Tuesday. I have slept quite well again and attribute this to the co-codamol. I quickly take my vitals and check my book shelf on the Kindle Digital publishing site. I also check the Amazon site. To my delight the paper back version of my second collection of poems is there to be bought. I order some so that can get copies in my hands as soon as tomorrow. It is that feel of a book in my hands that is so visceral and affirming of the reality of the books existence.

I have little time before I need to go out so I take my morning meds put a few things in a shoulder bag , swap the cars round on the drive and then go off to meet my friend. As I am a bit early I order a couple of bacon rolls and a pot of hot water and wait. The bacon rolls are not very good but they fill my stomach. My friend arrives and we sit and chat till the mid afternoon, taking in the odd drink and toasted sandwich as required. Its a while since I have had a chance to talk to someone outside the family, not counting the stranger at the Murder Mystery evening in a noisy room, and so it is nice to have time and space to be able to reflect and share ideas. We have a mutual love of books and have exchanged books in the past but usually it is my friend who supplies me with new authors. We share the same love of Japanese literature and have similar likes in general when it comes to books. So conversation is easy and we have a shared work history that goes back to the early nineties and several therapeutic communities. It is good to have someone who knows me well enough to ask the awkward questions about how I am dealing with my cancer and all the stuff that goes along with that. Eventually by mid afternoon I begin to run out of spoons and need to go home, we say goodbye and go our separate ways.

Once home I sort my bag out and start to write the blog when the garden guy turns up. He is starting to move plants from the front garden where the drive is going to be widened and put them in their new locations according to the plan I drew up. It’s a shame that the work is being done at this time of year as it means moving pants at a bad time for them, but it cannot be helped. I am hoping that we won’t lose too many. After our chat I find I have missed a call from a friend who I have not had a chance to talk with for a while and by the time I know she will have picked her daughter up. And so I slide into the evening with no appetite for an evening meal, I shall read and perhaps watch TV this evening and snack before bed. As it turns out I end up watching Top Gun, geriatric, the last Tom Cruise pilot film. I take my evening meds and return to the blog. Tomorrow, if I am lucky, I will get to see my new poetry collection, that’s worth getting up for. It feels like I am learning about how to put things together so I am hoping that the coming book is better than the last one in terms of feel and presentation. I will take a break before I put more of me out there and spend more time constructing any future collections, except perhaps the next in the Cancer Years series.

Monday and it is a fresh week and I wake determined to make a fresh effort. So there is a quick check of my vitals and I am out of bed having breakfast with my partner. My partner goes off to do her thing and I set about recycling a load of stuff that has been jettisoned from a cupboard clear out. With that done and morning meds taken I drive off to my local Halfords to buy new windscreen wipers for the car. On a whim I ask if some one could fit them for me. Yes they have some one who can do that adn I am quizzed as to whether I am a Halfords Motor club member. I instinctively answer yes and give the guy my email address. It turns out I am a member and have a five pound off voucher to come of the cost of my purchase and a free 10 point vehicle check owing to me. I tell the guy I’ll have the lot and go and pull my car under their awning just as it throws it down with hail! The poor bastard who had to do the fixing and the checks was not amused. My car passed all its checks and got its washer bottle topped up for free. I drove off with my new wipers working a treat and Reginald my new blue lizard air freshener clinging to the windscreen.

Once home I retrieved the garden camera and started the lengthy and laborious job of going through the the captures one by one to see what has been found. Its dull most of the time as it tends to go, pigeon, pidgeons, black bird, pidgeons, more pidgeons, squirrel, cat, pidgeon, pidgeon, cat, squirrel. What I am hoping for is a glimpse of hedgehog as just before hibernation time I buried a dead one in the back garden and not seen one since. I fear there may not be hedgehogs in our garden any more. Suddenly there it is, hedgehog, looking bright and perky and strolling around. I am so pleased to have a hedgehog back in the garden. The hedgehog appears on a couple of nights as does a small fox but not together.

Before I can finish my perusal of the captures Tesco arrives and its a well organised running of the trays and unloading in the kitchen that takes place. Just as I am putting away the last of the weeks goodie my partner returns. The last of the order is squirreled away and I return to viewing the garden camera captures. So feeling pleased my partner and I go and indulge in a snack and a drive down the road from us. We chat about odd things but agree that we need to shift our Tesco order to Tuesdays as it fits in with our routine better. Once returned home I start to draft the blog.

