Thursday, this is it, the day my stitches come out of my hand, so I am out of early and dressed in no time. There is a speed breakfast of toast, hot water and morning meds then its off across town to the hospital. I gave myself and hour and quarter to do a three quarter hour journey and still arrived almost a quarter of an hour late, the traffic into central Leicester and our again was horrendous. There were no accidents or road works just the sheer volume of traffic and traffic light systems that appear to make no sense at all. I at least managed to ring the hospital and tell them I was delayed.

Once I arrived it was all very efficient. The nurse meet me and took me to the clinical room and got me to sit of the couch while she gathered together her stitch removal kit. Padded sheet, tweezers, dressings and the most wicked looking hooked scalpel blade I had ever seen. She then cut my old dressing off and started to play hunt the stitch. She was very good at spotting the ends of them and more importantly the way the stitch ran. Once she has had determined which way the stitch ran she was able to cut them and then pull them out along the line they were put in. We were at it for sometime as some of the stitches were across the grain and others took some odd directions, not to mention there was quite a lot of them. Eventually we were done and the nurse redressed my scar and told me that it could come off in forty eight hours. She also gave me a spare dressing and a pair of sterile “use once” scissors for the hand therapist to use tomorrow when she examines the scar and adjusts my night splint. My fingers are all “wriggly” and I can now get my palm flat on the table but I cannot form a fist properly yet as my ring finger is still swollen. I suspect that the hand therapist will give me more exercises to continue stretching the finger and the scar tissue until I am able to form a fist and the ridge of scar tissue has levelled off. All in all it was a good experience that I look back on now that am home sipping a red bull and eating a Chrunchie to up my energy level. I also had the foresight to top up the car with petrol on the home.

So by noon had started to draft the blog and turn my attention to other things like light bulb replacement and trying to decide which poem, if any to take to this Saturdays poetry stanza meeting. My evening is going to be a treat as I am taking my eldest daughter to see Stewart Lee. We are fans of his brand of humour and I am looking forward to seeing his latest show: Stewart Lee vs The Wulf Man.

I spend some time checking the history of the blog and making sure I have the number right for its duration and the length of the phases its been through, so here are the up to date numbers as of today:

WELCOME ALL:                            01 SEP 2019 TO  01 SEP 2019               1 DAY

INDUCTION DAY:                         02 SEP 2019 TO 02 SEP 2019                 1 DAY

CHEMO DAY:                                04 SEPT 2019 TO 05 JAN 2020         124 DAYS

FINGERS CROSSED PHASE:      07 JAN 2020 TO 23 MAR 2020                77 DAYS

AS GOOD AS IT GETS PHASE 1: 24 MAR 2020 TO 08 FEB 2021               322 DAYS

AS GOOD AS IT GETS PHASE 2: 10 FEB 2021 TO 21 DEC 2021               315 DAYS

ANTIANDROGEN:                          22 DEC 2021 TO. 22 FEB 2022              63 DAYS

AS GOOD AS IT GET AGAIN:        23 FEB 2022 TO 31 OCT 2022               251 DAYS

ROCKET:                                         01 NOV 2022 TO 21 DEC 2022            51 DAYS

ROCKET BOOSTER:                       22 DEC 2022 TO 06 MAR 2023            75 DAYS

RUN UP TO RADIO THERAPY:      07 MAR 2023 TO 17 MAY 2023             72 DAYS

NO MANS LAND:                            18 MAY 2023 TO 29 MAY 2023          12 DAYS

REARMAMENT:                               30 MAY 2023 TO 07 JUNE 2023           12 DAYS

REARMED:                                       08 JUN 2023 TO 09 JUN 2023             2 DAYS

CHEMO II:                                         10 JUN 2023 TO 18 AUG 2024        435 DAYS

ANGINA ADVENTURE:                     19 AUG 2024 TO 25 SEP 2024            38 DAYS

CHEMO II THE REBOOT.                   26 SEP 2024 TO 13^TH FEB 2025        141 DAYS

                                                                                     TOTAL 1992 BLOG DAYS TO DATE

                                                                                                          13^TH FEBRUARY 2025

Given that the total days from the first date of the blog to todays date is 1993 days I think I’ve done quite well to be only 1 day adrift. The bottom line is the expectation was that I had 26 months from my diagnosis in June 2019 and here I am five years eight months and five days later. Go me!

