Friday, an appalling day, my throat so sore and closed, I spent the day in bed sucking throat lozenges and taking paracetamol. By the time night came around I was exhausted but the same pattern lasted all night.
Saturday arrives and at six o’clock I’m eating Greek yogurt and honey, desperate for something to eat that I can swallow. More paracetamol and then back to sleep. It’s going to be a long weekend. But as the Infinite Monkey Cage keeps pointing out, Things Can Only Get Better.
Wednesday, Christmas day, and the world is full of ripping paper and cardboard boxes. Nothing like watching a seventeen month old doing Christmas. There are lots of messages and “Happy Christmas” to do and respond to. The day drifts between feasts, games and of course the King. There is a rare alcoholic drink mixed with the normal routine of medication. One of my presents is a book of Harry Martinson’s poetry, which I find a few minutes to read in the afternoon. A present from my son. At the end of the day I go to bed exhausted but so pleased I was with my newest grandson and family for the day.
Boxing day, Thursday, starts with an untimely waking as my youngest daughter is worried about her young son and so has decided to leave early. They pack quickly and drive off into the early morning mist, eventually to arrive home and to take the grandson to A&E and ultimately home again with antibiotics. I return to bed and get up properly mid morning. When I get up I am feeling grim but get on with reading my meters and tidying away the rest of the Christmas recycling. From then on I get worse, my throat is getting sore and my nose running. By the time I get to take my night meds I am feeling decidedly ill. My last acts of the day are to draft the blog and prepare for the coming day, throat pastilles ready.
Tuesday, Christmas Eve, and I am awake early to the sound of my youngest grandson chortling. It is not long before his mum brings him in to see me and we discover that he likes the thermometer I use to take my vitals. He is a delight and soon gets the hang of how to make it work and reward him with a smiley face and a beep. The family are up and around except my eldest daughter who is still suffering from her cold/flu/lerg. As they have breakfast and my partner beavers away with Christmas cooking I have a shower and wash my hair in preparation for the annual Christmas trip to my partners mother to have a Christmas Eve meal. The morning gallops ahead with cooking until the grandson goes for his morning nap as we start on the posh chocolate biscuits. The only excitement is the postman delivering my latest oncology summary. Apparently I am felling well in myself and doing okay. The meaningful new data is that I am being monitored for signs of heart failure but these blood results do not show up on my usual blood results so I am dependant on the oncology team sharing these with me, which I am not content with.
In the afternoon the family goes to see my partners mother. there are less of us each year to be available to go due to work commitments and other family things that need to be done. My partner’s mother is in fine form and we leave her with her carer and a Christmas dinner for the next day. Once home we tuck into the crockpot that has been bubbling away for the day and spend the evening in anticipation of the coming Christmas day. Before my meds I and my youngest’s daughters fiancée perform the Santa chores of stacking things below the Christmas tree.
Sunday and I wake to a windy day. This is the last day before my youngest daughter and her family arrive including the youngest grandchild, the master plan is to breakfast and and then to dash to the garden center to see if the bistro set is still available. So after a speedy bagel and morning meds I drive my partner and I to the few miles to closing garden center. Unfortunately the bistro set has gone so we content ourselves with the Christmas vegetables and a cheap bottle of rum. Once home I lock myself away to do my Christmas present wrapping and to sort all my clothes away so that the visitors have a clear space to be in.
After much cursing due to repeatedly having to find the end of the sticky tape I finish my wrapping and I get to then help with changing bedding and wrestling with the cardboard mountain that we seem to have. We missed our recycling collection this last week so we are going to have to store our mountain for the coming festive season. With all this done its time to do the special wrap of the very awkward wrap, there is always one, so while I watch the second half of a rugby match I creatively wrap the tricky one.
The evening brings tea and TV until sleep beckons, of course I have a head full of questions, like how do I get my laptop to run properly, how do I stop mold growing in the outside shower, when will I get a chance to fill the bird feeders and did I put the bin out. Christmas will pose challenges like should I have a couple of trail rum and coke. Whatever happens it is up early tomorrow to get the festive turkey.