The early evening skies clear and although still windy the day brightens up. I am suddenly tired and return to reading my Italo Calvino books. We eat tea and ring my eldest daughter for a chat. I had not long finished chatting when the Americans ring up and ask for the code to get into the Amazon publishing account. On checking my phone I find the code there and pass it one. I settle back to watching Traces on i-player until I get an email saying my latest collection, The Travelling Years has been put up on the Amazon platform, of course I immediately go into Amazon and see if it there and sure enough the Kindle version is available and that the paper back is in review, which means it will become available over the next couple of days. Apparently it will appear on my IngramSpark account soon as well, which is an American platform. I am really chuffed and once again cannot wait till I get physical book in my hands.

The end of the evening comes around and I take my evening chemo meds, update the draft blog and get myself to bed as tomorrow I am meeting a friend for coffee, or in my case hot water and a bacon roll.

Sunday and I am roused by my partner eager to get on with the day as my eldest daughter has a scan today. I am brought toast and hot water. In an effort to contribute I book a Tesco slot and fill a basket of goodies for deliver tomorrow, with that done I take my vitals, which are all good. I seemed to have slept well last night but I had taken a co-codamol, which may account for it. I am tempted to consider taking one each night but that is how an addiction gets started I guess. Once up, there is a plan to make, in the end it is decided that I shall chauffer my daughter to the hospital for her MRI scan and my partner will food shop. The cars are moved to facilitate this. So starts my day.

I thought I would share the poem that I took to the poetry Stanza yesterday. There were some pretty bleak contributions yesterday so of the two poems I took I chose this one to present to lighten the mood. It seemed to do it.

376
I’ve got a bladder stone,
Two point two 
By one point two centimetres.
I’ve seen it on the scans,
You could spot it from space
My first thought:
“That’s fucking huge!”
followed quickly by 
“that’s going to hurt”.
The doctor chap explains;
“we can smash it up”,
And once again I think:
“that’s going to hurt, a lot”.
Back at home I am 
wondering just how long 
is the waiting list
for the demolition.
I decide to make friends
but chums need names
so I caste around for something benign.
There are several candidates,
Watts after the rolling stone,
Sisyphus plagued by his ball,
Wayne after The Rock Johnson.
None feel right.
Perhaps Eric after the girls pet pebble
in “What we did on our Holiday”
Finally I have it.
Uluru, 
After all it is a rock down under.
It made me smile,
and pals are supposed to do that.	

								376 04-04-2024
 

I plot the course to the the local hospital where the MRI is to be done and note that I am now happy that the car has pulled itself together after its run into town yesterday. With that done I can take a break and start the days blog. Yesterdays, like so many, was written about midnight when I have very few, if any , spoons left to do such things. The result is a tired and short, and probably uninformative, contribution, which highlights the mundanity of the daily life with cancer and the vicissitudes of dyslexia. I am still processing yesterdays experience of having someone asking me to sign a copy of my book. It was the fact that someone out side of family and friends had bought a copy, it is just hard to register, especially as it is poetry. Then being asked by someone else, who I would call “a real poet”, asked to buy a copy. It is strange to think of my slim little book sitting in someone else’s home, on a shelf somewhere amongst other books. Although I always wanted to publish my poetry for friends and family to share parts of me that they do not get to see I never really thought about other people reading them and seeing those parts as well, and I have to say its odd.

At the appointed time I drive my eldest daughter to our local community hospital for her MRI scan. It is only fifteen minutes away and the MRI portacabin is easy to spot as soon as we drive into the car park. My eldest gets up the steps with her crutches and I retreat to the car to wait for her. It is not a long wait before she reappears having had her scan. As she is hungry we call into a garden centre on the way home to grab a snack.

Once home I begin to watch a rugby match and also realise that the hot chocolate I had might have been a mistake. I’ve noticed of late that milk or milky drinks seem not to be acceptable to my gut. Whether or not this is related to my meds I do not know but it seems to have developed over the last few months. I indulge in a lot of rugby as I recline and wait for my stomach to settle. By the evening I am feeling better, certainly better enough to eat tea. About that time a friend tells me that an old colleague from the therapeutic community days has died after a long illness. His wife was one of the original staff team that I opened the community with. To my shame I misremembered her name. I got the beginning letter right, “J” but again that is the curse of my dyslexia. It is increasingly difficult to lose old colleagues, I’m not sure why, it just is.

My evening sees me indulge in a new series of Midsomer Murders followed by the Olivier Theatre awards and the final bits of the blog. I take my evening meds and go to bed hoping for a peaceful night. The coming week is the one the Americans have promised to deliver my second book of poetry. I am quietly excited but know that these things often take longer than promised.

