Monday and I wake up with my partner off to the gym and my eldest daughter off to work so I get up and get into my training gear. I take my morning meds and head for the garage and the rower. I set myself for 45 minutes and get my ear buds in. Todays choice of listening is Elastic Planet, 15 minute long surreal radio comedy. I listen to three of them during the session and I am greatly amused by them so that by the end of the session I am feeling quite uplifted if tired and sweaty. When I check the rowers monitor I find I have rowed my best since restarting to train. 8+ kilometres! I am pleased with me.

Once off the rower I clear the kitchen, make a soup lunch and settle down to watch Rachel Reeves give her first conference speech as Chancellor of the Exchequer, quite impressive and clearly a contender when Starmer falls beneath a weight of free gifts. A shower and then a brief start at drafting the blog so far until its time to go to the GP for my RSV inoculation. It is pouring with rain so its going to be a bit of a flog in the wet.

The jab was a quick in and out and then home with a newspaper. I spend time doing the crosswords adn ease into the evening where I watch TV and then get myself to bed wondering if I am going to get a reaction.

Saturday, there are only three things that remain from Saturday and the are as follows: 1. The Poetry Stanza meeting, 2, the thunderstorm that induced a power cut, which interrupted the Poetry Stanza meeting and 3, Strictly is back and we were treated to a blind man dancing beyond peoples expectations.

I do not often get jealous of other peoples poems or work but the Poetry Stanza meeting contained within it a moment when I thought “I really wish I had written that opening line”. I share with you that opening line, unfortunately I cannot share the romp that followed as it is not mine to share but this is the first line: “According to a black sheep aunt swigging mead”. I defy anyone to read that line and not think they are in for a treat of a poem, and so it turned out to be. For me its a genius first line. Unfortunately for me it is the first line of a poem that has been entered for the same competition as I have entered one. To be frank I stood no chance of winning but this first line and subsequent ones just confirmed my thoughts. So for me the poetry meeting was a success right up until the torrential thunderstorm created a power cut. Of course everything wen toff and I was thrown out of my meeting for several minutes until power was reconnected, by which time the group were on to the last poem.

Having said goodbye to the group I settled down to watch one of the first rugby matches of the new season. Its always interesting to see how the teams have changed from previous season. As the rugby ends, pizzas appear and Strictly Come Dancing appears on TV, a sure sign Christmas is on the way. Amazingly there is a blind contestant who performs beyond almost everyone’s expectations. Its a long show as all the contestants are still in so by the end there is only time for one episode of the current crime series that I and my partner are watching. I take my night meds, check the house, set Daisy the dishwasher going and go to bed.

Sunday arrives and not only is it the Autumn Equinox but there are thunderstorms and it is teeming with rain. There is no incentive to get up but after warm drinks and a chat its time for breakfast. So the morning is spent sourcing a new swing seat cover for the winter and changing light bulbs in one of the bedroom fittings. It is necessary puttering to keep things going. All the while all the gutters of the house and the neighbours are over flowing as the lightening and thunder persist. Eventually there is a lull and my partner and I head for a garden centre to renew our compost store and to get yet more plants for the beds. A welcome scone and a drink and We head for home.

Once the garden supplies are stowed safely away I am able to watch a rugby match. I have still to start my latest book and think I am keeping it for the long wait I will have at the hospital on Wednesday when I go for my scan. Its one of those where they make me radioactive and then make me wait for an hour or so while it irradiates my body. Its an early tea and an evening of easy viewing before its time for night meds and bed as always the hope is for sleep that is uninterrupted by a phase of extreme restlessness.

Friday, how time flies at times. I had such a disturbed night that my partner abandoned me for the spare room last night. Apparently I thrashed around like a fish on a hook. I woke up feeling reasonable and my vitals told me I was in good shape. I dawdled getting up but when I did I clambered into my training gear and head for the garage. Todays session was always going to be an half hour one as later I am going solo to the chiropodist. So strapped in I set off in my full track suit determined to work up a sweat. Ten minutes in and I am thinking this might have been a mistake so regulate my pace. The half hour ends and I am over the 5 kilometre mark, that will do me.