Thursday and my final waking up in a hotel bedroom, I’m tempted to just go but I go to the restaurant and make toast and coffee just to sustain me on my way. With everything in the boot I settle my bill and get under way. Its a nightmare, the sun is so low in the sky that it is blinding making driving a real challenge. Its such a pain I stop at the first service station and buy a pair of sunglasses, this was a stroke of genius and transform my driving experience. All goes well and I arrive home in the late morning to find the gas fire service man finishing up. So my first act of home coming is to open up my wallet and pay him for the work. At least now our gas fire works and we can huddle round it in a Christmassy way should we wish to. I unpack and set about some of the Christmas preparation including preparing for Saturdays Stanza meeting. By the time of the early evening I have run out of spoons and idle my way through the evening till its time to take my evening meds and go to bed.
Friday and I start my day quite perky knowing that I am going to be going to the hospital to collect my next three cycles of chemo therapy pills. Having done my vitals I get up and get ready to travel into town. Mid morning one of my nephews calls in to deliver a Christmas present and have coffee. My partner and I sit down and chat over coffee with him, my partner showing him some of the old family photo graphs. My partner reminds me that my nephews partner had asked for some of my poetry books for Christmas so I gather up a set and sign them for her and them over to my nephew. It was a lovely Christmas surprise to see him and brightened my morning no end. After he leaves my partner goes to physio and I drive into town to collect my meds. As usual I park up in a central hotel and walk down to the hospital pharmacy and to my surprise the whole pharmacy has been rebuilt and is now light and airy, most importantly is now efficient and effective. I was in there for no more than ten minutes before I was walking back to my car clutching my meds and knowing all I need to do now was keep going till March when my next Oncology review is.
Once home there is more Christmas prep to do. I go to the post office to buy more posting boxes and a paper. I put another set of poetry books together, sign them and box them up before returning to the post office to send them on their way. With my partner returned we walk down to the village co-op to buy food and for me to replenish my cash supply as its likely that the garden guy is going to turn up tomorrow. With the shopping done we return home, me to do the days crosswords and for my partner to unpack and put together the new carpet cleaner that she has been craving forages. It appears to be like a giant jigsaw with all sorts of pipes and wheels, quite Wallace and Gromit. With the crosswords done I attempt to finish the preparation for the Stanza meeting tomorrow but I hit a snag my, laptop freezes up on me so I spend a lot of time bringing it back to life and functioning at some sort of reasonable speed. With it back in order I run off my poem for Saturday and put them together with the solid part of my presentation.
The evening its time to watch TV and do the meal planner for the Christmas visit of my youngest daughter and her family and with that comes the last minutes changes to Saturdays Tesco order. The evening sees me watching TV again and checking my Christmas lists and doing the odd chore including the organisation of the back up larder to accommodate all the Christmas stuff that has probably been over ordered. Finally I get to watch a bond film, take my meds and go to be late.
I wake up on the Winter Solstice trying to remember all the actors who have played James Bond I get them all apart from Daniel Craig. So my first words of greeting to my partner are “who played the latest Bond”, which is a quirky early morning greeting. As my partner gets up to go to shopping I take my vitals and realise I am on day 2 of Cycle 20 of my current chemo therapy pills, it’s onwards to mid March or early April. My vitals are good. I get up, eat toast, take my meds and then settle down to catch up drafting the blog. This takes the morning until its time to go to the Poetry Stanza.
The Stanza meeting goes well and its good to meet face to face. My contribution is the last and unusually I am asked to read my own poem to the group as it is a personal message to the Stanza adn is attached to a package of my books. It is a thank you to the stanza for helping to contain the stuff that has come out of me over the last “bastard” of a year. It was a gamble on my part but I am pleased I have done it.
Back home I slip into a waiting routine for two things to happen, the first is the Christmas truck parade through the village and the second is the late scheduled Tesco order. My partner and I eat tea as we wait. Eventually the truck parade arrives.