Saturday and it is potentially a busy day and it turned out to be so. After a toast breakfast and my morning meds I go back to getting my car sorted out. I hook the battery up to charge it for a couple of hours while I sort out what I am going to take to the poetry stanza. Before I can drive into town I take the car to the local garage to check the tyres. My warning lights on my dashboard are still on by the time I park up back home. When I leave for the journey into town the warning lights have magically disappeared. So all is good with the car at last.

At the poetry stanza, at which there are only seven of us, I am taken aback when one of the group produces a copy of the Cancer Years: So Far and asked if I would sign it for her because she had never known anyone before who had published a book. It was such an out of the blue experience I was not sure what to do for a moment and then of course I signed it. The meeting went well and again I was surprised when another of the group asked if I had a copy of the book I could sell her. As it happened I did, so we did business. I drove home in profit and having had a good reception for my poem this month.

Its a fish and chip Saturday so its a walk over to the chippy and then an evening of Rom Com film. It was one with Emma Thomson in it which elevated it. Football highlights and night meds later I have time to draft a brief blog before taking myself of to bed. It feels like this has been the first “normal” day I have had for along time, I hope I do not pay for it tomorrow.

Friday and I wake up with a to do list in my head. My partner has gone out to work so I spend a bit of time doing my vitals and watching a bit of Lee Evans, what ever happened to him? Once up its breakfast and a quick visit to Amazon to replace the hair brush that mysteriously disappeared at the weekend when I was away ay the Murder Mystery. Being a creature of habit I bought the same one I bought in March 21, that’s one of the hidden delights of using Amazon as a main supplier of “stuff”, you always know how long you have been able to keep it before it disappears. No doubt the old one will turn up now. I message a couple of friends and then I set about one of the major tasks, the checking of my tyres.

It turned out I have a problem. My car stuttered to start up achieving it on a second go, and then on comes the same warning lights as I had before. I drive around the block but the warning lights remain. Back on the drive I pop the hood and check my battery with my new battery tester and find it is down to 48% which is low enough to trigger the warning signs. So I hook up my battery charger and have to wait to see if this works as it did before. In the meantime I have a past lunch prepared by my eldest daughter and then I begin to select which poem I am going to take to the Poetry Stanza tomorrow.

On looking at my recent writings I find most of them are some what down beat after the last couple of weeks difficulties but I eventually settle on two. It is my habit to take two to the Stanza meeting so I can offer something depending on my nerve. I run off the ten copies of each that will be required and squirrel them away in a folder. My eldest daughter has made me lunch so I am able to sit and take a time out before putting my washing in. My afternoon is spent writing and making letters to send to friends. I quick trip to the post office rounds my afternoon off before my partner returns from work. Todays crosswords are done and I drift into a sunny evening. All that is left for me to do this evening is to unhook my battery charger from the car and sort out my washing. Thankfully the evenings are lighter so I can give my car battery as long as possible on charge. I shall need it for tomorrow’s trip to the Stanza.

There is some regular TV Friday night stuff I watch so for me the evening slides along till its time to do my evening meds and try to get a nights sleep. The last couple of days have been relatively good so I am hoping my luck holds for the weekend. The forecasted weather for the weekend is rain free so I’m hoping I might get into the garden and do some tidying up before the grounds folk turn up in a few days time.

Thursday and I wake late after yesterdays long day but exciting day. My partner brings me hot water and I go through my morning rituals before getting up for breakfast. I still have last nights opera in my head. In particular Carmen’s card aria as it is known in which she sees her own death, I thought it was one of the most powerful parts of the while opera, despite other parts being being more popular. Then another extraordinary days starts. I check my Podcast supplier (Podbean) and discover an old colleague and friend, to whom I still write, is on the latest podcast. Of course I watch it with interest and I am surprised when I get a mention. What was really lovely was to see my friend looking well but most of all being her usual thoughtful and insightful self. It is good to see and hear someone still holding the same basic values about how people should be offered the chance to change in an environment where there is an acknowledgement that we are no better or worse than each other. It was a special start to my out of bed day.

I had not long finished watching the Podcast when I received another out of the blue surprise. A large envelop arrived in the post addressed to me in a hand I did not recognise. When I opened it up I found not only a letter from a friend and old flat mate from late teens, early twenties, but some sketches of me that he had done while sharing a flat. I had shared a flat with two friends who were architecture students while I was a lab assistant at the local Polytechnic. This friend and I spent New Year in Paris together in the late sixties, I think it was the first time I flew. I was never aware that he ever sketched me. He was going through old portfolios and thought I might like them. Indeed I do, and here I am.

