family from Sweden.
Friday and I am awake as my partner goes off to her physio appointment. I went through my usual rising rituals and then puttered about a bit and checking what I need to arrange for the busy week ahead. In going through my journal I found the “poem” I had jotted yesterday while waiting for my scan to take place.
448
Sitting in the car park, a hospital. I've snacked after being injected with radiation, now I sit filling time so the fluid will show my bones.
I've read Harrison to keep me company and I like him, but I feel time is heavy.
This time the nurse missed the vein and moved into pastures new until I bled satisfyingly into a canula, this the gateway to the isotope.
She talked incessantly not noticing I was having a hot flush, but carried on a running commentary on needle size and wobbly veins.
In two hours time I'll be laying on my back encased in a tube with my only thought beig "don't want a piss". They have after all asked a bloke with prostate cancer to drink more than usual, so forgive my paranoia.
At least I am here in my car listening to the rain beat down and wonder if this is to be the forecast thunderstorm. How ironic if I should get a lightening strike. But I am feeling confident, I have a pig umbrella in the boot.
Maybe it will rain so hard I will be washed away in my tin can. I notice on my windscreen a parking voucher, now sodden and immediately think I'm in breach of some arcane rule . Here I am dry, do I risk it? And then I realise its a reflection of a voucher sitting on my dashboard behind my Satnav. My anxieties dissolve and I return to watching the rain and scribbling.
This is waiting on the nhs, this is being aske to bugger off for two hours: amuse yourself. I might pop down to cardiology and see if anyone is up for a fright or see what's on at theatre. I bet you could sell tickets for that.
448 14/ 06/2025 Glenfield Hospital car park.
Having extracted it I wait for my partner to return hone before we go and collect her new car. Having arrived at the dealers there was a mountain of electronic admin to do before that moment of my partner getting behind the wheel of her new car. It was a carful drive home but a very smooth one. The evening came along quickly and my partner spent it in her new car trying to sort out all the new things the car does and is supposed to do. While she was playing and wrestling with the fact that there is no paper manual only a digital one, which is a real swine to work with or even find. My evening is filled with completing my ALCS account that has come through. So I spend time entering ISBN numbers and hinting through my book shelves for everything I have ever written as contributions to books or edited. In theory if anyone is using my poetry or old psychology stuff then there maybe money due. What the ALCS does is collect it up and pay to me in September less a percentage. By the end of the evening its all done and I go through my night rituals and head for bed.
Saturday is a special day as my youngest grandchild is coming to visit with his parents. Of course there is clearing up and preparation to do so there is a period of “whizz round” and then they arrive. From then on its one full on energy delight as a small person gets into everything. Apart from a break to watch the local rugby team lose in the final of the premier league its all about the small person until he goes to bed and the adults have a quite rest of the day. The day has flown by.
Sunday and its fathers day. I am woken up by a small boy with a beaming smile. It is also the birthday of one of my other grandchildren in Sweden. My son has been lovely in sorting things out for her from me and it will not be long before I’ll be able to see her in person when they visit soon. The decision is made to go to Twycross zoo and show my grandson big animals and especially the monkeys, so just before noon we load up and drove off to Twycross zoo.
It used to be a great place to go to, a real zoo, with real animals and a real sense of excitement. It was a place we took our children and have really lovely memories of it but the zoo of today is a shadow of its former self. The animals are mostly made of leggo, invisible or looking to be in poor condition if you can see them. The place is now a theme park with food outlets. So we trudged round trying to find the animals and after a few hours we leave disappointed in our experience. It was an expensive walk during which my grandson picked up stones.
Once home there is food to be eaten a tired little boy to get to bed and four knackered adults who ease through the evening, but we get there and I draft the log and share the photo that I took. It will be an early night for mem once the Tesco order is done.
