Thursday and I wake up knowing this is the day of reckoning with the Tax man. It is my annual nightmare, I hate the day of reckoning, it is when all my inattention comes home to roost. My partner brings me a hot water before she goes to the gym and I get up and prepare breakfast to go with my morning meds. I am at last able to taste food, that terrible earthy taste in my mouth due to chemo seems to be abating. With breakfast over its time to head into the office armed with my accounts and bank statements.
I open up my UK.Gov account and go to the tax self assessment section. There I find a new section, it is a quiz to see if you need to do a self assessment tax return. This seems like a good idea so I plunge in and work through the quiz. At the end I get a very clear message that I do not need to do a self assessment. Result! With this joy I move on to my account section, where it tells me I owe them £5:54 from tax year 2023-24. This seems trivial but I pay it. With a receipt copied I move on to trying to find what my 2024-25 tax year calculation is. My account is blank. I am on the point of abandoning the site when I notice I have messages. The first one I open is my 2024-25 tax calculation, first sent to me in November 2025. I go to the “this is how we worked it out” section, and there is my debt all laid out in black and white. Working through it line by line I can find nothing to argue with, which is annoying. In my head I do some calculating of what I have in my accounts generated from my bank statements and decide that the figure I am being asked for is okay, there is a bit of an offset which means in the scheme of things over the longer term what I owe the tax man is okay. My offset pays for half of what I am being asked for. I duly get the debit card out again and pay my dues. The receipt comes through and I print off a couple of copies. That’s me done for another year. My 2024-25 accounts book and bank statements get put away with all my other years accounts and leave the office to go and relax in the lounge feeling the relief that completing the taxman task always brings.
My partner returns from the gym and we go off to the garden centre for a bacon roll and an americano. We have a chance to chat and to catch up. We have achieved quite a lot in the last few weeks and are in good shape as a household, at least comfortable enough to go through the rest of winter to the spring. On the way out we spot that there are some Broom plants for sale and decide that these would shield the one or two bald patches in our front hedge. 3 for £12 seems a good deal and it gets better at the till when we get another 20% off. So for a measly £9 we have solved our front hedge problem.
Once home I am free to check my websites and emails before I have a long face to face chat with my youngest daughter. She too has a tax return to sort out as well as tending to the new born youngest grandchild along with her other son. Its a lovely chat and I come away really having enjoyed the chance to talk. The surprise I had arranged to be delivered today will now not get there till tomorrow but the jacket that my partner had sent had arrived and was being worn, looked very snug. At the end of the call I visited my poetry website and sent the link for it to the chair of my Poetry Stanza group asking if it could be shared, which he later did. I settled down to draft the family blog while my partner supported our eldest daughter with the task of completing the reference list for her PhD thesis that is due in by midnight tomorrow. It will be a take away night as it could be a long nights work. My intention is to watch the Rangers European match with my Scottish friend on the other end of a WhatsApp conversation. Its something we occasionally do, its going to be the last time for this season as Rangers are not going through to the next round.
I am just beginning to feel that I have got to grips with cycle 2 of my chemo rechallenge. My sense of taste returning is a good sign and I feel less tired than I did. My digestion has settled down and I feel less anxious. This means I shall be good to meet friends for lunch on Saturday. However it is back to a 28 injection and hospital bloods on Monday and an oncology review on Wednesday before Cycle 3 starts on Friday. It feels never ending but this is the fight, I backed myself and my strength to do the chemo rechallenge, and if I am right I get to live longer, no greater incentive than that. I stand, this is my strength.
Wednesday arrives and I wake to hot water and my partner on her way to visit her mother. I make breakfast and take my morning meds, not quite sure how I feel ,although improved from the early part of Cycle 2. I am hoping that I am settling down, my sleep seems to be better. With the basics done I head out to the chemist and the local co-op. My prescription is ready and handed over so I pop next door to the co-op for a paper, cash, indulgences and “Banonions”, which is what came out of my mouth when clarifying the shopping needs. With my bag awash with more goodies than I planned I head home.
My first job is to get my washing in and then sit down and fill my drugs dosettes. This is tricky at chemo times as I have to ensure I get the timings right in terms of introducing the chemo steroids into my dosettes for the right days. It takes a while but eventually they are loaded up and I can relax now to the run in to my next oncology review, bloods and the start of Cycle 3. As I beaver away at my self maintenance tasks I am aware that there is a great deal of office activity going on. My eldest daughter is drafting and printing off the final drafts of her PhD thesis, which is being proof read by my partner. Its all very intense and best left alone, the submission deadline is midnight on Friday, so its full steam ahead. I stay out of the way, another dyslexic in the mix is asking for trouble.
