CHEMO II DAY 14

Fight a bloody fight.

Having gone to bed early I wake in the same bed on this Friday morning. Its quite late so I take myself into the spare room and do a set of vitals (all good as usual). Time for breakfast and then there is more work to be done on the family tree documents. As I work away my new certificate binder appears and so I set to filling it. I have all sorts of death, birth and marriage certificates to file and to interrogate. Its a fruitful exercise as I discover that I have a not so distant relative who was a “zoological gardens porter”. I’m chuffed to find a zoo keeper in the family. I have lunch with my partner on the patio.

Post lunch I get messages and an email about the house in London. The estate agents have noticed the boiler is leaking. The agents are getting someone in to see it is secured an the estate will have to foot the bill. At least they are showing people round it after it being on the market for two days. I return to the family tree and email one branch of he family and tell them what I am doing and request missing information. I am soon getting enthusiastic responses and new data. By the end of the afternoon I am data full adn drive my partner to the hairdresser attached to the gym. I take the opportunity to pop in to the gym and do an hours session on the cross trainer. As sessions go it is okay.

600+ calories over 7+ kilometres, that’s good.

I go to the changing rooms and shower and then to the lounge for a hot chocolate and triple choc cookie while I wait for my partner to emerge from the hairdressers. I go for a piss and find I got blood in my urine again. I just can’t win. Either I stop training and do not mitigate the chemo side effects or I continue and risk occasionally passing blood, which may not be so bad as it does not persist, its just distressing, which can be coped with as well. After all Muhmmed Ali pissed blood for a week after his rumble in the jungle. Me not being a prize fighter, just an ordinary Jo trying to stay fit am not prepared for such outcomes. I drive my partner to the chippy and then home for a Friday night chippy supper. We watch a new TV series until my partner goes to bed when I watch Artic Monkeys at Glastonbury while drafting the blog. I down my night drugs and go to bed having written my to do list and packing list for the coming holiday.

Through it all there is another tomorrow

CHEMO II DAY 13

Fight, and then again.

Thursday and for a change I wake up in the same bed as I went to sleep in. I get up and have breakfast before putting my washing in and checking my mail and messages. In a moment of positivity and thinking about holiday I order new trainer socks. Its a tradition, I buy new holiday socks and my partner steals them on holiday. This year I am prepared. Business down I go to the Shed where I settle down and write letters till late morning. I begin to feel a bit off so retreat to the house for a drink and a fat rascal. The post arrives and turns out to be a letter from a friend and two letters to the GP from the radiology oncologist explaining to my consultant and my GP why I cannot have radiotherapy. Life has obviously moved on by now. I am about to return to the Shed when my eldest daughter brings in another parcel from the porch. It is a box of Betty’s Fat Rascals. It has a note to say it is an early birthday present but no indication of who has sent them. So if you are reading this, Thank You very much, they are greatly appreciated.

I return to the Shed and continue to write my letters. I finish my letters and then close the Shed up and have lunch. My letters get posted and I pick up more stamps. I am cutting it a bit fine as I am due to be at the chiropodist. I drive off to my appointment conscious that the skies are darkening and threatening, my thoughts are about the washing that I hung out earlier. Arriving at the chiropodist’s I am soon sitting with my feet in a warm solution chatting to the foot angel. She scrapes, clips, buffs and lotions my feet, which makes them sing and I bounce out on feet that are holiday ready . I drive home quickly for fear of the rain but I am relieved to find my partner has taken it all in before the rain can start. I feed the squirrels and then take time to measure my vitals. Once again I am normal, healthy in fact. I read through some more documents from my sisters estate. There is one item that I share with you. At the catastrophic 60’s comprehensive that I went we had to write a post card to ourselves with the O level subjects we were taking and on what exam board. The results were then written on it and sent to you. Mine was sitting in the box I was sorting through. Its a measure of how being dyslexic just was not recognised, so I failed miserably.