Thursday and believe it or not I am up at 6:45 to move my partners car off the drive as the guy who is putting in the base for the new garden shed is arriving at 7am, and by jove he does. A single bloke with a van and a substantial gut who unloads wood and a case full of tools. I offer a drink but he declines and gets on with the construction of the base. He clearly works at pace as within minutes he has his top off. A bit disturbing at this early hour. I take my morning meds and have breakfast and prepare my clothes for my visit later to the hospital. With that done I ring the boiler service folk and book ours in for its annual service. In no time at all, or at least by 10 o’clock todays builder badger has completed his task. There is a shed base concreted in and awaiting the shed to top it.
The base is in and from it will risestorage to appease my tidy gene.
I say farewell to the builder badger and then change into my training kit. I squeeze in a half hour session on the rower and to my surprise crack my 6 kilometre standard. Its all a bit rushed now as I am to leave for the hospital so I head for the shower.
Yep this will do for today.
Having showered and taken everything metal off me I leave for the hospital smelling sweetly. I arrive and as I know my way to the department its an easy journey. In the nuclear medicine department I check in and soon I am called in. This is when the fun start. My nurse is a chatter box and gives me a running commentary on what she is doing which turns into a monologue about why its going wrong. She misses the first vein, “too wobbly” and then the use of the smaller needle into the vein in my wrist. Having made me radioactive I am sent away for two hours to ferment, which apparently helps to show my bones at their best. So I leave the department and go and sit in the hospital café with a sandwich, drink and a Kitkat. Of course I have a book to read, Jim Harrison: The Essential Poems. At the appointed time, two hours after the radiation went into me I am called into the scan room. I get to lay on the scan bench where two assistants swaddle me so I cannot move and then for 45 minutes I am scanned. Eventually I am roused from my revere and told the scan is ended. I leave the now empty department and drive home through terrible traffic.
Once home I rest for a bit before putting a tarpaulin over the shed base to protect it for the week before the new shed arrives. I eat a meal with the family and then flop on the settee totally out of energy. I drift until I draft the blog and then take my night meds and go to bed. Hopefully tomorrow will be slower although I shall be going with my partner to collect her new car and preparing for the visit of my youngest grandchild and his parents. All part of moving on.
Wednesday and I wake up knowing this is going to be a busy day so as my partner goes off to see her mother with her brother I get ready to get up. I have just finished taking my vitals, which were good, when a friend rings me on her way back from taking her daughters to school. There is time for quick chat before she starts work and I get up for breakfast. During this there are several deliveries some of them related to the new shed that is coming. I am putting my new mobile tyre inflator together when the man who is going to fix out broken dishwasher arrives. He recognises me and instantly recalls what he did to our dishwasher last November. While he gets to work I check my tyres and get them up to where they should be. By the time I have finished with my new tyre toy the dishwasher man has sort out our problem. Apparently one of the hoses had sprung a leak. He puts everything back in place and then gets me to pay him by card on his phone.
My partner returns from her visit and I head to the post office to get a paper and some treats. Having eaten lunch I drive my partner to the local Wickes and buy a Hippo bag and then its straight home. From then on I am in the garden digging out the bricks and concrete and loading up the Hippo bag. After a couple of breaks I am joined by the garden guy who is able to lift and move the paving slabs that I could not manage. Eventually the space that has been cleared is ready for the people who are arriving tomorrow at 7 o’clock in the morning to put in the platform for the new storage shed. It was bloody hard work but if the platform sits square the it will have been worth it.
The shed space is now ready. Watch this space.
Once the work is done all the contents of the old sheds are covered over with a tarpaulins. At this point I am almost out of energy so I join the family in a meal and then rest while watching the episode of Department Q and the final episode of Race across the World. After that I go into automatic, drafting the blog and taking my night meds, putting on my finger splint and planning what I am going to wear tomorrow as its a scan day. Clothes with out metal is the need and I have to strip my self of all jewellery to be scan friendly. I start the scan at about 1:30 when I am pumped with radioactive stuff and sent away for a couple of hours before being scanned. So tomorrow is a full day again and I need to be on point. I am hoping that this is mid cycle energy.