The idea that something like this has survived all these years is just lovely. All this time something of me has been in the world with out me knowing and it brought back so many memories of youthful living in a small upstairs flat above the landlords son and wife who would on occasions have seismic rows and throw dishes of food at at each other and up the walls. I guess they were just working out their cultural differences, he was Pakistani and she was Irish, clearly a potent mixture in this instance, but I cant help thinking that this contributed to our low rent at the time.

I clear the kitchen and make lunch before starting to draft the blog. It is time I caught up with my correspondence having been prompted by this mornings events. I end up writing a couple of poems, not good ones, and then fall asleep with a head ache. I wake up in time for tea and an evening of football disappointment and then night meds and bed, I have become spoonless in no time at all.

Wednesday arrives and at 7:30 I sneeze myself awake. So awake I stay and carry out my getting up rituals, including my vitals, which once again are all good. I lay around injecting fun into the morning by watching a compilation of Milton Jones on Mock the Week, where does this man get his wit and ideas from? Finally I get out of bed and get breakfast. I review the required ingredients for tonight’s beef crockpot one pot stew and to my chagrin I find that there is no red wine in the house. A load of other booze, left over from Christmases and birthdays much of it now vintage given that I’ve not drunk for over five years now lingers in the booze hide away, so faced with this lack of ingredient there is nothing for it but a walk down to the village shop. It is only about ten thirty as I present the check out guy with a paper, two bottles of cheap French red wine and a bag of jelly babies. I could almost hear him saying “poor old bastard” as he watched me load my haul into my BIGSPD (British and Irish Group for the Study of Personality Disorder) conference freebie bag. Seems like an age since I did anything so intellectual as attend a conference.

On arrival at home I find a parcel for me, It is, at last my 15 copies of the Cancer Years from the publishers. I eagerly look at them and note that these copies have my name, in full, printed down the thin spine of the cover. I am chuffed. I leaf through one and note that one poem in the book is not in the contents page. I also notice that two of the poems have the final digit of their number in superscript. How did I not notice that? I will tell you how, because I’m dyslexic, that’s how. I check the editions that came from Amazon , which do not have my name on the spine and sure enough the same omissions are there. so there are now two versions of my book. I’ve no idea if in years to come one will become valuable, probably not.

Book fun over I set about making the beef stew for tonight. I’m quite well kitchen trained so I soon have the meat in a bag with seasoned flour ready to seal and piles of chopped vegetables. I also hunt through the fridge for the dishes of spare stuff that seem to appear from time to time. It all goes into the crockpot followed by the sealed meat. Then comes my secret sauce most of which is red wine of course. By eleven thirty it is all nestled in the slow cooker set for six hours of slow coaxing of its flavours. The kitchen is cleared and I settle down to check I have the ticket for tonight’s trip to the Opera. I discover that I have printed out on A4 the tickets that clearly say ” Show this on your phone” , so that will be fun. I also find that I have failed to book parking. I get onto the website and book a space and down load onto my phone the ticket. Can I find the bloody thing in my phone, no I cannot. I hunt around for ages in all sorts of files and apps I did not know I had and get asked to chose options I do not understand. Eventually I manage to make them images that are in my galley app, that will have to do, but I have a sense that there are more “techno savvy” ways of doing this”. Exhausted by my efforts I have a sandwich and start to draft the blog for today with some opera playing in the background. I may not get a chance later as Carmen does not finish till gone 10 o’clock tonight. It is the Ukrainian Opera company and full orchestra that are performing tonight so I guess the place will be packed. I’m tempted to wear my “Puck Futin” ice hockey hoodie.

It is a wet and miserable day that my partner has gone out in to see her mother. I am working up the energy to shower and to decide what I am going to wear, when the carry cases I ordered for the banjo and guitar arrive, so after getting through the forest of packaging I slip them into their new protection and return them to their stands. It feels comfortable to have them snuggled safely in this inclement weather. Now I can get on with the day.

Showered and clean, my partner returned there is a brief wait for the beef stew to come to its best. I relatively rapid devouring of the food and we are off to the opera, me with my new Loops in my pocket in case the bar noise is too much.

A last entry for the day. The opera was brilliant and I feel uplifted. Night meds and bed with a warm glow for me tonight and I did not need to use my Loops. This has been a good day.

