Monday and I shall try the video experiment again. I think I may have a problem with the size of video that the website will take as a down load from my system so I might have to try putting it on my YouTube channel and then pasting in the URL for it into a YouTube block on the blog. So here goes!

I am so chuffed to have found a way round the video size restriction on the web site. I have no idea about the technology that allows this to happen, I am just happy that it works.

Sunday and it’s a lazy day. I have slept well but I wake to an aching hand. My partner brings me hot water to drink before getting up to breakfast. Breakfast is very welcome but this Sunday I have additional antibiotics and pain killers to add to the usual intake to care for my recent hand operation. I have just finished eating and dosing when I get a 48 hour follow up call from the hospital. The nurse asks if my wounds is okay, to which I reply that I have no idea as it is under layers of bandages and plaster, they are not blood soaked so I assume all is well. She asks aboand ut DVTs, and I explain I am back on my prophylactic blood thinners, seems to please her. She also seems pleased that I am able to manage the post op pain with paracetamol rather than the Codeine they sent me home with. She said it all sounded good and left me to my day.

I get fully dressed and feel I ought to do something but I am feeling “off it” and drowsy from the mixture of medication and just want to sit quietly, which is what I do but before long I start to draft the blog. I find a fragment of a poem from the hospital day.

432
My time has come and gone
last words become penultimate
and I begin to flag.
I read, I've ordered books,
my friends have received messages
but now I find few spoons
to keep my spirits up.
My stomach protests
and growls it's disapproval,
Knock knock
and suddenly its all
action.

My day goes fast and I run out of energy. I prepare for tomorrows 28 day jab. The need to keep my fighting routine going while recovering from my hand operation is just another juggle, but it means the the next couple days are going to be rough. At least I take the last of the antibiotics tonight, so its onwards, and ever forwards.

Saturday 1st February, I might try an experiment.

Well it worked, so I’ve found a way through my current one handedness. I clearly had not been to make up or prepared a script but the techno works. In future I will attempt to be more David Sedaris like, but right now its time for my next bout of pain killers. I have a busy week ahead as Monday is 28 day injection day, I also see the post operation hand therapist and have tickets for Motionhouse’s premier of Hidden at Warwick Arts Centre, so there should be enough to chat about.

Welcome to my one hand blog. For a little while I will not have the use of my right hand, so the blog maybe shorter than usual and more visual until I find other means to produce it. At the moment it is a one handed adventure.

Thursday the 30th of January is hand operation day. I wake up and prepare for the day, shower first then the only thing I am allowed, water! My partner kindly drives me to the hospital where I am booked in and then shown to my room. My lead nurse comes to see me and leaves me to get into hospital gown and those delicious black net hospital pants. She returns to take my vitals and tells me what the day is going to be like and then leaves me to settle in, I’m clearly going to here a while so I read my clinical notes that have been left in the room. My pre operation bloods, mrsa and ECG were all good and normal for me. I hunker down and read Harry Martinson’s Chickweed Wintergreen a poetry collection, having ordered my post operation cheese and pickle sandwich.

At abut half twelve I am visited by the surgeon and the anaesthetist who give me the once over and tell me I will not be in theatre until 3:30pm, so I have a long wait. The surgeon marks me up so everyone knows which bit of me they are working on, which is a good thing!

So I have hours to kill, I continue to read until I inevitably need to write so I dig out a small notebook, which was a present from a friend some time ago, and started to write. Of course I ended up with poem.

431
For a while this is the last I write
with my trusty right hand,
this pen this ink.
I await the surgeons scalpel
to release my curling finger
from its genetic bent
sent by Viking heritage.

I sit and wait in my hospital
underwear and gown,
wrapped in dragons and bamboo,
my legs swathed like a Chines emperor,
reading poetry to pass the time
before the show begins.

No knockout drops or gas and air
but ultrasonic blocking of my nerves.
I'll be awake and a spectator,
my surgeon says we can chat,
I am not sure about that.

Will my undergrad dissection days
stand me in good stead
or will I look away
and vaguely wish I were dead?

That's progress you see,
or is it?
Perhaps it's just cheaper, low cost,
means bigger margins for holidays
and fast cars.
It's plain to see I am a commodity.