After a lot of noise and lights the parade passes and it remains for Tesco to deliver, which in time they duly do. Most of what I ordered is there but I seem to have over estimated the amount of wipes my youngest grandson is going to require over Christmas. Packing everything away is a challenge even though I had prepared the overflow space in the store. All that remains now is some odd bits of shopping to do and some co-ordinated food preparation. By the time everything is done its time to update the drafted blog and take my night meds to get myself to bed.
Wednesday and I wake up in the hotel in York after having dinner with an old colleague and friend in a pub somewhere in the wilds of the outer York environs. My meal was substantial and by the end of it I was sunning out of spoons very quickly. It was very good to catch up with my friend who I had not seen for year and hear about how she was juggling living in the new supported living estate with keeping her own interests and activities going. It is clearly not an easy juggle and there are inevitable peaks and troughs, some more distressing than others.
I am woken by my phone alarm and get myself dressed and off to breakfast. Once again I just wonder into the dining area and pick a table. Although still full from last nights pub meal I go for a full breakfast to keep me fuelled for the day. While feasting I check my messages and do some basic banking admin. Apparently my household missed putting out the recycling bin last night despite my promptings so for the festive period it seems we will be bagging recyclables and soaking cardboard to go on the compost heap. I’m trying to be calm but really I’m just unbelievably miffed. So having dealt with breakfast and it attendant admin I return to my room and catch up on the blog drafting. I’m planning another trip to the York market to see if there is anything I missed.
My trip into York was brief and there was still nothing to tempt me and disappointingly the placard man declaring we were all going to burn was not there either. I return to the hotel and catch up on some writing before showering and then going for dinner at a friends house. We ate and chatted mostly about recovery and juggling things, before leaving I promised to send some copies of my poetry collections once I got home. Back at the hotel I readied myself for bed, took my meds and finished drafting the blog before dropping into sleep. Tomorrow will be the drive home and picking up the run up to Christmas.
Monday and I wake up alone for the first time in a long time apart from the odd night in hospital, but that’s quite another kind of alone altogether. Its my turn to pack my bags and prepare to to go off for some nights away in York to see friends and to talk to my mentor. I take my vitals for the last time for a days I am away as I just cannot be arsed to take all the equipment a couple of hundred miles north. It’s going to be my first solo trip since November 2023 when I last went to York. I see it as a challenge to stand up and do normal times and not let my cancer define me. Although I’ve done a lot positive this year there has been a lot of medical stuff thrown in this year so I want to get out there and do the ordinary. Just the drive, the hotel and talking with people outside the family and local friends is, in my head a challenge. I am hoping that I will navigate all this and come out the other side Christmas an New Year ready.
Having packed my bag and office back pack I check my tyre pressures with the mobile compressor and then drive to the garage to fill up, then home to load up. My drive starts at about twelve o’clock along the familiar route to junction 22 on the M1, as I pull onto the motorway I hear on the radio that there is an accident at Leeds that has closed the M1. I shrug thinking that by the time I get there it will be cleared. As I get back into motorway driving I relax into it and now in my later middle years I am content to jog along at the speed limit or a bit under. As I progress up the M1 there signs are not good about the Leeds closure at the junction I need to go through. To add salt to the anxiety thee is a huge stretch of 50mph speed limit outside Sheffield which take ages to get through. By the time I am half an hour out of Leeds its clear the M1 is still closed and I am already way behind my schedule so I take a pit stop and down an egg sandwich, crunchie and a red bull and take a comfort break before heading north again. Sure enough as Leeds comes up on the satnav it is clear that the M1 is still closed and I have no option but to join the crawling queue towards junction 44 where everything is being diverted of the motorway and advised to follow the yellow diamond alternative route. As I came to the top of the slip road and edged out onto the roundabout traffic was going diamond-wards but I spotted the access road back to the M1 was not closed so I turned onto it and found myself on an empty motorway. The next sign warned “Accident” but as I drove there was no sign of anything and I began to glimpse other cars far back but following me. The accident never appeared, not a sign I can only assume that the accident happened between the on and off slip roads a the junction. The rest of my journey was straight forward until the York traffic needed to be negotiated. All in all I think I managed the journey well even if it took me in excess of three hours, longer than my usual time.