Believe it or not the comprehensive was so desperate to have a six form that they let me stay another two years to do physics and chemistry A level. I didn’t get those either but I did get an English O level resit along the way. I suspect staying in that school for an additional two years kept me out of trouble with the law. I’m touched that my mother kept the evidence of my thickness, and probably the disappointment. I am called to tea and eat my Thursday tuna pasta and melon and then head for the sofa to draft the blog. My partner has her singing lesson tonight so I expect I’ll find something to occupy me. I did take a couple more pictures of some of the amazing flowers that are out in the garden.

This strange flower is a rarity

I slide into the evening aware that I have not trained and know I have not got the spoons to do so. So this evening will be a time of being kind to my self. This will have to be enough for this day. Actually I end up filling my dugs wallets for the next two weeks, abandon watching something about a child in a family who has some chromosome defect, which is unremittingly miserable despite the witty script, at times, take my meds and go to bed to try and read. I’m tired and irritable, but my feet are happy.

Waves are waves, dark or light.

CHEMO II DAY 12

Fight, hard, fast and continually.

Wednesday and I struggle to the surface after another disrupted nights sleep. Once again my Fitbit thinks I have had two hours less sleep than I thought. I do my vitals, go and have breakfast and then potter around doing things like bringing in bins. Some stuff arrives to help me archive the family so I squirrel away my grandfathers medals and regimental insignia. I also put all the house documents that span the time from acquiring the land for the building to the acquisition of the property by my parents. The post man arrives and I have a parcel. It is a double present from my friend who has made me a T shirt for my rearmament and Chemo II phases, which I can open, and something for my birthday. I of course immediately open my “now” present and try it on. It lovely and I message my friend to thank her. The dark waves are appropriate but also contain beauty. I like it a lot.

Waves in the deep

I get myself ready and drive off to the gym. I find my usual spot in the changing room taken so use another more exposed locker. Up on the gym floor I grab a cross trainer and set up an hours session. With Ramstein loud I get under way. It goes reasonably well and I burn over 600+ calories.

Not bad

After a shower I sit in the lounge with a hot chocolate adn order a certificate folder for my continuing document organisation. I drive home and sit on the garden swing seat chatting to my partner. She goes off to make tea and I do some weeding and tidying. The family eat late and I slink off to do my vitals before watching the Great British Sewing Bee. The evening ends as my family drift off to bed and I take my night drugs and draft the blog. The night has become a tricky time for me at the moment as I am not sure that I can reliably sleep. Its a strange feeling.

Waves upon waves

CHEMO II DAY 11

Fight, rage against the invader

Tuesday, I wake up in the spare bed again, the night sweats are grim. They wake me in the night and I swap bedrooms in an attempt to get cool and get back to sleep. I wake up tired and I am beginning to think that there is an element of drug side effect in this tiredness. My vitals get done and they are all normal. I get up and do a muesli break fast. I miss coffee and lemon squash is getting boring and not satisfying at all. With the “stay alives” done I settle down to go through packets of old photographs and put them into new pocket files so the backs can be read easily. I spend all morning doing this filing and sorting until my partner presents me with a roll and grapes.

Post lunch I move my car and put the bins out for tomorrow and then its back to filing photos. I finally run out of files. Its mid afternoon so time for another set of vitals, again they are normal. I’m feeling very fatigued but in a real effort I get into my training kit and go to the garage. I set the rower up for an hour and start off very slowly feeling crap. The first half hour is really tough but just as I am getting into my stride my partner nudges me with a phone telling me its the solicitor. I am not pleased. I stop rowing and talk to the solicitor and in the end tell her exactly what price to put on the London house and quiz her about other aspects of the estate. She goes and by the time I get back to the rower I have lost my session data. I reset the rower for half an hour and start again. I get to the end sweaty and aching. In total I have done 65 minutes and I calculate I have burnt 800+ calories and rowed at least 12.8 kilometres. I towel down and return to the house take paracetamol and change my clothes. Tea is served, eaten and then I retreat to the sofa to draft the blog. My evening will be short hopefully, TV, night meds and bed. If I can raise the energy I will go to the gym tomorrow and do more document filing and preservation. This new drug is taking its toll subtly through feelings of tiredness and listlessness, at least I hope it is the drugs.