Out of the blue my eldest daughter gives me a present. I open the Amazon envelope and I find a wizard key ring (can never have too many). It makes me laugh and smile and and also think “too right that’s me”.
Nothing less will do!
While the academic storm is going on in the office I take time to draft the blog and and retrieve the washing. Of course I take a time out to fill the bird feeders and replenish the fat ball dispenser. The dispenser is a hand woven Christmas present, but the birds are taking no notice of that and are nicking bits of the cane work, presumably to add to their nest building activities. That’s nature for you, it just utilises whatever it needs regardless of any human considerations. I’d love to know what will evolve out of our post apocalyptic cock up to carry on life on earth. I am sure something will survive and evolve. What happens to the crew of the international space station when it all goes pear shaped? Do they wait as long as possible before they make a bid for home?
Today is the last round of the European Champions Cup, which means that at least six English teams could make the automatic knockout round. It should make an exciting night of viewing and no doubt some of the Brit teams will fall by the wayside amidst a flurry of injury, bad luck and poor refereeing excuses. I just hope at least one of the teams has a decent win. Hopefully that will happen with enough time to watch yet another Brokenwood Mystery before getting off to bed full of medication. Before the football onslaught I find time to write a brief blog for the poetry website, http://prost8kancerman.com, I called it The Sixties and describes the Penguin Modern Poets series published in the sixties and my fondness for the series.
Lungs three times the capacity of a human! That’s awesome.
Tuesday and its wet and cold. My partner brings me my morning hot water and I get up and make myself breakfast while my partner goes to the gym for her aqua class. With the refuelling done I set to work on preparing my accounts for 2024/25. In order to do this I have to run off my bank statements for my current account and my credit card. To my surprise my ancient HP P2600 printer is connected to my phone, I have absolutely no idea how this happened but it means I can run off all my statements from my phone. I patiently plod through all the printing, occasionally adding fresh paper, but apart from that the techno did all the work.
I finally have a pile of statements which I then go through item by item and highlighting the ones that are related to my poetry adventure along with interest payments. It is a long and tedious task but I find all the expenditure and royalties that I was expecting to find. I also discovered that I am Amazon dependant. I’m not claiming it as a mental illness or anything but it is clear I am too bloody lazy to go shopping and too impatient to wait for anything to arrive. Some would say this is me adapting to my situation and making the best use of technology, I’m sure others would see it differently. Any way I finally get all the statements marked up and I am ready to construct my accounts. They are very basic, what goes out against what comes in. I knew I spent a lot on publishing services but I had not toted up my royalties. I was pleasantly surprised. Do not get me wrong, they no way covered my costs of publication services but they did indicate that there are more of my books out there than I thought. In the end I have accounts that I can now use when I jump on the HMRC account and wrestle with the annual tax return. I am hoping my poetry losses might off set some other income.
All my numerical ducks in a row ready for the tax standoff.
With the hard graft done on the accounts its time for a sandwich and a drink before my next project of the day. By now my partner is home and we put our heads together to do the quick crossword before I move onto dishwasher spray arm replacement. I am feeling confident as I have watched several short videos which invariably ended with the words equivalent to “there you go its a piece of piss”. You always know there is going to be a problem when you open up the package with the spare parts and there is a piece you do not expect. In this case a flat horse shoe shaped bit of plastic that was supposed to slide into the end of one of the spray arms. No idea what it is for and still haven’t. It is also tricky when the person on the video says “make sure you fit this piece up the right way” and gives no indication which is the right way. If you do not take a picture of the original in situ you stand a fifty fifty chance of screwing it up.
I started on the upper spray arm as I knew I would have to fit a new supply inlet on the back wall of the washer. I had seen it done on the video and remembered that just after she said “ease the metal clips with a flat head screwdriver and the inlet will pop out” there was an edit from screwdriver to the inlet popping out. Of course the metal clips did not yield so easily and the inlet did everything apart from “just pop out”. Eventually I got the damn thing out and was then faced with “just pop the new one on”. I did manage to get the thing into place but not without contorting myself in some weird yoga poses to reach the back of the washer. I breathed a sigh of relief and moved onto installing the new spray arm onto the underside of the upper basket. This was relatively simple, however this is where the mystery piece came into play. I think it was meant to be a spacer but the space it was supposed to go in was filled by the wire of the basket that anchored the spray arm end. I tried several possibilities from gentle coaxing to brute force but sometimes you just know that you cannot get two things into one space. In the end I decided that it was functional and left it alone. The putting in of the lower spray arm was a doddle and everything the videos said was true. I packed away my tools and set the dishwasher off on a half load test run. It is whirring as I type and I will soon know if my project has been a success.
The old inlet telling me which way is up. Success the new spray arms in, hero!
