Monday and I am awake quite early so I have time to view my news feeds and messages and then take my vitals. My vitals appears to be good, the blood pressure is continuing to be regular however my heart rate seems to have settled a bit. This seems to coincide with my feeling a bit better and less fatigued. I get up and cook a substantial breakfast that I take my meds with. I settle down to start the draft of the blog until my partner returns from the gym. I poem that seems to echo my up turn comes to mind.

537
There is a sunrise 
In my heart 
as suddenly my fatigue
takes flight.
Unknown forces are at work
in mind and body
as I glimpse 
my old self reappearing.
My heart rate slows,
my breathlessness eases
and for the first time in weeks
I dare to think of training 
and of trips out. 
It is the tip toeing of
the quality of life 
that sees me smile inside 
and sensing a happy heart.
This sunrise warms me 
as I trust that this is not 
a false dawn. 
I’m on the up,
and in the distance 
the death knell of chemotherapy
 tolls out. 
There has to be a life 
for it to be worthwhile
to fight to live,
and now I know 
what the balance is.

								 537 08-06-2026

My afternoon continues with reading as I try to catch up with my reading pile and to once again feed my brain. I feel like a chrysalis about to transform but have no idea what creature I will emerge as. Hopefully something colourful.

The evening goes by in a combination of tennis and an American police drama. I take my meds and go off to bed hoping my perceived improvement continues tomorrow.

Saturday and I wake feeling not so good, so I rest and take my time getting up. I brief breakfast and morning meds before I settle down to a day of sport. There is football, rugby, grand slam tennis and Australian Rules football. I sit and watch it all feeling fatigued and having little or no energy. My family get on with life around me until they go to the theatre in the evening leaving me to order an Indian take away to eat while watching England field two separate teams against New Zealand. It was an unedifying watch and was really no more than watching two teams jog about in the Florida heat. At the end of the day I watch Blade Runner 2049 and go to bed late.

Sunday and I wake up knowing I had a curry the night before, so I take my time getting up having taken my vitals. My blood pressure remains good but the old heart rate is still elevated. By the time I am up my partner is in the garden putting in the new plants she bought yesterday. I eat breakfast and then head for the garden, by which time the garden guy has arrived and is getting ready to mow the grass. My partner redirects the garden guy and soon we are all planting things. I rescue some large pots and plant up the impulse buy dahlias that have been sitting around for a couple of weeks. I also add additional support to my growing purple sunflowers and finally get round to planting the Rudbeckia seed card that a friend sent me. The garden guy empties some pots for me and transplants their contents into a spare area of the garden. So for the next few hours there is three of us working the garden until there is quite a transformation, everything is so much tidier and we have the next phase of flowering in place.

The garden has some spectacular elements to it. Some of the special stuff is purely by accident where plants have been moved to see if they will survive while others have self sown. I take the camera into the garden to see if I can capture some of the sights.

By early afternoon everyone is tired and we pack up the garden tools and tidy away the pots and plants. A final watering to make sure the new plants are settled in and we are finished for the day. My partner and I eat lunch and start to watch the Paris open men’s tennis final during which I start to draft the last couple of days blog. After a combination of tennis and athletics the family the evening meal and I settle down to watch Shades of Blue before finally taking my night meds and going to bed feeling more hopeful for tomorrow given my gardening activity today.

Friday and I wake up late. I am surprised that its gone 10am. I did not expect to sleep this deeply. I quickly check my messages and newsfeeds and then measure my vitals. My blood pressure is good but my heart rate is still elevated. Out of interest I weigh myself and find I have lost weight, about a kilo and a half. I put it down to no sweets and Lucozade for a while. I finally get up and make myself breakfast. It seems I have fallen into a habit of cheese omelettes and peeled tomatoes, which seems to sustain me well till the evening meal. With a late breakfast done I sort out the outstanding window cleaner debt and then settle down to watch the men’s semi finals at the Paris open tennis. Its not hugely inspiring so I draft the blog as I wait for the Tesco order to arrive.

Today is yet another rest day. It feels like I am not recovering as I thought I might on a reduced chemo dosage. It is disappointing but I have no other option but to keep going. I cannot see my going for another cycle unless there is a a big decrease in my PSA as a result of the current cycle. It seems to me that my next move is to get some Quality of Life for as long as possible.