Tuesday and I am roused with a start by the door bell and instantly know it is the shed removal men who said they would be here at 10 o’clock, but have arrived an hour early. So I throw on clothes answer the door and open up the side way (ginnel) for them. They must be almost my age and look and move like a pair of elderly badgers with their short white hair and well worn in bodies. I make them tea, show them them te sheds then move my partners car off the drive so they can carry stuff out to their flat bed lorry.
I notice the dishwasher is still running and tentatively open it. The tap warning light is on. I have breakfast, take my morning meds and then check the dishwasher filters as my partner goes off to the gym. I reset the dishwasher and add a cleaning pod it and set my stopwatch going to check if it over runs or not. With that just about done the door bell goes again and it is my neighbour who is going to have his hedges cut on July the second and the last time we chatted we thought we might get them done together. As soon as he had gone I ring the tree man who does this work and he is happy to do ours at the same time. By this time the dishwasher has over run and is displaying the tap light again. Nothing for it but to ring our “appliance man”. I get through and to my surprise he can get to us tomorrow, so I book him in. My diary is getting vey crowded. I spend the rest of the time filing all the appliance manuals that are crammed into a space above the microwave. They all fit into one lever arch file, unfortunately the file does not fit in above the micro wave so a space in the office will have to be found.
My partner returns from the gym and we eat a hearty lunch as tonight we go to the theatre to see Bat Out of Hell. A chance to wear one of my new shirts. The light on the range has gone out so I take time to change the bulb, easy to do but time consuming. I go and look at the space where the new shed is going and realise I have to move some slabs and rubble. A call goes out to to the garden guy to see if he can do it or if he has anyone he knows who can do it.
This is the plot that will soon be home to my new 8 x 7 storage shed.
At last I can get to the back of the Summer House, my writing shed.
I am tired so as my partner has tea on the patio and then gardens I recline and draft the blog. It’s been a busy day and there is more to come. Tonight the family is going to the Curve theatre to see Bat Out of Hell, so we will sort through our gad rags and Uber it into town. So that’s it for me for the day, it will end in night meds and my usual night rituals. I am begging to feel intolerably neglectful of the people I write to and I have not written anything for a while. It is nibbling at me but I have pushed it to one side while the new collection is being put together but it will not do for long. At one point June was an empty page in my diary and now its packed with stuff, something is going to have to give. As a side note the report of my last oncology review has come through and of interest is my oncologists decision to test me for BRCA testing, this is a test that tests for changes in BRAC1 and BRAC2 genes that can effect the progress of prostrate cancer although it is mostly used in relation to breast and ovarian cancer. So the results of this will be included in my next review at the end of the month. Something new to chat about. More is importantly is my rising PSA. So on I go Moving On.
Monday and after a tricky sleepless night I wake up to find my partner already up and preparing to go to the gym. After taking my vitals, which are good, I get up and get dressed in my training kit. Before I can head for the rower I need some breakfast while my Fitbit charges. I also ring the shed people who are coming to put in a base on Thursday but I need the old garden sheds taken away first. I chat to a guy who appears to be on the ball and promises to ring me before the day is out. I finally get to the garage and the rower. I am feeling decidedly off colour and have been since yesterday so I decide to keep the session down to 45 minutes and make getting to the end of it my main aim. I get to the end very tired and sweaty but I make it. Under the circumstances it is a reasonable session.
Not bad for how I was feeling.
I record my session and sit and rest for a while and as I do I check my emails and find the final edited draft of my collection has come through. I read it over in detail and find nothing to alter or take out so email the editorial team and tell them to go ahead with putting the finished book together. I shower and then find out from partner that someone is coming to take the old garden sheds away tomorrow at ten o’clock. So having just showered I now get into my work gear and set about emptying the two sheds. There is huge amount to move from the sheds. I spread a decorators sheet and small ground sheet out on part of the garden and then moving everything onto the sheeted area. Eventually I get it all moved and just as I finish Amazon deliver the tarpaulins I ordered so I am able to adequately cover everything that I have moved. I am hopeful that this will keep every thing dry and safe till the new storage shed is in place. The old sheds are now empty and can be removed easily.