Increasingly the former.

CHEMO II DAY 10

Fight, full in the face.

Monday and I wake up about 9 o’clock after an interrupted night, feeling listless. It the anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. Four years ago I was delivered the message and I started my journey to chemotherapy and beyond till here I still am in Chemo II. I get up have breakfast and feel spoonless but there is meds admin to be done. I make an appointment to have my bloods done before going on holiday so that the results are available for my oncology phone appointment on the 6th of July while on holiday. Something to look forward to on my birthday on holiday. I continue to contact the oncologist’s secretary to see if I can get a repeat early prescription for my new meds. She promises to talk to him and ring me back. She does and the answer is I am going to have to go without my new meds for a week. I suspected that might be the answer as the oncologist will need to see my blood results and know my blood pressure results from my monitoring before signing off my prescription. At between £2500 and £3000 a pop for 28 days I am not surprised there is a lot of caution and paperwork.

I go to the Shed to write letters. Its a while since I have been in the Shed and I notice somethings appear to have been moved. I remember that the door was left open one hot night so I suspect the squirrel and possibly a cat, or both, have been in for a look around. I write until a friend rings me and we have a long chat about how we are and what is going on for us. Recovering from long COVID is indeed a long haul as there are so many different skill sets that need to be brought back to a working level. Organisations seem to forget that recovering people also have families to provide for and to nurture, they do not just go to work and then sleep. So my friend is persisting in building up her skills across the board at a rate tat is sustainable, which of course is never fast enough for an organisation as they want everything now. My friend goes off to eat and hopes I enjoy my birthday and rearmament presents she has sent me. My partner gives my a lunch roll and I continue to write letters. By two thirty I am flagging so pack up the Shed and return to the house and reload the garden camera with batteries and return it to the garden. I go to the post box and return to do my afternoon vitals. I do them , all normal and fall asleep. This is definitely a low spoon day. I am woken by the Tesco deliver at five o’clock. Luckily I had moved my car off the drive earlier. I had intended to train but I just could not raise the energy to do so. Its a real double blind on these days when I have no energy. Training is supposed to be the best thing to reduce the side effects of the drugs, but the major side effect is feelings of tiredness. You can see the catch 22 in this. I decide that I shall train tomorrow and go for a good nights sleep tonight if I can get it.

I sofa my self with my laptop and start to draft the blog before tea. I shall dine and then watch England play North Macedonia in the European Qualifiers. (7-0). I get side tracked some how an order a solar power pack/charger. I have vague thoughts of making sure that on holiday I can be sure to power my phone and laptop cheaply, no point in having sunshine if it doesn’t do chores for me. I am also looking for ways to reduce our electricity usage. I note we have a lot of things on standby so I might try an experiment in July and turn off everything on standby to see if it actually makes any difference. But for now its a slow journey towards my night meds and oblivion.

I wonder what an average person is?

CHEMO II DAY 9

Fight and struggle always

Sunday and yet again I wake early and cannot settle. Eventually I get through my routine of messages and emails followed by taking my vitals. We have breakfast and have a long face to face call with our youngest daughter. She is now at the stage of needing to rest as much as possible until she has her child in July.

Its time to go to the gym. I drive my partner there and we get up to the gym floor. I grab a cross trainer and set myself up for an hours session. I plug Rammstein into my ears and set off sipping water as I go. By the end of the session I am 600+ calories less.

Sunday session, a Fathers Day session

I change, shower and head for the lounge and a hot chocolate. My partner joins me and we drive home to indulge in fat rascals on the patio. I take photos of some of the flowers that are flourishing in my garden. I am ever in awe of how nature just keeps going and producing spontaneous beauty.