I discover that my Fitbit appears not to have counted my activity, I am peeved but note the phone App is telling me to charge the Fitbit. So while I shower and tend to myself my Fitbit sucks life from a US port on the laptop. There is a bacon sandwich to be had once I have got ready for my trip to the chiropodist, which was very welcome.

I arrive at the chiropodist feeling quite chipper, careful but chipper. I find that there is a working ATM next to the foot clinic as its called adn take the chance to stock up on some real money. As soon as I pop through the door the chiropodist is inviting me in and I start to chat. I’ve had lots of adventures to tell her about adn she tells me that at last the water meter situation has been sorted and that the chair I am siting in is a Courtesy Chair while the new one she has ordered is on its way from Spain. Who would of thought it, a Courtesy Chair.

By the time my feet are oiled and back in their lazy person slip on shoes I am feeling good. Before driving home I popped into the Co-Op and bought a dozen two litres bottles of water and paper. Because I did not have pound coin on me I could not get a trolley to push the 24 litre of water around so had to carry them. Then there were no assistants so it was pissing around with a self service machine and to finally piss me off the plastic handle on one pack of bottles broke! so I manhandled the water to the car and hoped it was going to be worth it in terms of my scan next week.

Home with my feet still feeling good I set about the crosswords. Again I had no problem with them so moved onto organising for tomorrows Poetry Stanza meeting. It took ages to find al the submitted poems and print them off but eventually I had them all in a folder read to read. Read them I did. It always amazes me how diverse poetry is and what captures peoples attention. So I have a Zoom number and a pass code so I am now ready for tomorrow’s meeting. Its tricky because Leicester Tigers are on TV tomorrow afternoon and I fear I might not be as sensitive to the nuances of some of the poetry than I might other wise be.

My evening starts with drafting the blog and eating tea with the intention of watching a rugby match tonight but I am not sure how long can hold off reading my new book. Oh yes the edited cover design for the new collection arrived today and is a more striking design than the previous two Cancer Year collection covers. So I sent the Americans a thumbs up and now I sit and wait for the final manuscript draft. It all makes it sound very grand, but its not really, the biggest thing is the feeling of holding a book in my hands that is mine and that there is a record of my experience of the journey that comes from within. It will be lots of water until meds time and then I will try to judge when best to go to bed so that I am truly tired enough to be sure to sleep.

Thursday and another decent nights sleep. I take my vitals and once again they are reasonable. I dawdle getting out of bed and having breakfast so much of the morning drifts by. I don’t care really, I am more concerned with how I feel. I mend the broken sea horse wind chimes that were a present from my youngest daughter many years age and rehang them in the garden, I expect the neighbours to be pleased. While out and about in the garden I refill the squirrel feeder and the bird feeders. I suspect the squirrel is responsible for the rapid emptying of the bird feeders. This time of year he should be burying his winter larder but appears not to be bothering yet.

With my garden chores over I select which poem I am going to take to this weekends Poetry Stanza. I choose my entry to the Poetry Society’s competition. Another of the group has also entered a poem and I have to say its much better and certainly more uplifting than mine. The theme of the competition is “counting” and she has taken the term “counting” in the nobleman sense of someone being a Count, as in Count Dracula. Its a very funny poem and made me laugh. Unfortunately I cannot share it here as it is copy righted to her, perhaps I will ask her if I can share it. Here is mine, you might have seen it before.

400

Like my poems life is curated,
it is by filling the abacus that I know the days
since cancer took me.
Now my life is a plethora of numbers,
singularly or in pairs they see inside.
"Is my arithmetic good" I ask
after every vial of blood,
pot of urine or dollop of poo.
My life is enumerated, recorded
so that I and others may tend me.
All my ins and outs in digital,
averaged, plotted and watched
for waning and ebbing.
Life is moonlike, changing shape
dependant on reflection, angles
and the tremulous rotations
of a system trying to maintain
its dynamic equilibrium.
By these calculations
I gauge how many more 
mathematical days I have left
to count.