Tuesday and I wake with my partner left for work. I do my rituals including my vitals, all good there. I get up and dress then fix a quick breakfast. Having cleared the kitchen I turn my attention to the long neglected guitars and banjo sitting patiently in the library/music room which is now actually my eldest daughters study as she ploughs her way to a doctorate. I tune the my instruments up and then spend a lot of time playing them and finding out what I can still and what I can no long manage. As my hands stiffen with age and lack of practice I am surprised to find that the Stratocaster is the easiest to play because the action is low on it and has a narrow neck which is easier to barre across. I polish the instruments and order new covers for two of them as they are getting tarnished as they are at the moment. By the end of the morning I am out of finger skin so return them to their home in the library. At some point I need to plug the Strat into the Peavey amp and indulge in some nosy practice.

I make lunch and then Amazon deliver my new Loops. They are a form of ear plug that that attenuate the background sounds so that conversation in noise areas is easier. After my experience at the weekend when I got overwhelmed by the crowd noise at the Murder Mystery evening I thought I would give Loops a try. My choice is to ft the smallest ear piece as my right ear canal is very slim and it turns out a good choice. I will get the chance to test them out at the Opera tomorrow night. The hope is that I will cope with the pre bar crowd better than I did on Saturday.

Well the time for indulgence is over. Oh! Before I forget it is National Unicorn Day, something that has appalled at least one friend. I get the kitchen done and cleared the recycling before getting the bins our for tomorrows collection and notice as I am doing it that my front garden is a swath of forget-me-nots. A blue sea of small blue face like flowers covers most of the beds as the bulbs push into the sky. All of this is self sown, clearly nature knows what it is doing.

The afternoon passes as I try to ensure my poetry numbering is up to date. For some time I try to find the words to acknowledge the poems I have written in the past which have gone for ever but do not succeed, instead I fill the squirrel feeder with the newly arrived peanut supply. I always find a period of concentrated “puttering” always helps. The evening arrives with the return of my partner from work. I am hoping for reading and football time this evening but I’m not sure it will turn out like that.

In the end I get to see football but also a film with opera singing at its heart. It has warmed me up for tomorrows visit to the opera. I take my night chemo meds and retreat to bed or read briefly and then endeavour to settle into a nights sleep.

“THE CANCER YEARS: SO FAR

No Customer Reviews

Introducing “THE CANCER YEARS: So Far” – a poignant poetry collection penned by Roland Woodward, a retired chartered forensic psychologist from the United Kingdom. Despite battling prostate cancer since 2019, Roland’s dyslexia serves as an unexpected enhancement, allowing him to express his experiences with eloquence and depth.

In this heartfelt anthology, Roland shares his reflections on life, love, and resilience amidst adversity. Each poem offers a glimpse into his journey, chronicling the mundane, crises, and challenges of living with cancer. From moments of vulnerability to flashes of hope, Roland’s verses resonate with authenticity and raw emotion.

Inspired by his battle with cancer, Roland embarked on a poetic endeavor, chronicling his experiences through regular blog posts for family and friends. Now, he invites readers to delve into this intimate collection, offering insight into the complexities of life with a life-threatening illness.

As Roland navigates the nuances of his diagnosis, he finds solace and expression in poetry, joining local poets and considering publication. “THE CANCER YEARS: So Far” marks his first step into the realm of published poetry, with hopes of further collections in the future.

Embark on a journey of resilience, introspection, and hope with Roland Woodward’s “THE CANCER YEARS: So Far” – a testament to the power of the human spirit in the face of adversity.

Read Less”

My gast was well and truly flabbered. It was quite something to start the day with. I get up with this in my head and go to the kitchen to make bagels for breakfast, take my meds and put my clothes away from the weekend trip just to keep my feet on the ground. My plan for the morning goes well and one turkey sandwich later I am ready to get my new bird feed storage dustbin unpacked and into the Shed. This part of my plan goes well and even the recycling goes well. When it comes to the actual food for the wild life I was expecting to find peanuts, to my chagrin it turns out to be bird seed. Not being daunted I manhandle the sack of seed into the garden and fill the new storage dustbin and find a way of getting it into the Shed. With the bird feeders full I finish the recycling and continue to listen to Mock the Week while drafting the blog.