I return home from seeing Stewart Lee full of his performance, which was unexpectedly physical as well as his usual clever verbal stuff. So where are the Liberal hero’s of comedy and politics. Not a Gandhi in sight.

Wednesday and I wake after a decent night’s sleep, check my socials and take my vitals, which are all good. My morning routine no includes physiotherapy exercises for my hand. I now do repetitions of “the hook, the duck and hand star jumps” every two hours, so I before I get up I do the first session and then set my phone timer for two hours. Where ever I am or what ever I am doing when the timer goes off I stop and do my “duck, hook, star jump” routine. So with my timer set for the day I get up and make breakfast and take my morning meds. The highlight of my day is going to be visiting the dental hygienist but first there is time to do some odd chores and have a shower. Sounds simple but I am not allowed to get my bandaged hand wet, however I have found the ideal way of keeping my hand dry with a freezer bag and my old friend gaffer tape. I made the mistake today of using the American version of gaffer tape which is far more heavy duty and stickier than normal gaffer tape, so all went well until it was time to take the bag off my hand. I now have a bald ring around my right wrist where the gaffer tape took all the hair and a layer of skin off when I removed the bag from my hand. Next time I will stick to the thinner UK gaffer tape, it will be kinder to my skin.

Feeling refreshed and having unblocked sinks and refilled the soap dispenser I got dressed and took my hair out of its plait and put it back in its pony tail before settling down to start to draft the blog. I realise that this is a lot of trivial detail but I suspect that this is me dealing with my anxiety about going to the dental hygienist. I am sure that all that metal on gum activity cannot be good for me, nor can the jabbing needles into my gums and hearing the word “bleeding ” is useful. What actually pisses me off is being patronised like a five year old and treated as if I do not know how to clean my teeth and the insistence that I should be spending precious time buggering about with those little “flu” brushes every day cleaning between my teeth like some Mary Poppins chimney sweep. With stage four metastatic prostate cancer I do have other things to concern my self with, like staying alive, exercise and making the most of life. Of course I will give my teeth and extra clean before I go but it is futile as I know I will get the same comments from the hygienist about my 76 year old nhs dentistry mouth. The only thing that gets complimented is the 6 crowns I paid for and I know they are itching to get to my one nhs crown which has been in since 1981 and is still pearly white and glows in UV light light a fang.

I return from the dental hygienist having experienced all the things I predicted except the cost, which was high for the time and attention that I got. Due to the practice having a training time I had time to pop into my local Co-Op and buy a paper and some lunch before returning for my overpriced teeth attention. Having returned home I ate and did the days crosswords and then began to research ISAs spurred on by the rumours that the government was going to raid them soon for extra revenue. By the end of he afternoon I had a plan, which means I will have to go to a building society branch and have a chat. Having constructed my plan I rang the hospital that are taking my stiches out of my hand tomorrow to ask if I will be okay to drive after their removal. After being bounced around a bit I got the message that I will be fine to drive, so all that remains is to get myself across town in time for the appointment in the morning. the traffic is very unpredictable so I could be really early or embarrassingly late. With all this out of the way I settle down to read the letter from a friend which arrived today. It is my friend who writes in green ink and she brings me up to date with what she has been doing and how her preparations for her garden in Spring are going. I just love getting letters, its such a buzz to open them up and read them slowly in a quiet moment knowing the effort that has gone into them.