Today the England women’s football team play Spain in a world cup qualifier, so my evening is taken care of. In the meantime I continue to wait for Tesco and for the garden guy to turn up and begin to tidy up the garden, probably by mowing the lawns and doing some weeding. So there will be a burst of activity and then I shall retreat back to my resting.

Well Tesco turned up but the garden guy did not. As for the England football team, they got their arses handed to them with a four nil defeat. I close the evening with my meds and a relatively early night.

Thursday. I wake tired, my partner and eldest daughter already out of the house. I go through my morning rituals and take my vitals. I try to take stock of how I am, my conclusion is that I am not in the best condition. I scribble a poem that reflects this assessment.

536
There is nothing to say
beyond the desert
of defeat.
Crushed by chemo,
ground by toxicity
I lay alone, desperate,
for in this instant
I can see no glimmer
of me in the future
with energy.
Quality of life 
is not in my grasp
but an idea waved
at me by caring medics.
I am suspended,
a strange fruit
neither fallen
nor ripened,
waiting to be
harvested. 

					536 04-06-2026

I check my vitals, they are okay but my heart rate persists a little high. I take a shower while I feel I have the energy to do so and then make a late breakfast. With food inside me I settle down on the sofa and start to draft an email in response to a poetry stanza discussion. I eventually get a draft done and sent. My partner returns home and is happy that some of the issues related to her mother have been sorted as a preferred care home is going to take her early next week.

The afternoon is full of women’s semi final tennis as I rest and see if the paracetamol helps. The paracetamol sees me through the Paris semi finals and into the evening. The family eat tea together and I then order a Tesco delivery for tomorrow. With that done I spend time down loading a new channel onto the TV so that I can watch the new Brokenwood Mystery series. I check the poetry stanza discussion that is going on and note that it seems a poetry celebration at Christmas looks like a popular option. At the end of the evening I take my meds and head for bed.

Wednesday and its been a crap day. I managed to mend and refit a toilet seat, which induced an hour and a half nap. For the rest of the day I did nothing but rest as any activity just brought me to a stand still, or more accurately a sit still. So at the end of the day its meds and bed for me. I’m getting fed up with this Cycle of chemo.

Tuesday and after a reasonable nights sleep I surface and do my early morning checks. I am instantly aware that I am fatigued as I check my messages and news feeds. I check my vitals, which remain stable despite the slightly elevated heart rate. My partner goes to the gym to do aqua aerobics and I make breakfast. As I am late up I go for pizza for breakfast. Having eaten I set about filing my drugs dosettes. It takes more time than usual as the neuropathy in my fingers slows the opening of the pill packets, however I get it done. Because I have delayed the current cycle I am short of one of the steroids I take. I will have about five days short, which I shall either tolerate or get some more if I can face the faff of doig so.

Very little happens after this activity as all I feel able to do is rest and listen to episodes of Just a Minute. The postman delivers my oncology letters, which I file before my partner returns for lunch. It is not long before she is off to see her mother in hospital with her brother. She has a busy schedule as she and her brother are also going to look at another care home. From there she is picking up a friend to go for a meal this evening. On checking my emails I found one from a poetry competition that I had entered. Of course I had not one, in fact I did not even make the “long list”. It is abundantly clear that my poetry is not acceptable and is not in any way aligned with the poetry mainstream or in fact any stream of poetry. Clearly giving poems numbers and regarding tittles as a sign of failure severely hampers my poems ever being competitive. Perhaps the bottom line is that my poetry is just crap, which is not inconceivable. I note that another poetry magazine is open for submissions so I might try and write something for it outside my current series for The Rechallenge collection.

I nibble my way through the afternoon and type odd notes and ideas but nothing coalesces. I am not sure I am functioning well enough to generate anything of interest. I continue to jot stuff and then turn to the blog to daft. A friend rings me as she is out and about doing chores before returning home to do the family tea. I enjoy chatting about our families and what we are currently doing. My evening looms into view. I shall be watching a football match this evening and once again heading for my evening meds and the hope of a good nights sleep.