                                                                          400 15-07-2024

I do not particularly like my poetry but it is what falls out of me and to be honest I would not have it any other way, my poetry is part of me, not a craft or a profession. So having sent my poem to the Stanza membership I gather up my portable office, (rucksack) and head for the Shed where I spend the next couple of hours writing letters. There is a crisis coming I am running out of paper and envelopes so at some point I will be seeking to resupply myself. I am also short on stickers to adorn my letters with so they too need to be ordered. Satisfied that I have made a decent effort for the first time since the 1st of August to write a letter I lock the Shed up and return to the house to prepare for the trip to the village.

Of course the post office is the first stop so I can send my letters on their way and then I plod, like Gray’s ploughman, to the other end of the village to collect my latest bag of drugs. I resist the co-op and its boxes of after eights as I am about to go on a caffeine free regime before my scan on Wednesday. It was going to be Tuesday but the nuclear bunnies have moved me. I have decided to go from tomorrow (Friday) all the way through to Wednesday without any form of caffeine. However you can bet your life that on the way back from the hospital on Wednesday I will be downing a Snickers and a Red Bull.

Once home I settle down to do the days crosswords, which I sailed through, and then took delivery of my hard back copy of Before We Forget Kindness. I’m really looking forward to reading it. I think it is the fourth book in the Before The Coffee Gets Cold series, that I have enjoyed immensely.

The evening arrives and I eat tea prepared by my partner and then settle down to draft the blog and watch yet another football match. I seem to be falling into watching a match and then going to bed, which means I am clocking up some useful sleeping hours, which has got to be a good thing. So onwards to night meds and an an early night, chores permitting.

Monday was the start of a decidedly crap couple of days. The day started with a trip to the GP to get my regular 28 day injection. The nurse was chatty and remarked how good I was looking compared to how I was 28 days ago, when she ushered me into see the doctor and start the horrendous visit to the hospital. I returned home with a paper and some treats and settled down to do the crosswords. By mid afternoon I am laying on the recliner covered with a blanket shaking like a junkie doing cold turkey feeling absolutely shit. This happens at times, as my body makes it quite clear it did not want the chemicals pumped into it. This is how I am till I crawl of to bed to try to sleep pausing only to down my evening meds and a couple of paracetamol.

My hope for sleep was misplaced as I spent my night throwing myself about trying to get comfortable to the extent that my partner decamped to the spar room. It was a rough night.

Tuesday morning arrives and I am absolutely knackered before I start. I eventfully get out of bed and manage breakfast. I feel sore and fatigued beyond reason but I check my emails and find the first draft of The Cancer Years: Breathless from the Americans. I spend my morning going through the draft trying to get it into shape. Eventually I am satisfied with the format and the edits. I send the amended draft off to the Americans and will now wait for both of the new updated draft and cover design. I get a call from the nuclear medicine team and organise a new heart scan for the 24th of the month, so I have things to look forward to. By the time I’ve done the editing I am spent and end up resting, fortunately this is a European football night and I have matches that I can watch. This is how my evening goes until the final whistle of the final match ends at which point I take my night meds and crawl of to bed hoping for sleep and recovery as tomorrow is my oncology review.

Wednesday and thankfully I have slept reasonably and I detect signs of recovery. For the first time in a while I take my vitals and to my surprise my vital are good, my blood pressure comes out good on first reading. My blood pressure was 120 over 70 is a good first reading. On getting up I get into my training gear in anticipation of training after my oncology review. The oncology boys and girls have given me a two hour slot so there is time to fill. I have breakfast and then start to load my vitals data into my Excel spreadsheet. Its a slow process but eventually I am able to calculate my average vitals over the periods of taking meds and not taking meds. The arithmetic tells me I am better when I am not taking any meds, the fly in the ointment is that my PSA has risen by 0.5. Its going to be a juggle. Eventually the oncologist rings me and we have a chat. I bring her up to date and we talk about a strategy as my consultant oncologist wants me to get started back on my cancer medication. We agree that I will start again after the scan on the 24th September, and the oncology boys and girls will talk to me again in four weeks time. The really good bit of news was that the onco boys and girls had seen my latest CT scan and it was good, apparently everything is stable.