My returns from visiting her mother with her brother and after time to decompress we eat tea and hunker down for the evening, me to watch the last ever derby between Liverpool and Everton to be played at Goodison Park. After that it will be night meds and bed for me as my hospital appointment is and early one. I will perhaps be able to share on the blog my operation scars or not depending if they wrap my hand back up again.

Tuesday rolls round and as my partner goes to work I rouse myself and take my vitals, all good there. After checking my socials and messages I get and take my morning meds whilst doing my physio exercises for my hand which is feeling better. With the kitchen cleared I am off to the local pub for breakfast/brunch. Collecting a paper on the way I settle down at a table and order my Spanish Hash and a hot chocolate. I like to be in different places to write letters so I use a page from my journal and set about slowly writing a letter to a friend. I can write with my operated on hand but slowly and only in capitals. This is a hang over from my university days when I took all my notes in capitals and then typed them up when I went home, it was the only way could know that I would be able to read them later. My food was good and when finished I was in for a pleasant surprise, my drink was free as I had ordered my food before 11:30am. A small but lovely win for the day.

Once home I found envelopes and stamps and prepared to send my letter. I settled down to do the crosswords of the day. One of them turned out to be quite tricky due to what I think was a mis leading picture component to the clue. As I puzzled away the window cleaners arrived and proceeded to run their clever extending sponge on a hose pole over the windows. Not a ladder in sight these days, they were soon on their way having taken advantage of being able to park on the new drive and I returned to the crosswords. There then followed a period of what I can only call life admin. All those bits and pieces that need doing but have no interest value to anyone, but by the time I was through them it was time to wander over to the Posy Office to send my letter and buy a sandwich for an afternoon snack and begin to draft the blog.

I am becoming impatient to see what my hand looks like with out the stitches and how quickly I can jettison any form of dressing apart from my night finger splint. It will be at this point I will be able to share my post operation scar and most importantly resume training on the rower. I feel itchy inside to get going again and need to get started on my own recover plan. I am still encumbered by needing to shower with my hand in a gaffer taped sandwich bag to keep my dressing dry and all the other little adventures that having a bandaged hand means I have to undertake. My hand is restless to be free as it can wriggle and do a lot of things already. At the moment it feels like a boxers taped hand waiting to be laced into the fighting gloves and eager to get on with it. Occasionally I get a burning sensation in part of the incision line but it quickly passes. More persistent is the tingling numbness in the extremities of my fingers, which I was warned might happened but should over time recover, although this is not guaranteed. This is another reason I want to get free of my bandage so I can get my hand doing all the normal things it would do to see if I can speed up the return of normal feeling in my finger tips . I seem to have recovered normal movement. I think the numbness is due to a form of nerve bruising which is going to take time to work through, although I have no idea if beating them on a keyboard is waking them up or constantly putting them back to sleep again.

This evening there is a big football match on which I hope to watch. I like sport but I may have to cut down on it, all my news feeds are crammed with sports stuff driven by whatever algorithms I am plugged into, or rather what algorithms are plugged into me. I am seriously considering a period of sports fasting (except six nations rugby) and replacing it with something more brain feedery ( my made up word) and seeing how long it take to adapt what comes through in what I am being fed by my cyber feeds. I am also becoming advert intolerant, I find them insulting and patronising, more to the point taking up more and more of the time of what I watch on television. The BBC of course does not do adverts but so much of the programming is crap, like Pointless, The One Show and East Enders. Even the Graham Norton Show is a disguised advertising platform. This probably sounds snobby but I get an increasingly strong sense that life is too short to be putting up with the crap I do not like. The solution lays with me I know so perhaps I need to choose my activities more carefully and pick ones that are more brain food than processed cyber pulp. Its not like there is a shortage of books and other stuff to do. So as from tonight I shall try to change my diet and hopefully feel the benefit.