Shed 1
Shed 2
The content undercover
By the time I have done all this I am knackered and makes the shower I took earlier redundant. I retreat to the sofa and sit recovering and while I do that I unpack the two new work shirts I had ordered sometime ago. With that done I order flooring and racking for the new shed when it arrives. Only now after all this activity do I stop to eat, watch a foot ball match and then watch more episodes of Department Q. My partner goes to bed and I draft the blog before taking my night meds, donning my finger splint and going to bed. Its going to be a busy week, firstly its bat out of hell tomorrow night.
Saturday has been and gone now with a few fragments surviving. It must have been mundane but I recall waking up feeling rough after a poor nights sleep and struggling to get going. My partner and I did manage to go food shopping before settling down to watch my local rugby team win their semi final match and make it to the Twickenham final next Saturday. This was followed by watching a piss poor England football team get a one nil victory over Andorra, a team 169 place below them in the world rankings. England were appalling, it was worse than watching paint dry. Give the teams much hyped talent they lack ideas and any sense of urgency. I’ve seen games on the local park more entertaining and energetic than this lot produced. I watched Department Q and then took my night meds and headed for bed. That was my plan but at the last moment the finalised manuscript for my next poetry collection came thorough so I of course staid up to read it through and make my comments. It is really good in terms of presentation so I am hopeful that all will come together. So I went to bed tired but content.
Sunday and its a lazy waking day that meanders towards a late breakfast of bacon sandwiches and some faffing about. Then at lunch time, we go out to Loughborough and a car dealership. That is where the fun started. Watching my partner haggle with car dealers is like watching the Romans throw Christians to the lions. She knew exactly what car she wanted, what plate, what millage and what price. We sat through the preliminaries, the usual attempts at rapport building, being friendly and helpful and offering us drinks. Then there was all the taking of info and of course the taking of pictures of the car to be part exchanged, which had to go into the system to work out the possible deals to be ready for us after the test drive. The test drive went well as my partner knows all the roads around the dealership so it got a good drive. On arrival back there were more drinks and biscuits and the manager made himself known. A typical car sales person who was somewhat oleaginous. My partner swung into action in her frank and brutal “I tell you what deal I want and if you can’t do it we are leaving “style. Every time they tried to sell her add ons or some form of finance she demanded figures, a calculator and repeatedly asked whether they could meet the trade in amount on her car. The manger wriggled and did his best to try and sell her stuff and not up the part exchange. In the end my partner just looked and him and said this is a deal breaker either you can or cant, and if you can’t we are out of here. After some pantomime shuffling a figure was agreed that was well under my partners budget, included two services and protective coating for the car. Bottom line she now has a 2025 plated make and model of car that has less than seven hundred miles on the clock. Result! We collect it on Friday.
We drive home triumphant to eat sandwiches and drinks on the patio. It was a grind but well worth it. I find my new Jim Harrison poetry collection has arrived. This is the name I saw being read by Patrick Swayze in the movie Roadhouse a couple of night ago. I start to read the poems and immediately like what I am reading, he is very much an “outside” poet and his use of words and description are lovely. Even after a short read I recommend him. Of course he is very well know in America and probably amongst proper poets but he was new to me and I found him accidently through late night movie watching.
First impressions are that this is good stuff
I set aside the poetry and start to draft the blog before the evening meal and the final of the European nations cup football tournament. Spain are taking on Portugal so it should be a good game if they can avoid it becoming a blood bath. After which I will finalise tomorrows Tesco order and scuttle off to bed full of night medication, my finger in a splint and smiling at how effective my partner was in the wild arena of car buying.