The booking into the hotel was a surprise. It had had a complete face lift of the reception, lounge and dining area. I got the same routine of thanks for being an IHG member and was given my keys. For once I got a ground floor room close to the rear car park entrance, which suited me fine. Having unpacked I took stock of how I was. Tired certainly but pleased I had manged the journey so well. I read for a while and watch some TV before messaging people to tell them I had arrived but tired. My friend who was not sure if she was going to be well enough to come for a meal confirmed that eating at the hotel would be doable . So I read and wrote until about 7 o’clock when she arrived. I was really good to see my friend again, it had been over a year since we had been in the same place so there was a lot to catch up on. After a lot of talking and eating we were both tired so we said farewell at 10:30 with me handing over a box of Christmas presents for her and her family. I took my meds and tried to settle down to sleep. It was a disturbed night but I eventually got to sleep for a while before my 8:30 alarm woke me.
Tuesday, I wake in a strange non medical bed and feel a bit disorientated. I get myself up and take my meds before going to the hotel restaurant. I wander in and take a seat clutching my cereals, orange juice and decaf coffee with me. No asked to see my breakfast card or ask me what room I was in, I could have been anyone who had strolled in for a free meal. Breakfast was standard hotel food and help yourself. With refuelling over I get ready to drive into York to look at the Christmas market. Having lived in York I know my way around but the traffic has got worse than I remember it, but I slowly find my way to the parking lot. The walk to the Christmas market is mercifully short and wander about waiting to be struck by something of joy, but it does not happen. What does happen is a person in a long white robe with some really unfestive placards saying: ” Wake up! Satan’s brain-washed cattle” and “All enemies of Jesus Christ will burn forever” Now how Christmassy can you get! As I walk by him a man with a broad Yorkshire accent said to him “Do yourself a favour and go home lad.” The trip was worth it just for that.
By habit I went into the York Art Shop where I had bought the two Jay Nottingham paintings that are now in our lounge. There was only one painting that caught my eye but at £28,000 it was not a goer, I could get a new car for that, however his sculptors were a different matter, I liked them a lot immediately, I was very tempted but instead took photos and scuttled out of the gallery before I did something really silly.
There were the usual Christmas market scenes as well as God person, art and chocolate.
As a consolation prize I headed for the best chocolate shop I know and bought a truly indulgent box of chocolates as a Christmas treat for the family. With my precious cargo I headed back to the car and made my way back to the hotel feeling tired but happy I had made the effort.
Once at the hotel I get my laptop and go to the lounge and over a lemonade and lime I try to update the blog but run into a problem. I spend a lot of time finding my way into the web site in order to draft the blog so far. I finally get in but I am concerned there is going to be future problems. With a first draft done I retreat to my room to have a nap and prepare to be picked up and taken for a meal by another friend.
I am tired already, but I have cracked the website glitch. So I am going to publish the blog so far and update it later or tomorrow.
Saturday and I wake groggy, not sure why but I take time taking my vitals and getting up for breakfast. With my morning meds down me I start to contemplate the Christmas decorations. I seek out the boxed tree in the garage and bring it into the lounge where I fit the parts together. As it is a tree that folds down it can be sited away from the TV and in a defined space. Of course it is also symmetrical which makes life so much easier. Having got the tree erected its time to put the new light on it, however this is not to be easy. I find the new ten metre string of lights has been put into the packaging in what is the equivalent of a Gordian knot. It takes me, my partner and my eldest a considerable time to disentangle the mass of wire. Eventually the light are in a string that can be put on the tree. With the first lights on its time to get up into the loft to bring down the Christmas boxes.
With the boxes down and open I am able to sort out two more sets of lights and get then draped around the tree. With the illuminations up everyone sets about dressing the tree stating with the drops and the baubles that have been gifts over the years, after that comes the more run of the mill baubles. Of course Red Sonia, the families traditional tree fairy, sits atop the tree. With the tree lit and dressed the family start on the stairs and the dining room. With every thing done the Christmas boxes get packed up with the unused decorations and it is down to me to get them back into the loft.