Monday and I awake to a very chipper partner who brings me hot water and a plan for the day. I surface and take my vitals, which are good and then make breakfast to eat with my morning meds. With the basics done I dress and ready for the “plan”. We drive to Sainsbury’s and the change counting machine to cash in the contents of my elephant money box. The result is pleasing and for the first time I walk out with more money than I went in with. Next stop were a couple of stores where my partner returned items, so collectively we were getting richer as the time unfolded.

Intoxicated with the new found wealth and experience of being cash ahead we popped into Smiths and ran off some hard copies of photographs of the youngest grandson so that at long last we have something to put into the photograph frame that was a present to my partner. With so much done and with food we bought for tonight’s tea we stop for coffee and a roll. Sitting in the window seat of the Soho coffee shop I looked out over the meandering masses of humanity in the Real World and reflected on where all the beautiful people were. Its very ordinary the ocean of people that drift by a coffee shop window but all uniquely different and I have no doubt there is a fascinating story attached to each one. I was not experiencing much joie de vivre, or rather I was not observing much, but then today is a wet, grey February day. This however was broken when one of the staff hugged a customer, an act that got repeated so I guess there is more joie de vivre around than I thought. I just have to be in the right place at the right moment.

We returned home and duly put a photo of the youngest grandson into the empty picture frame and found a home for it in the lounge. I started to draft the blog and returned to reading some of my poetry trying to decide what I would read as typical of my work. As I ponder some of my stuff a friend rings for a chat. We spend time talking about how difficult it is raising children now with all the social media that’s around with its “Dos and don’ts” and “you should look like this” crap and that’s without the darker stuff that rolls around and seeps into everything. Its very difficult for todays children to ignore what proports to give them the answers they seek as they try to navigate growing up. Whatever happened to wise uncles and aunts and grandparents who had seen it all before and understood. Now its all “influencers” who most of the time don’t know their arses from their elbows and have fuck all real life experience anyway. It seems that anyone can have an opinion on everything regardless of how ill informed or ill judged it is and expect to be taken seriously as a right. Any way it was lovely to have the conversation and to be able to talk about things with my friend.

After a bit more reading I go to the post office to get a paper and some tea cakes before returning home and seeking out the crosswords to do. There are three that I regularly do so it takes me a while. Today was a good day and got through them in good time and without need to resort to looking anything up on Google. Serendipitously tea was ready as I finish the last cross word. The evening will be filled with my partners singing lesson and I shall sneak a watch of a football match before a film perhaps or a read. There is of course the last minute check to see everything is on tomorrows Tesco order but then I will be off to bed full of my night meds.

Saturday was one of those that was a hotchpotch of indulgent going out for breakfast, watching international rugby and seeing a TV drama series to its conclusion. As usual the TV drama started out on a reasonable and rational premise and descended into unlikely and plain silliness. In this case a sort of rural welsh county lines meets Breaking Bad by accident. My two tasks of any meaning was to fil my Dosettes for the coming two weeks and to perform my physio hand homework every two hours. I now have my phone clock set for a repeating two hour countdown so that I am sure to to do my 10 hand star jumps, ducks and hooks every hour. So another mundane day but one that need some effort to keep my hand and cancer routines going.

Sunday and I get up to breakfast and little to do other than book a Tesco slot, watch the last international rugby match of the weekend. I feel like I am marking time until my stitches come out of my right hand on Thursday at the hospital and I see my hand therapist on Friday. In the meantime I need to write a bit and find ways of taking exercise to ward off the worst of the chemo side effects.

Amongst my emails today was one from the Chair of the poetry stanza I go to. He has sent a proposal to the The States of Independence event organisers to suggest that the Stanza do a 45 minute slot as a celebration of the Stanzas 17th year. If it is excepted it would mean that I might get a a three minute slot to say who I am and to read one of my poems. There are two issues in this, 1, what do I say about who and what I am, and 2, which poem do I choose to read. I think I can hone the first one down to a very bony “this is me” but I am not sure how I choose one poem from the 122 that I published last year and the 20 plus that I am readying for this year?