So I write to bridge the gap
and cherish my dexterity,
appreciate the feel of writing,
every pressure, measured symbol
as brain tries to capture
what is about to happen to me.

I'm hungry, no food or drink
since before I last slept,
a mini Ramadan,
to make me reflect.

So here I am writing this
as the distant sounds of hospital
murmur in the background,
like a spring coming to the surface
to find a brook to follow
and flow onwards.

They will come for me, theatre time,
my turn to play my part,
the centre piece of artistry.
My chance to shine, be brave,
a model patient, my Olivier 
moment, a Golden Globe at least.

While idling away I read my notes
and found comfort. 
It all looked comfortably familiar
to the ones I'd seen before.
Mr Dependable, Mr Everythingisfine,
except of course its not.
No one mentions the cancer.

Suddenly I am taken by surprise,
someone brings me water,
a measured amount with a straw,
"sip it" she says reading my mind
about the straw being redundant.

So on it goes with hours to wait,
I return to my Swedish collection
of Chickweed Wintergreen
to comfort me.

These are my last hand written lines,
not profound but comforting.
I already miss this feeling,
the pen ,the ink, the stream
meandering from brain to page.

Knock, Knock, its show time,
I am ready for my close up
Mr DeMille..

                                                                          431 30-01-2025
                                                                          Nuffield Hospital Leicester.

Late afternoon I am taken to theatre where my right arm has its nerves blocked and I am wheeled in to theatre where the surgeon and his team set to work while I lay awake staring at the white ceiling only glancing now and then at the small distorted reflection in the theatre lights of the surgeon at work. My arm is an alien limb that I cannot feel or have control over, which the assistant surgeon forgets. When she lifts my arm to remove the operation clutter she let go of it so that I hit myself on the head with the newly applied plaster cast on my arm. A moment of humour and then I am in recovery. I do not stay long before I am back in my room eating my pre ordered sandwich and facing getting dressed.

My partner arrives to take me home but we have to wait for antibiotics, pain killers and a discharge letter. My nurse duly delivers and we leave. I am flagging now and desperately hungry so on the way home I order an Indian takeaway. I am only just home when the meal arrives and I quickly tuck in as I settle down on the recliner to watch TV. There are night meds, the usual, and antibiotics to take before I get to bed. Undressing took a while but I managed, then propped up on pillows endeavoured to sleep.

Friday, I wake in time to dress, everything baggy and pull on, and then let the electrician in to mend the kitchen light. A quick cash job and he is gone so I take my meds and have breakfast. I discovered two things; 1 I cannot open a fresh bottle of orange juice one handed (partner to the rescue), 2 it difficult to get peanut butter out of a jar one handed. Having eaten I start to draft the blog, slowly with one hand, which brings me to lunch time, were I will stop. My hand is now fully thawed out from yesterday and is very sore, but I am resisting pain killers, but I do not think I will last long.

Wednesday and the Chinese New Year, the year of the Snake arrives and I wake up to the sound of the Builder Badgers finishing the block paving outside. I take my vitals and get up and into my training kit, although I will not train till later. I make the badgers a coffee and go and chat to them, they reckon they will be off in about an hours time, job done. While they are finishing off I have breakfast and check messages and socials and make the all important pre hospital check list for tomorrow.

The badgers finish their work and I go out for the farewell chat. They have done a good job as they always do and they are a handy crew to keep hold of for future work and they have a useful network of tradesmen who have turned out to be good as well. They leave and I get on with replacing the worn insulation on the exterior overflow pipe from the heating system. Before being re-piped this pipe would freeze up and stop the boiler from functioning properly, once insulated it never froze again and the-system worked. The ravages of time had taken it toll so I replaced the major part of it encountering a huge garden spider who obviously likes the warm and most environment of the overflow outlet. All in all a productive morning.

I take a rest as I feel I am getting through my days allotted amount of spoons quite quickly and I have lots still to do. While I rest I start to draft the blog. This may well be my last two handed draft for a week or two as from tomorrow my right hand is going to be bandaged like a mitten leaving me to accomplish everything one handed. I am sure lots of people have experienced this but I have the feeling that it will be the obvious everyday things that will be the most difficult like showering, using the toilet and in my case rowing let alone other things like driving and getting dressed. So my future blogs maybe more pictorial for a while or very short due to my one handed typing and key board skills. It will be an adventure, all I have to do is survive the general anaesthetic.