While I do all this I continue to think about the poem I am trying to write about being overcome by the noise of the people at the weekend. It has clearly affected me but I am struggling to find the right words to convey what it was like to stand there overcome by the sheer weight of sound. The experience was one of cacophony, it just alienated me from being in the room with the people there. Sound in the form of music has been some of my most memorable experiences but this was different in that it was so aversive. The sheer experience of that noise made me loose all interest in the people making it and turned it into something that just needed to be survived. I know I was not alone. When I recall looking round the room there were others that had withdrawn to the fringes of the room and were silent and the couple the following morning who apologised for their lack of engagement in conversation at the table because they could not cope with the noise confirmed that I was not alone. Usually I can find a form of words that gets close to such experiences but this time it is proving difficult. This is as far as I ‘ve got with it.

377A
My eyes defocus 
and I am left,
awash on the waves 
of a cornfield of sound. 
Standing in a pack of people 
all talking in that 
good time way.
Louder and louder it grows 
as I sink beneath its tides,
it is unbearable 
as on it sweeps 
building into an ocean
that drowns me. 
Cacophony fills me,
as I falter,
desperate not to hear,
to be struck deaf 
to this babbling;
I retreat to the toilets. 
Sitting there in an oasis 
of ordinary silence,
interrupted only by
the occasional occupant’s
coughs and farts
I find respite. 
If I am to dine and participate
in this nights entertainment 
I must return to the cauldron. 
Sitting at table seven 
trying to make conversation
with nice people,
the pain continues. 

Over breakfast a couple 
come and apologise
for being quiet 
for they too were 
deafened by humanity 
out for a jolly time. 
I know what purgatory 
Is now.  
							377A	07-04-2024	

It is clumsy and lacks the weight with which I experienced it, but it is an attempt. It seemed important to try and capture something of the experience. I am wondering now how I will be on Wednesday when I go to see Carmen, I relish the thought of the opera but now it is the hubbub of the bar before hand that I am wary of. I suppose the answer is to arrive as late as possible and minimise that pre waiting time and become that awkward bastard who arrives at the last moment and clambers over half a row of people to get to their seat. Perhaps my Loops will help if they arrive in time.

The evening looms and I look forward to reading and having my ignorance confirmed by Only Connect and University Challenge, interrupted by the Tesco order when it arrives. So far its been a good day without any sign of Uluru (my bladder stone) creating any problems for me, so it’s business as usual, which is of course me and Rocket fight the best we can against the cancer. I think more and more we are edging towards the reckless or at least giving the rower a go again. I can’t go on being this slothful.

Sunday I wake up after a night of Hematuria which abated by the morning. It was probably the prolonged standing the evening before that triggered but having drunk a lot of water during the night I woke to find myself clear of it. A hot water to wake me up in bed and I was ready to go to breakfast. The hotel is is an impressive place and maintains a a subdued ambience to reflect the historical nature of the place, although so new new bits have clearly been built onto the old Abbey complex to make it a viable hotel and events venue. All owned by Coventry council, so they have found themselves a nice little earner.

Breakfast was taken in the conservatory, all iron and glass. You would think that this impressive looking hotel would do a good breakfast but alas it was average. Its sausages skinny and tasteless, its fried eggs inedible, scrambled egg runny and is muesli a very much do it yourself job. I think I am to some degree a snob as the previous evening I had noted the lack of Armagnac on the drinks menu. However the food was welcome as was the quick acknowledgement from the couple we met on table 7 the previous night. The woman apologised if we thought her to be unchatty but she was having trouble with the loud background noise. I immediately breathed a sigh of relief to know I was not the only person that was struggling with it. There was mutual reassurance that we were all in the same boat. After breakfast my partner and I pack, loaded the car and paid the bill before driving home via the local garden centre to pick up food for the evening. Once home I settled on the recliner and opened my Amazon parcel. My two new collections of stories by Italo Calvino had arrived so I am assured of reading material to feed my brain for a while. Of course I’m not sure which to read first but as they are collections of stories I can dip into them at the same time, so I’m looking forward to the adventure of my new books.

Time to catch up on the blog and to unpack before the rugby on TV this afternoon. As it turns out the unpacking doesn’t happen because my Hematuria intervenes and so I resort to co-codamol, which makes me sleepy and not a little spaced out. I watch a rugby match in a distracted but pain free state followed by Sue Perkins discovering Japan. The evening arrives as does tea and then the decision of what to watch on TV tonight.

My evening is pleasingly full of Professor T and offsets my anxieties about how my night will go. In the end I take my night chemo meds and wait a while to see how I feel. I am tempted to take a dose of pain killers to help me through the night. Tomorrow I have a chance to rest and begin to read my new books and try to finish the poem I started to write today.