I feel that it should be from one of my Cancer Years Collections as that is why I self published and why I continue to use poetry to contain the ongoing fight, however I am drawn to one that is about the feeling of being published for the first time and holding my own book in my hands. Its a competition between that “Ye Ha! moment of joy of first holding my first collection in my hands or something that is more painful and direct that reflects the issues around having cancer. My head says the latter my heart says the former. So I expect I shall be self indulgently re-reading my collections and trying to decide which poem to choose. It would be nice to learn it off by heart and just do it, but I am not sure I am up to that. If I decide to try I shall appear to be quite mad as I wonder around muttering to myself as I try to cram it into my brain, but first the choice must be made. If anyone has suggestions I’d like to hear them.

So my Sunday is set for poetry reading and Rugby until I realise that this is Super Bowl night. I’d really like to watch it, as the game itself is a true American spectacle but there is so much crap wrapped around so little actual game that I know I will only manage the first half before I get bored with all the non essentials hype and meaningless stuff around it and go to bed disgruntled and having my prejudices confirmed about American culture and addictions.

Friday and I wake up with last nights visit to Warwick Arts Centre to see Motionhouse’s new production Hidden on my mind. I enthusiastically drove as I was relieved to be free of my plaster, but still bandaged. Arriving just in time having played the “where do I park ” game there was just time to say a quick hello to Louise Richards the co-founder and executive director of Motionhouse, who I knew from the early days of the company when they visited two of the prisons I worked in, in the late 80s and late 90s. I was briefly on their board until it was clear I was out of my depth but by then they had established themselves. This was a long time ago. Anyway the curtain went up and we were treated to a two act work of incredible artistry, accomplishment and ideas. The energy and skill of the dancers brilliant and the stage set really technically difficult to co-ordinate with movement and projecting. Complex in content and matched by the complexity of the technology required to create the environment. The most amazing bit was that the dancers had to move parts of the set at the right moment for the right projection to appear at the right time. Apparently the dancers have to count the entire time as they dance and move stuff on stage. Its an incredible feat of co-ordination. Underlying it was the message as Kevin Finnan, the artistic director, says in the programme “to bring a sense of hope and a belief in the future of humanity” in a world currently filed with conflicts of devastating consequences for individuals.

Having driven home I donned my newly made finger splint and went to bed full of ideas but very very tired.

So this is how I get to wake up with a head full of ideas however I needed pain killers in the night, probably not a good idea to drive but hey ho! I’ve no time to be shilly shallying about as I am off to the dentist for about ten o’clock. I arrive on time and we have a chat about how I am and what is going on for me to update my medical history. Then its time for the inspection and the prodding and poking accompanied by the dentist secret language to the assistant. I’ve never quite understood why they insist of sticking a needle into your gums and saying cheery things like “three lower left bleeding”. Just how impenetrable to steel are my gums meant to be? Inspection over we chat and I agree to a couple of up to date X rays which come up really quickly and we discus a way forward. In the end I agree to go back in three months and will consider some more work at that time and in the meantime visit the hygienist. I leave and go to the C0-Op to get a paper and return home.

There are cross words to do before chores and of course a bacon sandwich to be had curtesy of my partner. So, with a kitchen light bulb replaced, my washing in, the dishwasher filled and set on its way and the tumble dryer merrily tumbling a consignment of towels I sit and draft the blog. I watched yesterdays blog and I am appalled by my video, I am truly boring on it, very flat. Not the sort of thing to watch in the proximity of sharp objects. I have to say I am far more cheery than that, in fact I am feeling up beat now I am free of my caste and a few days past my 28 day injection and looking forward to a much brighter time ahead. With four clear days ahead there should be time to do some fun things, or at least relax and do stuff at a slow and reasonable pace.