Monday the first day of June and I wake up feeling decidedly shaky. I check my messages, emails and news feeds before I take my vitals. My vitals are more or less okay but my heart rate is still elevated. Having listened to Ten to the Top I finally get up and get breakfast hoping to be able to get into the garden but it becomes very obvious that I do not have the energy to do so. I eat breakfast and then spend time ruling up my daily journal. I listen to several radio comedy shows and try to relax. My partner finally returned from the gym. The next door neighbour calls in and tells us that the people we use to do our hedges is coming to do them on the first of July. It is an arrangement that we have our neighbours so that the hedges of the gardens get done together and means the team can work in both gardens at the same time. Its an arrangement that seems to work well over the summer.

I spend quite a lot of time thinking about what sort of cover design I want for the next poetry collection. I research some images and eventually decide that I like the idea of a café with a neon sign that says PSA. The obvious image that comes to mind is Hopwood’s Nighthawks. An amazing painting but captures the kind of surreal feel I like.

At lunchtime I go for the luxury of melon and ham in the hope that I will be able to taste something, however what I experienced was the chill of the melon. I start to draft the blog while listening to more radio shows. Of course the Paris open tennis is available alongside reading and writing, so my afternoon passes interrupted by the occasional unintentional nap. I poem sums up my day so far.

535
Shaky 
not a good way to start the day.
My head is at odds 
with my body,
so much to do 
and so little resource 
to be doing it with.
Its rest or collapse,
submit or crash.
So this is me being 
over optimistic,
feeling bad that 
I cannot contribute
beyond survival
tasks.
So I sit 
and wait 
feeling
guilt.

							535 01-06-2026

By the evening I eat tea and watch almost all the last episodes of Bay of Fires before taking my meds, finishing the blog and finally going to bed. I am hoping that tomorrow I begin to feel some relief from the chemo fatigue and at least a little less shaky.

Sunday and I wake up at a reasonable time and check my vitals and my messages. I get up and make breakfast and go out onto the patio to eat in the fresh air. I do the days crosswords and then find I am unexpectedly chilled so I retreat to the sofa. There I work on getting my next poetry collection on its way, so I sign off on the contract letter and pay my 50% deposit for my editing and publishing services. After a couple of goes I manage to get the right zip files to send and then follow it up with some more parts of the full manuscript. My partner returns from visiting her mother in hospital with her brother and we have lunch. I am feeling fatigued as usual after starting a new chemo cycle and everything I do is slow and needs to be checked as I discovered when I found I had no orange Lucozade in the shopping.

One of the effects of my chemo treatment is a mild neuropathy of my fingers and hands which, when I write with a pen or ball point means I write like an old person in a shaky hand. What I see appear on the page is definitely not me. Its like looking in a mirror and seeing someone different. The reality is that when I look in the mirror now I do not see anything that is remotely like me in my head. I have a steroid induced football head. I look like a Francis Bacon self portrait or from one of his Three Figures at the Foot of the Cross, but more like a self portrait. Does nothing for my self esteem and in a way I look forward to ending the rechallenge just to see if my face and head ever go back to anything I recognise as being me. Maybe its all just vanity but it is a very disconcerting to know that a version of the self is out there in the world that you no longer recognise or like. I feel like a pig on which lipstick would make no difference , certainly no incentive to dress up, clothes can look cool but not this face. It resembles a fictional ageing criminal from some Balzac or Dickens novel.

My hope is that once off the chemo my hair will return and my jowls recede, energy flow and I become able to train properly once again. For now I content myself with resting, getting through the chemo rechallenge and looking forward to the world cup. Right now I am going to watch the women’s FA cup final in the hopes that Brighton win.

Brighton lose, Leicester Tigers lose at rugby, the athletics are poor. The family eat tea and I watch more Bay of Fires before taking my meds and finishing the days blog, go to bed hoping that I get some sleep and feel better tomorrow and up to doing some activity in the garden. Of course I’ve now lost my sense of taste again thanks to the chemo, so its back to eating flannel and lint.

Friday and its Cycle 8 day. I take time to get up and prepare for the trip to the oncology clinic. So I spend my morning having breakfast, taking my meds with the added steroids. The morning goes by until its time to book an Uber to the hospital. I am in my lightest shirt and shorts as the weather is still hot. My partner and I get dropped off at the car park entrance which is considerably nearer to the clinic than our usual drop off point.