With all the decorations done there is a brief rest before tea and the evenings highlight, the Strictly Final. The family settled down on the recliners and watched for two and a half hours, a great final which was won eventually by the great British Public voting for the blind guy, not the best dancer but the contestant that the public could not believe was possible. The rest of the evening is full of Blindspot to the end of series two, when magically the main characters tattoos, the major reason for the series suddenly are shown to glow, revealing another level of tattoos. It had to happen as there are at least another four seasons of this drama. My prediction is that the series will now become more and more far fetched and beyond the suspension of belief. I take my night meds and go to bed hoping for a decent nights sleep.
Sunday also starts slowly but quite early. I take my vitals and then have breakfast while my partner packs and gets ready to go to Birmingham to spend time with a friend. We both putter about until lunch time and then I give my partner a lift to the railway station. My late afternoon is spent listening to the Scottish cup final as I draft the blog. My evening is spent getting ready to travel north tomorrow and watching football. My meds wallets have been topped up and everything I need to function has been packed into my travelling office backpack and my usual survival kit put together, not to mention the clothes that will keep me warm and looking reasonable. So a relatively early night , meds taken and everything double checked for my first solo trip of the year.
Friday and waking up is a slow process this morning. I take my vitals, which are okay and then get up into my training gear, however its breakfast first and there is some Christmas admin to do. I am planning to present a thank you poem to the Poetry Stanza at the next face to face meeting before Christmas so I open up the poem I was going to use but realise it is not right for the job so I spend hours trying to find the right rhymes. Eventually I get a version that I am more or less satisfied with, I then order the numbers of books that I need to complete my Stanza project.
Its time to train, I am not feeling it but as I am in my training gear I head for the garage. It is cold and I set myself up for a 30 minute session, starting off at a quick pace. The session was hard but I finally get to the end and I get close to my personal best, so its a good job done.
While rowing a new word comes to me that will fit my Stanza poem, so I return to my drafts and make adjustments to what becomes the final one. For the first time my poem acquires a decimal tittle. 219.3 will be my Christmas poem. I shower and rest while waiting for me partner to return from her pampering session. She soon returns with her Christmas nails done. After looking in the fridge I set about cooking a chicken and black bean curry for the family evening meal.
Once fed I settle down and started to draft the blog until the evening TV pops up with some regular favourites. It will be an evening of relaxation and night meds tomorrow is to be the day our Christmas tree gets put up, so Xmas starts in earnest this weekend.
Thursday and a day to get going after Mondays injection and its aftermath. So I wake up and take my vitals which are good. I change immediately into my training gear but cook myself a breakfast and take my morning meds before I start on my to do list for the day. First up is removing the last remaining gutter hedgehog and ensuring the guttering on the garage side is cleared. When I get up to the level to get a look at the guttering it is as I thought, the gutter hedgehog has clogged the gutter and accumulated a lot of growth. On removing the hedgehog I find a damn has built up in the gutter. Fortunately I am able to dislodge the block and clear the gutter.
With the gutter cleared I set about mopping, scrubbing and clearing the patio. There is a lot of debris and soil from the guttering that has been washed down onto it. After a lot of effort I finally get the patio clean for the winter. Its lunch time so I stop for a bite to eat and to contact the gas fire people to arrange a service. I discover the company no longer do that work but give me the name of their old fitter and servicer, who I ring and chat with. With a date arranged its time to get myself into the garage and train.
Its six days since I’ve trained so I decide after my mornings exertions to go for a 45 minute session. Strap in and set off, its not a sparkling session but I get over 8K and that will do for today.
With the session recorded I set about updating the Christmas Tesco order to include all the food and things that my youngest grandson will require over Christmas when he visits. With that done I finally get out of my training kit and settle down to clear the kitchen and start to draft the blog. I am increasingly aware that Christmas is rapidly approaching and I have shopping to do and the tree is yet to go up with the new lights so tomorrow is going to be busy. I enter the evening with very little energy left. My limit will be watching football, TV and casting my eye over the internet for inspiration ending up with night meds and collapsing into bed knowing that tomorrow has to be a Christmas decoration day.