The afternoon vitals need to be done so I get myself comfortable in the spare room and promptly nap. When I come round my vitals are fine and its time to eat tea. Football and chocolate follow into a evening of increasing fatigue and failing concentration. I enter my late evening sense of effort and waning cognitive capacity. It would seem that my spoon economy is feeling the effects of all the competing demands at the moment. I take my meds and vaguely make a to do list for tomorrow which I hope my pixies will hold onto till the morning. PS, delayed publishing due to server being down. That’s American servers for you.

Swim deep

CHEMO II DAY 8

Fight, rugged.

Saturday, at last I last a full night in the same bed. I wake and go through my usual messages routine and then make my partner a drink.. There is time for a shower , checking my vitals and then breakfast. I decide which poem I am taking to the Stanza in the afternoon and run of the hard copies. My partner and eldest daughter both go out and I soon follow.

At the Stanza my poem goes down okay and there are some interesting poems to hear and discuss. I am glad I made the effort, it feels like I fed myself. I drive home to an evening meal followed by a lot of British Sewing Bee and Glow Up make up competition. I take my night meds and draft the blog and go to bed, feeling slightly apprehensive.

Deep down the ocean holds

CHEMO II DAY 7

Fight hard, fight to win.

Friday, I wake early from another nights crap sleep or lack of it. I do a set of vitals, check my messages and mail and then go for breakfast. There is more death admin to do which takes a while. I type up a poem and think about which one, if any, I am going to take to the Poetry Stanza tomorrow. There are three I am considering, they are as follows:

1.
I quit!
Says it all.
I resign
From everything.
No more
Of anything.
No effort
for no act.
I’m done, 
dusted down
to a skeleton,
and then the fucker
interrupts with pain killers.
What’s in it for me?
Peaceful death
is apparently not
an option.
So, 
Grind
Grind
On
and
On.
2.
Too sore for Peaky Blinders a sonnet 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck 
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck Cancer.

(Instruction for reading: Add your own commas and full stops. Only comas and full stops everything else is too fancy)
3.
Settle down you’ve seen a pensioner in a suit before.
Maybe not vertical,
more wood encased on a rainy afternoon
with a lot of people looking into a hole
and wishing it was all over.
Except that no matter how hard you try, 
you cannot help thinking,
“Did he leave me anything ? Am I in the will?”
I’m just getting my monies worth out of mine 
before an unsuspecting stranger grabs it 
as a bargain from Sod the Aged.

I hate old people,
Why cannot they all die tragically young?
Why do they hang on till everyone is guilt ridden,
thinking it would be a relief when they go?
Yes yes a couple of you love nanna
but what a pain she is.
How many times has she buried 
her teeth in the garden?

It’s a tricky decision and a decision I am likely to make at the last moment in the morning. I was going to go to the gym but my partner is taking the afternoon off so I head to the garage to do half an hour on the rower. As its only a half hour I put the resistance level up a notch. It is hard work but I get my distance and calorie goals.

6+ kilometres and 400+ calories

Session over I change and record the session and then my partner and I drive to a nearby coffee shop and have lunch and an ice cream. It affords us time to chat, take stock and plan. The sun is out and it is pleasant to have time to reflect. We drive back where my partner relaxes and I get on with the final version of the family tree. The label I had been waiting for have arrived so I transfer the data on to them and put them onto the chart. With all the names in place with what dates I have I begin to draw the lines between the generations. Its tricky stuff and as an amateur I am sure I will have made some technical mistakes. Eventually I get it done, at last a family tree that I can get other family members to fill in their details. It would appear that my maternal grandmother, who was in service, got pregnant and was then taken in by her aunt and husband, which explains why as a child I knew her by two different surnames. Just as I finish the tree its time for pizza on the patio.