By now I am knackered and treat myself to a drink and a hot cross bun (Tesco, surprisingly good) and set about writing todays blog. Already its tea time and the day has flown by. I ready myself for more of the Brokenwood Mysteries, its clear I am hooked on them, but by now I know the formulae. I do like the way the same characters keep popping up. like Frodo the luckless and hapless small entrepreneur who is always involved in some way in finding the initial corpse. The Russian medical officer is a breath of fresh air and creates a lot of the humour. So I will indulge in the fun of Brokenwood and then take my night meds and hope for a good nights sleep before going to the HMRC website tomorrow. If it crashes I am screwed. One last note, I have written a small new piece for the blog on prost8kancerman.com its just about another of my favourite second hand poetry books.
Monday and its time to get going on the projects, but first there is a call to the doctors to make. I need to book my 28 day injection. After some appalling hold music and some messages about vomiting blood I get through and as always they are very helpful and find me a slot at the same time as my hospital bloods are due. With that out of the way its meds time and breakfast. I’ve never quite mastered the art of soft boiled eggs even when I time them. So I end up with delicious buttery toast and very very soft eggs. With that done its “build a mini greenhouse” time.
Due to the mini nature of it, the obvious thing to do was to build it in the kitchen and then get my eldest daughter to carry it outside. So I get started and all goes well till I realise that two piece that look identical are not. A slight rebuild is required.
First steps go well The final thing
After some jiggling about with the doors I finally get the project finished and its time to get my eldest daughter to be the human forklift and take it into the garden for me. With the mini greenhouse sitting on the tile base on the shale bed it’s time to transfer the autumn plantings to it so that they can continue to grow and to free one of the raised bed propagators for the January seed sewing’s. So it seems that all is going to plan and the strategy for filing the garden pots and beds is on course.
The spring plants in new home The new house tucked up
With all the tools packed away its time for another Red Bull and to start to draft the blog until my partner returns from the opticians. My next task is to prepare for the tax man, which will mean down loading statements and putting together an accounts book just to keep track of what I intend to claim for. The evening flies by till drugs time and then I head for bed and hopefully some rest.
Saturday rolls around and I wake up not feeling good as my gut is off. As a result I have my back up breakfast of tomato soup and my morning meds. The rest of the day consists of me watching football and rugby while I try to get myself together. By the early evening I felt well enough to have a shower and put on my glad rags to go for an anniversary meal. When it came time to go I felt so crap I did not go, but my partner and eldest daughter went off to enjoy posh nosh. In an effort to pull my gut around I made pasta which I washed down with a brandy. Brandy is my go to medicinal cure for a bad gut, the alcohol in brandy acts as a depressant on the gut and stops it from spasming. By the time my partner and eldest daughter return from the restaurant I am beginning to feel a bit better. After an episode of The Brokenwood Mystery’s I go to bed in the hope that I will feel better in the morning.
Sunday and my waking is tentative as I check to see how I am. My gut is feeling better but I am still feeling tired and the effects of chemo. The worst thing is the terrible taste in my mouth that the chemo is responsible for. It takes any joy out of eating as I do the taste equivalent of a Marcel Marceau performance. Had I gone to the restaurant last night I might as well eaten a napkin, roast, poached, boiled, seared, stewed, braised or just lightly and neatly ironed. My partner brings me a hot water and we chat for a while until I get up and make toast for breakfast. As I am pottering about in the kitchen I have a second look at the dishwasher and spot the Model number that I was looking for, but missed, yesterday. My partner and I jot the model number down and while I munch my way through toast I order new spray arms for the dishwasher. With luck it will give Daisy (dishwasher) a new lease of life.
I retreat to the lounger and start to catch up on drafting the blog while the garden guy arrives and starts to prepare the ground for the new mini green house to go in. Although I am not at my best it seems that things can still get done. The new mini greenhouse will soon be in place and my partner will be able to start the spring seed sowing for the flowering plants in summer.
I spend time reviewing the new poetry website, prost8kancerman.com, and thinking about what I want to put into the blog. At the same time I am thinking about getting organised for my annual wrestle with the tax man. For now I rest and plan an afternoon of writing and reading. Tomorrow will be the day for action.
Friday and after a reasonable night’s sleep I propose to my partner that we go and have breakfast at one of the nearby garden centres. I take my morning meds and soon we are sitting in the Duck House café tucking into their special breakfast deal. In truth its a bacon roll and coffee with a hash brown thrown in, but it is just what I need. Everything tastes foul as a result of the chemo therapy, the two litres of water I am supposed to be drinking everyday is a real test. I add lemon squash to it but it still tastes brackish and off. Recently I have taken to eating bullseyes (the sweets) in the hope that the minty flavour wards off the foul taste It does a bit but by no means totally.