Time to train. And train I do for an hour on the rower, just trying to make the most of the time I have. So I grind out an hour and it turns out to be a reasonable session as I manage to make 11+K and burn 700+calories.

With the training out of the way its time to do some chores and have lunch. Amongst the things I finally get done is to re-pot the “money plant” that I managed to “steal” two Christmas’s ago. Apparently we had to steal them because it is lucky. Where other’s plants have grown into vital plant mine has struggle in its tiny pot and even survived outside for a while. so while I have two hands I decided to give my plant a new environment. I hope my efforts bear fruit.

With the indoor gardening done I am changed and off out to collect my monthly drugs prescription, some cash and a newspaper, I am hoping that this will push up my PAI score. Once home its time to start packing for tomorrow. Of course once I have my hand in a mitten like bandage I will need something easy to get into and out of. Luckily I have a collection of ice hockey jerseys that will do the job nicely. I reread the pre op instructions and load up all I need, including entertainment options. Once I am happy that I have everything including the list of the crowns in my mouth for the anaesthetist I return to the blog and then to an evening meal, last before I go to the hospital tomorrow.

Now its all about relaxing, sleeping, drinking water and having a shower in the morning before getting an Uber to the adventure. So there maybe a break in the blog but I am hoping my creativity and adaptability will rise to the surface First things first be organised, have the operation, survive the general anaesthetic and get home. The rest will be another story. So I will see you(blog) all on the other side as the Jamaican nurses used to say as they waved me off after dialysis.

Tuesday and I wake to my partner leaving for work and the builder badgers arriving to put in more paving for a bin refuge. I take my vitals and get a nasty shock, my blood pressure is up. I spend time listening to meditation music and repeating my vitals measurements. I try to empty my mind and not indulge in an internal dialogue as I try to get my blood pressure down. After a few minutes I manage to get it down to 133 over 75. Its cleat that I must train today. If my raised blood pressure is a side effect of my cancer drugs I need to try and control it and as my oncologist keeps telling me exercise is the single most effective way of doing this. So I get up and get into my training gear.

There are of course things to do before I can train like having breakfast and taking my morning meds, which have been adapted to meet the needs of Thursdays operation. I make coffee for the builder badgers who are putting in the concrete base to house the block paving for a bin refuge. Its raining hard but they are persisting. By eleven o’clock the concrete is in and the badgers are packing up to leave as they have to let the concrete set over night before they can do anything else. It is at this point that I head for the garage and the rower. I am not feeling like training but it is an essential today, so I set up for a 45 minute session and get going. Its tough, I feel stiff and not on top of my game. Finally I get to the end of the session to find that my Fitbit has run out of power after the first 16 minutes so I wont get credited with the full amount of PAI points on my fitness App. As it turns out I go more than 9 kilometres and and burn over 600 calories so I am pleased with the outcome even if I am sweating profusely and feel knackered.

With training out of the way I have a shower and record the session in my journal. I take a walk down to the village shop and get a paper and some odds and ends before popping into the dentists. The receptionist is very good as I explain that I am being asked for the details of my dental work for Thursdays operation. Unfortunately my dentist was not available but she promised to talk to her and let me know if they could do it. Back home I rang the post operation therapist who explained to me what was going on and how much she charged. I booked an appointment for one week after the operation, so I am now all set up. I do todays crosswords and then set about drafting todays blog. Not until my partners friend and our house guest for the night appears do I stop to be host and make tea. Once my partner and friend have gone out to eat do I return to the blog. My dentist has come up trumps with the information I need for Thursday so I settle in for the evening.

I have realised now that I have one day of training left before my operation and then I may not be able to drive or row for a while, so I am going to have to think about what I am going to do and how I am going to do it for the next couple weeks when I can get some use of my hand back. Looks like I might be going to the gym to sit on a bike or walk on a treadmill. The blog is going to take longer as it will have to be a left handed type fest and letters will also take longer. So I hope anyone that comes to the blog will forgive the more dyslexic look to it than usual. So tonight I wait for Tesco on my own and think about things while nibbling panettone. Ultimately it will be more adapted night meds and bed. Tomorrow is train and pack day.