I go from pizza to sofa to watch England beat Malta and then catch up with Have I Got News For You. My family go to bed leaving me to draft the blog for the day. I do this with a Few Dollars More playing in the background and my new air collar cooling me.

Always by water there is rest.

CHEMO II DAY 6

Fight and keep on no matter what

Thursday and I wake again in the spare bed after a disrupted night again. I’m beginning to wonder when I am going to sleep well again. I get up after doing a set of vitals for breakfast. I send the agreed letter to the solicitor dealing with my sister’s estate. That done I set about cleaning out the laundry area. When I have mopped through I then paint the drain surround I was working on yesterday.

No tripping over it now!

Somehow the morning is gone, I eat soup and watch a short programme on Messi and the world cup. I then spend a long time sorting out the family tree from my sisters information. I find that the data has been drawn up wrong, so I have to re do the chart to get the people on the right generation level. After a couple of hours I think I finally have it. The next step is to try and confirm the dates of birth so there is a lot of documents and photos to look at. I take my second set of vitals for the day and then go to the garage to row for an hour. It goes okay and I burn 800+ calories.

Yes that will do, what other 75 year olds do this?

I’m tired, I think my new drugs are taking their toll. I record my session eat tea and then water the garden before whiling the evening away with a film and Grimm. I’ve just read this blog and wonder if these drugs are doing other things to me. Lets face it, its boring, I’m pottering around and not feeding my brain. I think I am tired of myself so I shall take my meds and go to bed and see if sleep comes along. Perhaps the struggle is more insidious than I expected.

CHEMO II DAY 5

Fight, and keep it going.

Wednesday and I wake again after a poor nights sleep. So I go through my new routine of doing my SATs and checking my mail and messages and then its time for breakfast. I settle down to write a draft letter to the solicitors dealing with my sisters estate. I send it to my co executors. Its sunny while I bring in my washing and get it away. Once my partner had gone to see her mother I head for the nearest garden centre with my eldest daughter who is in holiday. We gather up bags of compost and some fresh herb plants. I also get some plants to try in the flower bed which is proving difficult to plant. Once home I set to and and get the new additions into the ground. It takes a long time in the heat adn by the end of it I need to take a quiet time out and rest. I do this by taking a set of SATs and taking in the reflections.

My partner returns with her brother and we talk about the making of a family tree. I show him the work I had done on my own. He leaves and I go to the garage to train. I do not feel like it but this is now my only medicine that I can control and contribute. The garage is hot as I strap in for a 45 minute session. It goes okay, I make 9+ kilometres and burn 600+ calories, so I guess it is reasonable.

Being an oaf I kept the wrong photo but the kilometres are there.

I get out of my sweaty togs and record the session before having tea. My partner presents me with a surprise present. Something I have never seen before, a scarf fan! Apparently one of my partners staff recommended it as a wizard way of cooling down. I was sceptical but it is in fact brilliant. It has three speeds and does in fact cool effectively. Its really handy to combat my hot flushes. So here I am with my new useful toy.

It look odd but works a treat.

So my evening is spent wearing my new comfort and pawing over the family tree. It turns out that the work my sister had down in drawing up a family tree is not totally accurate. Some generations are on the wrong level and the dates of birth do not tally. So I spend a great deal of time trying to get things in order. I think I finally get there on the data that I have but it is clear I am going to need to do more research on all the papers that have been retrieved from my sisters house. So at the moment I have a lot of small sticky labels on a a chart as I try to work out the best layout on what I know to date.

It seems this is going to be trickier than I thought.

I flog away all evening and in the end get to a point where I can do no more. Over the coming days and weeks I will need to do a lot of research to get a final and accurate version of the history. I pack things away and return to the lounge to find the family on their way to bed so I am left alone to draft the blog for today. I take my meds and then make my way to bed. Its been a strange day in several way but as I beaver away at mending, making good, tending and nurturing garden and training I fear I have neglected friends who I owe letters to, so I hope for time in the Shed to write and to “chat” with them.

A peaceful night.