The weather is wet and miserable so when breakfast is over we drive home quickly to get back into somewhere comfortable. I change and begin the process of installing the new treadmill/walking plate in the garage. I unbox the beast in the office and extract the instruction manual and all the bits and pieces. For a while I read the manual trying to make sure I understand what I am doing in setting it up, I’m not sure I need to know how to use it as this is going to be my partners equipment. Once I know what I am doing, in terms of set up I unpack the machine and get my eldest daughter to carry it in the garage gym, where I have previously cleared a space by folding up the press bench and rowing machine. The instillation goes smoothly once I get the end with the power inlet at the right end. All that remains is for me to install the power cable safety protector which is arriving in the afternoon. In theory we are all set to be able to exercise without going to the gym, which will save us a lot of travel time and petrol cost. I will of course be taking up swimming soon.
The new machine in place, now for the hard work.
I am tired after my efforts and retreat to the lounge recliner where I start to prep for writing something for the new poetry website blog. prost8kancerman.com I have a couple of old book that intrigue me so I thought I would add a blog entry about them. After reading for a while I tidy away the packaging from the treadmill and order my regular drugs. I have still got a list of important things to do, like sorting out my tax affairs and progressing the instillation of the little greenhouse that is waiting to be put in place in the garden. For now I rest and look forward to an afternoon of writing and an evening of watching a rugby match on TV. It seems that if I can keep a slow and even pace I can avoid any reoccurrence of my haematuria, which means I may soon be able to start exercising again. I am desperate to do some form of exercise as I think my loss of fitness is a major factor in my struggling to deal with the current chemo rechallenge.
Wednesday and I wake to a wet and overcast day. once I am up I take my morning meds and have a soup breakfast. I spend a lot of time on the new poetry website, checking the details and trying to edit some bits. eventually I think I have it ready to go live. So from Thursday I will start to write content for it, especially the blog section. It is here that I will be posting new poems and short comments about the poetry I am reading or anything else that I am doing with mine or anyone else’s poetry. The idea is that this blog remains the main blog for family and friends to keep up to date with my battle with my prostate cancer. I expect the odd new poem will appear here but mainly poetry stuff will now appear on the prost8kancerman.com website. I hope it will go live by the end of the week.
I finally get the new grab bar installed over the bath to help me in and out of the shower safely. Strictly speaking it is not really necessary but I am being cautious and future proving what I use most and is most necessary to my comfort and well being, It seems a wise thing to do. The evening rolls around and I feel tired even though it doesn’t feel that I have done much. There is tea to eat and then soem football but basically I watch more Brokenwood Mysteries, I am clearly partially addicted to them. Its the New Zealand country side that interests me, that and the small town locations of mid island New Zealand. They remind mem of some of the deep south towns of America as they are portrayed on various TV series. I wonder if New Zealanders and Americans are equally fascinated by Midsomer Murders and think we all live within a stones throw of a duck pond, quaint country church and of course a manor house full of anxt ridden aristocrats. In New Zealand every second person seems to own a patch of vineyard and to brew Merlot or Chardonnay. My final acts are to start the dishwasher, down my night meds and go off to bed pleased that this has been another day without Haematuria.
Thursday and I wake to the sound of my partner going to physio. I get up, take my meds and have a soup breakfast. With the kitchen cleared I set about the final preparations to launch the new website. I finally get the email address right and begging to think about where I am going to generate content from. I decide its time to move back into the office as the centre to create content from. There will be articles and. blogs to write along with new videos to make. Having made this decision I look at what I will be using. The current key board is frankly crap and broken so I order an “old persons” keyboard, big keys, lots of pretty back light choices, media keys and all the things that attract me. With luck it will arrive today, late on.
With my foibles catered for I turn my attention to the gym in the garage. I need to make room for my partners new walking plate. Initially I think I need to unbolt my weights bench but I find that it will fold up and away, which is a great relief. The next object to move is the rowing machine. Fortunately it folds up and I am able to move it to a storage position. This means that there is now space for the walking plate. I’m pleased with my efforts but I need to think about the power cord. Once again I resort to Amazon and order a safety cable protector. With luck it will arrive tomorrow and I will be able to install the walking plate safely.
With the grunt work done I have a rest and then accompany my partner to the gym where she is going to have her hair done. I sit in the lounge with my laptop and draft content for the new poetry website. I beaver away drafting content with a view of posting it tonight. The bacon roll and americano slip down nicely as I continue to work on stuff and catch up with my messages. Eventually my partner reappears with newly styled hair and we drive off home as the gym begins to fill with evening clientele.