With the medical stuff out of the way I am free to train. Its a kill or cure approach, so I get into the garage and get onto the rower. I decide to go for a 45 minutes session while I listen to The Infinite Monkey Cage. I get myself under way and then just find a rhythm and keep going. It turns out as a reasonable session with me going over 7k+. Given my current state I am quite pleased with the outcome.

The session comes to an end and I record it in my journal. I change out of my training gear and then get on with catching up with the blog. There is a busy time as the garden guy arrives to continue the autumn cut back. I’ve just had time to make him a coffee and pay him and the Tesco delivery arrives. After this flurry of activity I return to the blog while listening to Mark Steels In Town in Gibraltar. Its another European football night, so I will be able to rest this evening. I need to think about what poem I am going to take to this weekends Poetry Stanza.

My evening is football and finishing the blog before taking my evening meds and going to bed early. I am hoping that tomorrow will signal getting back to some sort of balance and rhythm as there is nothing in my diary.

Sunday and its an important day, today is the 28th day I have been off my cancer tablets. One whole cycle. It is also coincidentally 28 days since my last normal 28 day cycle injection. Tomorrow is jab day. It is also 24 days since I used any pain killers, paracetamol or co-codamol. I’ve also trained 9 times in the last 28 days. So the coming week with Mondays jab and Wednesdays Oncology review seems to be an important one. If my PSA had not risen by 0.5 I would be suggesting a bimonthly use of my cancer pills, which would give me a fighting chance against the fatigue of the medication. But I think we need to get the PSA to drop again in order to ensure it still works on me, so Wednesday will be a negotiation. Of course the angina boys and girls have not been in touch with the result of my scan and whether they are going to propose any kind of intervention or even see me. It might be, in fact likely, that my oncologist will feel he cannot go ahead until the heart boys and girls have done with me. So this week feels like an important week.

I make my partner and I warm drinks and we lay in bed and chat about retirement or more specifically how I knew when to retire. It was partly not wanting to be unprofessional taking my diagnosis into other peoples therapy or supervision and secondly when the other activities held no joy for me, despite liking the people, mostly, that I was doing it with. I just think there comes a time when enough is enough. When all is said and done I have published four books of poetry and have another on the way after the age of seventy five, so life clearly goes on. All this before breakfast and the decision to go in search of winter bedding plants.

Our once favourite garden centre, it was cheap, is a desert. Very few plants at all as if a swarm of locusts had stripped it bare. Cleary there was some sort of refurbishment going on but the prices of what was there has risen. We leave and go to another garden centre and there we find exactly what we want at a good price. We also find lunch time fruit scones with jam and cream! By the time we are home and have unloaded the trays of plants it is raining so I finish yesterdays blog and start todays. I can feel myself rapidly running out of spoons (energy) and wonder if its Red Bull. There is more couch potato creeping up on me!

My evening is listless and full of TV as I fill time trying not to think about tomorrows jab. I take my night meds, finish the blog and go to bed

Saturday and I wake up after a good nights sleep. I think my late night processing my latest blood results is perhaps the reason I have slept so well. My partner goes off to have her done and I take a walk to the village chemist. My partners prescription is there but mine is not, so I shall fall back on a spare injection that I have squirrelled away. On my return home I do the days crosswords and have breakfast.

My partner and eldest daughter go to the local shopping park and I watch a football match, when at half time I change into my training gear. ]The game ends adn I head for the garage and the rower. I had intended just to do a gentle 30 minutes but once strapped in I go for 45 minutes a the basis that I will rest on Sunday before my jab on Monday. It goes quite well as once again I do more than 7 kilometres and burn more than 500 calories.

A friend sends me a picture of a book she has just received, I am green with envy. I have pre-ordered this book in paper back from Amazon and when I check I find its not due to arrive until MAY 2025. I am enraged and order a hard back copy that I can have by Thursday. It won’t be signed by the author but at least I can read it sooner that 2025! I have read all the other books in the series and I am looking forward to reading this as an end of week treat this coming week.