We pick up strawberries and cherries from the fruit stall at the hospital before I book in. I am about half an hour early but it is forty five minutes after my appointment time before I get called in. I am put in bay 1, and I do not recognise anyone on the staff or any of the fellow cancer club members. A nurse puts in my cannula and administers my pre-meds once she has checked my raised heart rate is acceptable with the on duty doctor. My chemo is reduced by about 25% but still takes a full hour to infuse. My session comes to an end after which I rej-oin my partner and we go to get another Uber home. It turns out that I have dropped one of my card cases, not the bank card case, in the Uber. The driver contacts me and lets me know he has found it and we make an arrangement for him to drop it off tomorrow.

Once home tea is eaten on the patio and then I watch TV until its time to take my meds and get myself to bed. I can feel that my body is beginning to react to the huge amount of dugs that I’ve got inside me. I just hope that I get some reasonable sleep tonight.

Saturday and I wake up feeling decidedly chemo’d. I am fatigued and my gut is off badly. I take my vitals and set up my records for cycle 8. My partner and her brother have gone to see their mother in hospital and then onto look at a care home. I get up late morning and have pizza for breakfast and then settle into a day of TV rugby and football. Apart from a Tesco delivery and the Uber driver returning my card case I did nothing. I know what I want to do, mostly to do with the garden, I also need to move on my new poetry collection but first I need to get through the first flush of the Cycle 8. I get to the end of the evening and attempt to catch up with the blog. I inevitably get to drugs time and the wandering of to bed in the hope of sleep. At the edges of my mind I am aware that friends are playing golf, attending Pride, celebrating Eid and tending gardens and allotments. I am also turning over in my mind a poem based on something my partner said in the oncology clinic waiting area. When I asked if she had seen any of the usual people we see on a Friday she noted that because my cycle was delayed a week none of the usual people where this week. At which point she said “I don’t expect I’ll see them again”. It is a haunting phrase that strikes a cord with me. A sense of temporary community and the unquestioned loss of people and the temporary joining of others. I am interested to see if these senses turn into an actual poem.

Thursday arrives after a night of spectacular thunder storms, which kept me awake for a part of the night. I go through my rising rituals and eventually get up to make breakfast and take my medication. After yesterdays oncology review and decisions made there I add my pre chemo steroids to todays medications. Deciding to go for cycle 8 now feels a bigger decision than it did yesterday. While my partner visits her brother to sort out future care for their mother I start to draft the blog for the day and include a poem that comes to me.

534
It’s alright to sound confident
as I make the decision to 
go for cycle 8
with reduced dosage.
A day later I’m not so cocksure.
I start the extra steroids
to protect me
and with them come the doubts.
In my head at the time
my reasons and logic were impeccable.
Now I’m not so sure, 
as I face the reality of post chemo 
toxicity and fatigue I waver. 
Part of me longs to stop,
to rest and see if my PSA 
will rise or fall. 
I crave rest,
a period of my particular normality 
and maybe a little recovery.
For today I have to live 
with my chosen option
and tomorrow watch the drugs
drip into my veins 
and hope my belief 
in logic and reason
are well founded.
It is my act of faith
in science and myself.

						534 28-05-2026

I stop writing and get on with my to do list for the day, which incudes unloading yesterdays compost buy from the boot of the car. I am already thinking about tomorrows trip to the oncology clinic and wondering if I can get an Uber to drop me closer so I do not have to walk so far through the hospital to get to my chemo session.

At lunchtime I am joined by my partner who then goes off with her brother to look at a possible care home for their mother. I have lunch and spend time in the garden taking photos of the amazing peonies and the roses that are coming out.

I’ve never seen the peonies look so good. This recent sunny weather is bringing the best from the garden including a crop of rogue foxgloves, which the bees love, and some giant weeds. As Cicero said ” All a man needs is a library and a garden”, I have both and I am therefore blessed. In fact I am doubly blessed, I know I am loved and cared about, what more could a chap want?

My evening will see a meal eaten and then probably TV to keep my mind from tomorrows chemo. The closer it gets the more anxious I get but I cling to the belief that my reasoning was and is good, so I will do cycle 8 and then see what new data there is before doing anything else.