There is football this evening and of course more Brokenwood Mysteries, but I am mostly looking forward to posting on the new website and playing with my new keyboard. While thinking about this stuff am seriously considering a new printer for the office system. At the moment the ancient HP 2600 printer is creaking and given that new tank printers are cheap as chips it seems a good time to think about an upgrade. As I am likely to be spending more time creating content investing in new techno seems a reasonable thing to do. I am aiming for an early night so that I can crack on in the morning with the instillation of the walking plate. There is still a handy man tp hunt down to get the bathroom door done. I just wish I had more energy at the moment and did not feel quite so rank, hopefully there is a good nights sleep ahead of me.
Monday and I am slow to wake, it was an interrupted night. Eventually I get up and make breakfast and take my morning meds. My partner is going out to have coffee with friends so I decide to take Elsie (the newish car) to the garage and fill her with petrol and take the opportunity to stock up on chocolate and goodies including more Red Bull. Its good to get behind the wheel again and to make a short trip. I know this is not exciting but when I feel so low on energy getting out to do a simple task is good news. I find myself scribbling a self instructional poem.
493 I just wanted to say I’m struggling. I sit fighting chemo but all around me the chores of everyday life pile up. Insurance, tax returns, the bureaucracy of living and taking care of myself is drowning me. My inactivity is killing me, my fear of haematuria paralyses me. I need to exercise, to engage but, but the dishwasher is playing up my lungs are full and I’ve no energy. I need to dig, dig deep and find something or else I am going to slide deeper and loose my footing. My environment reflects my mind and at the moment it is messy and chaotic, I crave neat and tidy, the return to a semblance of control. Must try harder, and get a grip.
493 19-01-2026
Once I have returned there are crosswords to do from todays paper before I embark on a major clear up. I’m sick of being surrounded by old Christmas cards, letters, bills, and all the collected dross of living. I rabidly start to throw stuff away and put things in order. Bills to be paid are set to one side and a lot of old statements and bills get filed in the office. On top of this I shift outstanding work on the new poetry website. I dig out some content I had prepared and send it off to the person building the site for me. There was a request for photos of me for the site so I thought I would use my pre and post chemo rechallenge pictures. They are in stark contrast with each other.
Six years of hair post 1st chemoThe start if chemo rechallenge
How things and circumstances change and how interesting it is to be a chameleon. Eventually my decks are cleared, my external environment is tidy and manageable and strangely my head feels better for it. No surprise really, the inner and the outer environments are often reflections of each other. Along the way I have ordered new pairs of joggers, safe grip handles for the shower and an accounts book so that I can catch up with my tax return. By early evening all there is to do is eat, rest and wait for Tesco to deliver what is going to be a bit of a mystery basket. So I watch more Brokenwood Mystery’s until its unload and squirrel away time. I am tempted to watch Kill Bill 1 but take my meds and go to bed.
Tuesday and I am pleasantly surprised as my partner appears with a warm drink and toasted marmalade bagels. We lay and eat our picnic and discuss how we are and what the plan for the day is. We are still sleeping in separate rooms as my partner still has her cold and my immune system is crap at the moment due to chemo. Hopefully soon this can stop. While chatting we rediscover the nebuliser that we acquired some time ago so my partner gives it a go to see if it relieves her cough.
Once up I am in the kitchen clearing away and trying to keep straight. My partner hoovers while I clear stuff and pretty soon we are ready to go to a local garden centre for the treat of bacon rolls and black americano. The place is quite full, so I guess there are lots of people like us just looking to chill and to meander. With the end of the bacon rolls I grab a box of bird feeding suet balls. The birds in the garden have really taken to the fat ball dispenser that was a woven Christmas present from a friend. On the way out we grab half a dozen “free to a good home” plants and drive off to another village where my partner collects some jewellery that is being mended for my eldest daughter. I am surprised to find a jewellery designer and maker in this village. On a whim I have a conversation with the jeweller about using some of the jewellery that I have inherited and making it into something different. I’m tired of having old stuff laying around which is doing nothing and belonged to relatives I’ve no idea about. So if I can get it recast and made into something that I can wear or my family can wear then that seems a more healthy option. I am quite keen on this idea now that I see it as a possibility and see myself hunting through what I have. I have no idea what I might convert it into but then the jeweller said they could provide a designer to advise.