As I continue to try and clear the decks I discover that my raspberry blowing frog has been broken as he lives on a shelf on a book in the office I can only assume an accident at some point. I swing into action gathering up glue, head torch and other bits and bobs such repairs demand. Its a fracture of his ankles. I dry him and place the glue on one surface and then gently press his broken parts together again, and there we sit for 20 minutes until I am confident that the procedure has been successful. At last I risk taking my hands away and nothing happens. I decide to put him in quarantine, so pop him behind the little garden vase in the lounge where I can keep an eye on him till I go back into the office once it is vacated by my retiring partner at the end of the month.

Its a quiet meander into the evening and as there is no international rugby tonight it will be a mixture of TV drama and any other diversions that appeal, however tomorrow is a different story with the Six Nations Rugby in full swing. As I draft this bit of the blog I remember that while I was idling time post having seen my operation scar for the first time I started another poem, which I put here.

433
Zigzag snake down my hand
but my fingers now free of caste
I can write again!
Ah this pen, this ink
once again can flow 
and I can contain the reptile 
that creeps within.
I'm doing very well
everyone says so
but I know this Serpentine's way,
coiled in the warmth
it takes it time, degree
by insidious degree it expands.
A strange brew of poison
and constriction it moves.
This slinking thing changes
the wonder and magic of my cells
to bring me to my knees.
Its a disease they say,
you cannot fight it,
but if true then why science?
Oh! it's a disease, no point then,
just let them die like reptiles
in the cold of ignorance.
No! That's not the way,
I'll not let go of me,
or the universe
contained within.
I'll fight to live a life,
to create, parent and be kind.
There is an urgency now
my personal viper coils
about my organs
to see my kith and kin right. 
To wage war against  
the black and white,
to stay grey and tolerate 
the ambiguity.
Reasonable, rational, and proportionate
is what I want on my epitaph
once the Asp has done with me. 

                                                                                      433 06-02-2025
                                                                                       post caste removal from hand.

Wednesday and I wake up tired and stay that way all day, I am thankful that I will get rid of my cast tomorrow. It is a constant weight and is now quite loose, so I can wriggle my fingers freely but it remains an unwelcome encumbrance.

Before getting up I was able to take my vitals and they were very good, it’s not often I wake up with a blood pressure of 113 over 67, so I start the day quite chuffed. With breakfast and morning meds done I start to check my messages and socials and come across an email from the co-ordinator of my poetry stanza group telling me that the Leicester Literary group is having a four day festival and has links to the programme and tickets. Its a free festival so I take a look and end up getting tickets for Paul Muldoon an Irishman based in New York who has a Pulitzer prize to his name. I’ve no idea what to expect apart from he will read some of his stuff and the audience will ask questions. Hopefully it will feed my brain, at worst it will be an hour I won’t get back. I also find time to send a friend a belated birthday present.

In the early afternoon a friend calls, which is lovely, I can go days without actual talking to anyone other than the household. We chat about family, schooling and dyslexia, which is being relevant in her family as was in mine when my daughters were her daughters age. We chat for quite a long time before she has to return to work. As my partner has gone to visit her mother I take trip to Co-Op to get cash and a paper. I think about a baguette from the village café and then remember it is gone for ever as from Monday, I have a pang of regret that I did not go in, but I was preoccupied with my hand operation. So, I buy a Co-Op sandwich and return home to do the crosswords and eat my pre-packaged sandwich.

For a while I wrestled with the Uber app, updating my payment method but failing to pre book an Uber for tomorrow so will take what I can get tomorrow to go and see the hand therapist. Tonight I shall be doing the one handed showering, getting my hair plaited and getting to bed early in anticipation of tomorrows adventure. Meds as usual of course. I am pleased with myself that I have not used pain killers for at least two days now and I am hoping that with a fresh dressing and just a splint I will be able to drive as tomorrow evening I have tickets to the premier of Motionhouse’s new piece, Hidden, at the Warwick Arts Centre.

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

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