Monday and I wake to my partner leaving the house to visit her mother, the builder badgers sawing paving blocks and the thumping of bricks into the ground. By getting Alexa to play Meditation Music and taking my vital, which are good. When I do get up adn make breakfast it is time to make the badgers a coffee adn get an update on progress. The sideway is almost complete just some sanding to do and then the work on the bin bay can be stated in earnest. Before the bin bay can start there is a big old pine tree stump that needs to be fully ground out and the lead badger tells me that it is likely to happen later today or tomorrow. BY lunchtime the badgers have done all they can for the day and pack up just as stump grinding man appears with his beast machine. So one workman in as two leave which means fresh coffee to make.

With everything and everyone in place I have time to sit and reflect on how I am. Out of this comes a poem, a bit unexpected but that’s the way it goes.

430 
I ask myself why,
Why am I having this operation,
an optional op?
I look at my crooked finger 
and I am repelled and fearful
that this is how I look inside.
My misshapen digit reminds me
that I am invaded,
that there are tumours,
contained but threatening 
to consume me 
at any moment.
I see the bumps on my hands,
I see the power 
of cell biology rampant
and I am afraid again.
Every time I try to
lay a palm flat 
or type, or clap,
or retrieve from a pocket,
pouch or draw
I am impeded and once again
I know I’m fighting invisibility.
The days tick by pretending
all is well,
a proverbial cognitive ostrich,
but this outcrop 
catches me cold.
Sitting here trying 
To capture my fear
I find myself stranded 
like so many bodies
sitting in homes 
staring and being alone 
and not knowing, 
feeling the want of 
warmth.  
Its lonely,
if only I can get 
my finger straight 
I can wear the rings
again, and give the finger
to my inner enemy.

							430 27-01-2025

I have just about finished writing when the stump grinding man finishes, loads up and dives off. As I put his used mug in the dish washer I notice that the sun shade top of the garden swing seat has been ripped off by the high winds and is hanging on by a single screw. Nothing for it but to grab my tool box and get to it before it is torn off completely and whisked away by the wind. The joint at one end has given way and will not be a repair I can do so the only option is to remove it and put the cover over the separated parts. I am in the middle of wrestling the cover over the two parts when my partner reappears and helps me get the cover in place. It is clear that the wind is going to pull the cover off again so I sacrifice one of my rolls of gaffer tape to put a securing band round the thing. With that done its time to go for lunch.

The chosen place for a late lunch is a garden centre near the police HQ towards town. I drive us there and that were dine and chat till early afternoon. Before we leave we buy fruit and veg from a stall and then drive home, park up and settle in to our cosy home while another storm rains in the evening. I check my phone and find I have missed a call from a friend , this always irks me as I know in a busy life it s difficult to find such spaces and I miss the chance to talk to friends and hear a voice outside he family. When I check my emails I find that the chair of the Poetry Stanza has put a proposal to the committee of a local writing and publishing shindig to be held in March and if accepted I might get to read a poem publicly. It would be a new challenge and an experience. It could be fun or a nightmare, or of course both. With the life admin done I draft the days blog in the gathering gloom of early evening and look forward to something, I am not sure what, to fill my evening. However what ever happens it will end in night meds and the hope of a restful night.

Sunday and apart from a quick walk in the latest named storm to get such prosaic goods as frozen peas (apt), chicken and potatoes I have done nothing today apart from watch sport and think about about whether my new track suit would arrive. The track suit arrived mercifully too late to think about going to the gym. I have adjusted the contents of my Dosette Boxes so that I do not take some of my medications before my operation on Thursday. I did not know that the daily dose boxes where called Dosettes until I read my pre operation instructions. Apparently I can not take them to the hospital and have to take what I need in the original packaging so that the nurses know what they are. Reasonable I suppose, but I figure I could look after my own regular medication unless something goes wrong, it just feels slightly off somewhere.