On returning home I immediately fill the bird feeder with new fat balls and top up the squirrel feeder. While I am at it I put new batteries in the wild life camera and re site it in the garden. I am interested to see if the hedgehogs are emerging and whether the squirrels are being active. My new joggers have arrived so I get into a new comfy pair of them and settle down to catch up with the blog while Alexa plays me relaxation music. I am feeling quite tired now and I am content to drift towards the evening with one eye on the door to see if my other Amazon purchases arrive. There is football to watch tonight as it is a European competitions week. Of all the things that need to be done to maintain myself and give myself the best survival chance, exercise is the most important. I have to find a way to exercise safely so as not to induce Haematuria. At the moment swimming is my best option, it is unfortunate that the gym pool is at the moment not very serviceable. I shall continue to work this out. As a final side note to my chemo rechallenge, I have started to develop dark rainbows on my nails in response to the chemo. Last time I got a ridge for each cycle, this time it appears to be dark arcs. Always something new to find.
Its been a while but a lot seems to have happened. Thursday was a day of of preparation before Fridays Chemo. I did small things like change light bulbs and getting my Chemo survival bag ready as I was going solo this time, my partner still has her stinking cold and cough so a hospital is definitely not the place for her to be hanging around in. So Thursday was a puttering day but of course I had to start my pre chemo steroids. I went to bed quite late satisfied that I was as ready as I could be having taken all I needed to take and downloaded all the poems for Saturdays poetry Stanza meeting. I had written a poem about meeting a fellow poet at the oncology outpatients yesterday. A man who asked about what I was reading and the ensuing conversation.
489 I met a man named Jim. He sat next to me in oncology outpatients and enquired what I was reading. It was Jim Harrison and I explained how I found him being read by a character in a film. Jim found H.G. Wells the same way. We talked about how writing it down gets it out of our heads and he shared he is writing a poem. He could not tell me what it was but it made his wife cry and then Jim welled up. I showed him my collections and told him how others contained the dark stuff where my family could not. He started a year before me and here we are seven years on both embarked on the chemo rechallenge. A couple of fighters still standing, Still pumping our arms and still wielding words and ink in our defence. His name gets called and he leaves. Minutes later he returns, Sits by me, wishes me well, says it was good to meet me, and like men we shake hands and wish each other luck. I miss him.
489 15-01-2026
Friday, chemo day, I am up early and showered so that I am bright and sparkly for the oncology boys and girls. A quick toast breakfast and I am Ubering my way to the hospital. The Uber is my rainy day luxury, its not a fortune but it eases my life immeasurably not having to drive or public transport it to the hospital and back. I arrive at the oncology department on time and hand my pink “dance card” into reception and go upstairs to the chemo suite waiting area. I settle in and have a pre- emptive piss and start to read, its coming up to 10:45 my time. A smiley reception person comes up to me with my dance card and points out that my chemo is not until 3pm, I am at least 4 hours early! My mistake, I put the wrong time from one part of my dance card into my phone diary. So I have to amuse myself for the time. I make a plan, read and write till noon, grab a sandwich for lunch, read more, write more and nibble the chocolate that I will undoubtedly buy from the café. I immediately drink the Red Bull I have bought with me.
Chemo waiting areas are strange places and as I read The Forest of Noise, poems by Mosab Abu Toha, a contemporary war poet from Gazza I begin to notice things. There is a strange coming together of what is going on around me and what the poems are describing in a war torn world.
490 Sitting in chemo reception I’m four hours early, another dyslexic diversion with an unexpected picnic. So I settle in and nread poetry, Forrest of Noise by Toha, a contemporary Palestinian carrying a nations pain, loss upon loss buried under rumble and no way of identifying the slaughtered, it’s tough read. I can only bear it in short and thoughtful bursts. Nne but Indians talk to each other in this stark waiting area, presumably because that’s the way to be private. Our curse is English, We gave it ti the Empire and then the world and now there is no hiding, no public unique vice. So there is silence broken only by a snatched clarification or request for information, usually followed by a British grumble. No one expects Morris dancing Or philosophical debate, all is confined to screens and a world out there away from the door of a chemo suite. Couples, patients and carers, snatch lowly muttered messages, invariably family are in there. But mainly its silence broken only by the clip clop of healthcare staff going about their business for this is their land to step in. Again I return to Gazza And wonder how many died waiting in quiet hospital wards and clinics until something exploded and their floor fell followed by ceiling and walls to entomb beyond medical reach. Just more dead rubble people that the world ignores and fail to use it’s shared English to find a peace where loss can return to its natural order: grandparents die, parents die, I die, my children follow in their time, as do theirs. This is what English should be for, not the language by which tyrants inflict death for oil or rare earths in the name of justice or worst of all, religion. 490 16-01-2026
I am not sure where all this came from, but came it did. I keep to my plan and go in search of the café where I find a sandwich of something resembling ham and cheese, a pile of Kit Kats and a Yorkie along with two bottles of water. These I nibble in the chemo waiting area and continue to read and write. A nurse announces that they are running two hours late. It seems today is going to be longer than I thought. Little did I know about what was to come. At one point I hear the end of chemo rainbow bell being rung, which prompted me to scribble another poem.
491 A bell is rung as another one gets to the end of chemo. A burst of applause, and then an exit through those of us waiting. It is a delusion, the battles not over the bell is a distraction the illusion of hope rung out over the waiting reality of the pain to follow. I hate that fucking bell and refused to ring it the first time. Older and cancer wiser back for a rechallenge there will be silence again as I get on with life.
491 16-01-2026
So I read and write and as 3pm gets closer I go for another pre-emptive piss hoping that I might get into my session on time. Of course I do not get called and by 3:30 I am off for another pre-emptive piss, it is clear I am conscious of my ability to out last my session with out the need to go to the toilet, life is easier like that. At 3:45pm my name gets called, I bound forward glad at last to be on the go and getting it done. I pop myself into bay 18 and the nurse pops the cannula into the back of my hand, my blood pressure is taken, a bit high, so they wait to start pumping stuff into me.
Ready to rock and roll!
Blood pressure all good and off we go! What happened next was a complete and utter surprise and shock. I went into a full blown allergic reaction! By body responded as if filed with fire and I my head spun lightly and I knew I was going to loose consciousness. Typically I thought. “Fuck me this is a bit of a rush” but apparently had enough sense to hail the nurse and mutter feebly “I am feeling very feint”. I’ve never seen so many nurses move so fast. In an instant I had five around me, my chemo IV lead was taken out and they pumped my with antihistamines and corticoids and of course a lot of saline. I recovered miraculously fast, just like in the films when some one goes down with an anaphylactic shock and they get jabbed with adrenaline, the recovery is instant and so it was with me. The lead nurse explained what had happened and we chatted about this never ever happening to me before and that this was my second cycle. He said it sometimes takes two or three cycles for this to happen. They all agree I have recovered well, so I ask “can we get on with it now”. The nurses says that will give me saline for 30 minutes and talk to the doctor. I stress that I am keen to continue. When he comes back they tell me that they will finish the session but the rate of infusion will be over two hours. “Fuck” I think “that means a long time to go with out a piss”. Faced with the reality I of course manage to last the course, which probably says more about my levels of anxiety than anything else.
So by about six o’clock I am the only one in the chemo suit apart from a poor woman who has had a fall and is in a side room. A sort of lodger in oncology while the nursing team and doctors try to find her a bed for the night, which is proving to be a tricky task, clearly bed managers are the kings and queens of any hospital. So I am alone with a Yorkie to see me through my long session and of course Toha’s poetry.
Here I am “Billy no mates” alone in the chemo unit.
I have poetry and a Yorkie to comfort me
After a while it is clear the nurses want to go home so they up the delivery rate steadily to get it done in an hour and then there will be ten minutes of saline flush and I can go home. I find time time to scribble a short poem about my reaction and the ensuing events before they set me free to go and find an Uber home.
492 Wow! That was scary, a sudden rush, faint and wobbly. Apparently this is allergic reaction. After all this time the Yew tree gets me. I’m surrounded, new chemicals pumped into me via the handy cannula. I surface, even out and return to basics. I’m filled with saline and then we have another go, slow and steady, two hours not one, with saline to follow. Wow! what a rush But I pass a second go so I am Billy no mates alone on the ward, the last man chemoing and nurses want to go home, I don’t blame them, the awkward old bastard in bay eighteen is keeping them here. He just wants a piss and an Uber. 492 16-01-2026
I make it to the hotel across the way from the hospital and pick up an Uber to get me home, I’m tired and a bit taken aback by the events of the day. I call my partner to say I’m on the way back and hear that tea is on the go. Once home I just change clothes and flop down to eat and rest. The evening is slow and I am not really paying attention to much. I go to bed having taken my meds and got myself well hydrated.
Saturday arrives slowly, I am clearly tired from yesterdays adventure but I get up and make breakfast. I try to install new LED G4 lamps into the kitchen lighting array. It goes well for a moment and there is a glorious display of LED lighting and then the controlling transformer in the array blows. My new LED lights are too much for the system so I take them out and put in old style bulbs but of course there needs to be a new transformer put in. I email our electrician, a lovely bloke, who messages back that he is stacked with work and it will not be until the third week in February that he can get to us. That’s fine, its not an emergency, so we can wait that long. I also put out a call for a handyman to rehang and shorten the bathroom door so it will close properly, I’m fed up living with an open bathroom door. I am tempted to do it myself, I have all the kit I need but I am not sure if I can be arsed. If they come back with ridiculous quotes for it I will do it myself. By the time I’ve done all this its time to fire up the office computer and attend the Poetry Stanza zoom meeting.