My ambition for the evening is to eat and read the letters I have to catch up with. There are still one or two from Christmas that I stuck in the back of my journal and never got to the end of. I should really be framing replies to some of them. As for anything else it will just have to happen or not. However it would be nice if the builder badgers returned tomorrow to complete the work they are doing. The other challenge is to decide if I am brave enough to ring someone and ask if I can join in at a local writing and publishing fair. I will see how I feel.

Saturday and I wake up feeling quite chipper after yesterdays celebrations. My partner brings me a hot water and before long we are both up, me having checked my vitals and socials, all good. Today is a tricky day as its today I plan to submit my tax return. First I set right all the things that got blown over by store Eowyn and while I am at it I refill the squirrel and bird feeders. With the kitchen cleared I can no longer avoid doing the work to prepare to put my tax return in. I spend ages ploughing through my bank statements to calculate one of my pensions over the relevant year and making up an account book to record it all. Once I have the figures I fire up the main office computer and log into the HMRC site and my account. Once I am into the account I follow the prompts and then spend a lot of time checking and making sense of the figures that HMRC are automatically filling for me. Eventually I am satisfied and push the send button. When I run off all the acknowledgements and calculations the all wise HMRC tell me they owe me money, which is a pleasant and welcome surprise. I just hope they respond to my plea to be exempt from future self assessments.

I celebrate this annual torture by brewing real coffee and nibbling a couple of the Italian biscuits that were bought at the delicatessen yesterday. With the tasks of the day done I settle down to watch a double header of rugby till the evening meal and the slide into an evening of media entertainment. I’ve already sorted out the medications I need to omit for this coming Thursday’s operation and ordered a new track suit and trainers prior to renewing my acquaintance with the weights machines at the gym. I have decided that I need to try and put some muscle back on as the older I get the more difficult this becomes as I get older. So eventually it will be time for night meds and bed.

Friday and I wake up to the fifth anniversary of my Civil Partnership. My partner is at work in the office down stairs so I take my time doing my vitals, checking my socials and messages before getting up. I take my morning meds. Despite a long train yesterday I decide to train again today and so get into my kit and head for the garage adn my rowing machine. I’ve never named the rower as it seems like an intrusion, the relationship we have is very business like, me getting fir and the machine a professional trainer. I set myself up for a thirty minute session and get going as soon as possible. it goes reasonably well despite it feeling a tough session. By the end I have rowed 6 kilometre plus so that will do. The aim must be to up the level of resistance and be able to row the same distance.

I record the session and have a light breakfast before taking a shower and resting. Both the training and the showering use a lot of energy spoons so I need a brief beak to recover. So while resting I start to draft the blog until my partner finishes work at lunch time. We drive to a garden centre some way away and indulge in a good lunch, including my treat of posh cheese on toast. Its an opportunity to talk about retirement and plans for things that need doing. Surrounding the restaurant there are a lot of craft adn art shops so once having eaten we go to look for a spare diffuser as we bought our last one from here. Not only did we find the right replacement diffuser we also found wheat and lavender pillows to ease us to sleep. Of course there was no avoiding the delicatessen, where we picked up pasties, French biscuits and real liquorice swirls. Then it was home wards.

I settled to draft the blog and to while away the time listening to more Mindfulness Mixes on the smart speaker. The builder badger, only one today, had gone by the time I returned. He had cracked on despite being on his own and has nearly completed the block paving in the sideway. There are only the fiddly bits that need blocks to be cut and then the whole thing sand filled and it will be finished. Providing his fellow builder badger is well on Monday this part of the job may well be finished and the bin stand at the front begun.

Rather than the recently usual sport or TV evening tonight it is to be a meal in a favourite restaurant to celebrate five years of civil partnership. I shall indulge and I may even allow myself to indulge in a glass (large of course) of a rich red wine to wash down the undoubted plate of meat that I shall have, having told the waitress/waiter to hold the vegetables. This place does the most amazing crepes with oranges and grand manier source. I am so looking forward to it. Its the indulgence that I like the whole panoply of flavours and variety of textures that are conjured up with no cooking or washing up required. I no doubt will arrive back home down my night meds and go to bed in a warm and sated, not to mention slightly pissed state. Tomorrow can look after itself although I need to pop into the dentist to see if they will give me a mouth map of my crowns, but that is for another day.