The poetry stanza meeting goes well. By chance sometimes the poems compliment each other and this session had several poems that neatly ran into each other with similar themes. It was a really pleasant experience and one I enjoyed more than I thought I would given the events of yesterday. My own contribution was very usefully commented on and made me think that I have perhaps found my voice and style, I am after all who I am and I guess there are somethings that I am just not suited or destined to do.
477 I long to write expansive poems like Darwish and Martinson that illuminate, that take the fibres of life and weave them into others being, To find themes that skewer the heart to the expression of life. I want to pull the strings that lead others down a path to hidden gardens and waves of engulfment that leave them feeling the hugeness of the sky, the speed of light and the briefness of life, But I stumble, trip over myself and find dirt in my mouth, dark in my eyes and a gyroscope, running fast, in my head, leaving me facing death and its cold finality. 477 27-11-2025
I guess I will never write a long lyrical poem and I will continue to try and capture moments of experience. There was a poem presented about the nature of Blackpool Rock and the way it has a word written through it all the way like a defining feature of what it is. I guess if I were a stick of rock my defining word would be Existentialist. It’s all here and now.
After the meeting I watch a football match and drift into the evening, eating tea and continuing to watch The Brokenwood Mysteries, a comedy detective series made in New Zealand. Eventually I take my night meds and go to bed but before setting down I do the Tesco slot booking and throw stuff into the basket for Mondays delivery knowing that I can reorganise it tomorrow before midnight.
Sunday and I am up at a reasonable time, clearing the kitchen and making breakfast before I settle down to a marathon blog catch up. There is quite a lot to get in. I take my meds and steadily work my way through the past couple of days. My partner rises late still trying to shake off the effects of her cold, while my eldest daughter continues to wrestle with the writing up of her PhD, its that falling out of love with what was an exciting idea. That’s academia for you, if your not careful it sucks the joy out of learning and curiosity. It will recover given time. As for me I need to complete my new poetry website by sending the required content to my website builder and getting on with it. I have nearly a new collection of about 50 new poems to put together and to publish. On reflection I will probably aim to have this done by mid July when chemo finishes. It would be a neat target date and would form a natural end to the next step in the Cancer Years series. I might then experiment with some different stuff, old or new. Perhaps a collection of happy stuff! For the rest of today I shall putter about, perhaps watch the African football final or read and write quietly, or fill the bird and squirrel feeders and fill the car with petrol. I think its my turn to cook so I shall be making a pie at some point. It is a Sunday and a Sunday should be lazy. There needs to be chocolate at some point.
Wednesday and it is oncology review day, so I am up early for a shower and a basic breakfast. I deck myself out in my Ben Sherman outfit and then order an Uber to take me to the hospital. I’m going solo as my partner is ill. The ride to the hospital is okay but we hit a traffic snarl as we approach the hospital. The queue for hospital parking is horrendous and there is a delay before the Uber drops me at children’s A&E. I walk through to the cancer unit and take a seat in the packed waiting area.
I get called by the nurse to be weighed. Its farcical really. I dump my bag and overcoat and step on the scales. Its a real ball park estimate but it in the right area. I return to a seat and start to read Jim Harrison poetry. The guy next to me asks what I am reading and we strike up a conversation about writing stuff and using that to get things out of our heads. I ask if he writes other stuff and to my surprise he says he us working on a poem, which he says he will not tell me what it is about as its personal. He tells me he read some of his poem to his wife and she burst into tears, At this point he became upset and so I shared with him that I wrote poetry and shared it with my poetry group it because my family find my stuff difficult. We talked about how it was good to get our stuff out of ourselves. We inevitably talked about our prostate cancer and that we were both doing chemotherapy rechallenge, he having done his first chemo in 2018, a year before me. He to was up for the fight and not satisfied just to sit and wait. He seemed to be doing okay so far. We were of an age as we both recognised the same writers and experiences. He is called into the consultant. On his way out he came and sat by me and we wished each other luck and shook hands and farewell. I wondered if as he was here on the same day if I might see him doing rechallenge on Friday. I get called in.
Its not my usual oncologist, I have clearly been moved onto an underling. It is bland upon bland, he is unconcerned about anything to do with my bloods, or the fact I have had a cold, or my account of my three bouts of Haematuria. He is happy for my to do my second cycle and gives me a blood form and the session pink slip. I leave and give the pink slip to the admin person who confirms the next oncology review date. My next review will be by phone unless I request a face to face. I leave the hospital with my goal achieved, cycle two goes ahead. I Uber home.
Once home I eat, read, do cross words, watch TV, and fill my drugs dosettes with the pre chemo steroids. The blog gets drafted and I take my night meds before getting myself to bed. I feel like I am getting over my cold and ready to move on. This is a fight just beginning.