Having had this flurry of activity I do nothing else all day except eat a huge Indian take away and watch sport and detective series episodes on TV until I am fit for nothing other than taking my meds, clearing the kitchen and going to bed. I feel like half athlete, half couch potato, but tonight I don’t much care.

Friday rocks up quickly at 07:50 today which means I have to get my arse in gear to be the GP to have my bloods done at 09:25 and I need a shower. So downing my morning meds before going to the GP I set off in sunshine although there is a hint of autumnal nip in the air. I no sooner check in and the nurse calls me forward to have my bloods taken. I have to say my GP vampire is an expert, she always gets my vein first time and quickly. So I am in and out in no time. I decide that I am feeling relatively chipper that I will get a paper and go the village café for a sausage and egg baguette and a hot chocolate. Having borrowed a pen from the owner I settle down and do the crosswords for the day. No Google required as I breeze through them, chomping on my baguette as I go. With food mission accomplished I return home.

I start to draft the blog and as promised yesterday I include yesterdays poems.

413

Damn me Red Bull
from the fridge 
is good.
After rowing a session 
and doing Tesco,
sipping slowly
with my feet on 
the electric reviver
life pauses for a moment.
I look around and see
laptops to the front,
books and papers to the left,
and the office mutterings
of my partner, like water,
seeping in from the right.
It occurs to me 
that I never retired,
not really.
I'm still organising,
writing and trying
to be be productive.
I guess I never
had the nerve
to go off grid,
make dream catchers
or indulge in crystals.
The Real World impinges 
no matter how I plug my ears
with music, podcasts and stories.
Keeping busy seems an answer
but that just pushes the anxiety,
the worry of the scythe
into the back box of a 
crowded head.
Its tricky having trained 
in all the illusions of humans
to fool myself, I am well aware
of how my inner pixies
play and hide,
leaving me with pictures
of a world that may
or may not count as real.
I hear a voice say;
"It is what it is",
but its not really.
It is what I construct it as
and there is nothing rational 
going on in that department.
Too much data through 
too few synapses 
has left its mark 
on a personal universe
that thinks this is poetry.
A universe that appears
to have no doors
or fire exit.
How am I supposed
to make meaning
of all this?
such inadequate tools
or am I the poor workman
seeking solace in blame
of my own inadequacies?
How do people remember so much,
recall vast tracts of beautiful 
words or ornate formulae, 
or make links and leaps of vision
that transcend the data.
Only sometimes when 
I cry at the heights of opera
do I get an inkling
that something is out there
or perhaps within
that has a hope 
of knowing what 
this thing is,
whatever "Thing" 
means.
Red Bull may give me Wiings
but no moment of
Ah Ha!

                                                             413 12-09-20

I was not sure about this first off but its grown on me overnight. If its going to ever be published it will be a way off as I will need to write enough for another collection.

My partner and I go for a late lunch at one of our favourite tea rooms and talk about future planning and things like Christmas. I manage to get the them to make me a smoothie using pineapple juice rather than apple juice as the base, apple juice just makes me throw up, it is a rare treat. Of course we cannot resist sharing some lemon cheesecake. Once home I seek to rest. I stick my feet on the electric foot revivor and while my feet and calfs get gently electrocuted I curate yesterdays poem, making sure it gets stored on my “All I Have” file. Once my feet are tingled fully I shall hoover round my office end of the sofa and prepare for the weekend.

The evening comes around and I am not hungry having eaten well during the day but eat anyway knowing I will regret it if I do not. I settle down to some athletics and more Inspector Lynley mysteries before thinking about heading for bed. Night meds and a nasal strip is the new simplified routine which appears to be working reasonably well, but tonight there is a set of blood results to come in, which they should do just after midnight. I am hoping that my PSA has staid relatively stable and that all the hospital experience of one off drugs has not disrupted my arithmetic too much. I forgot to drink a lot of water so my platelets will be down, but if that is all, I will be well pleased.

STOP PRESS: THE BLOODS ARE IN. IN GENERAL THEY ARE OKAY BUT THE PSA HAS RISEN BY 0.5, WHICH IS NOT GOOD. SO I PROBABLY NEED TO GET BACK ON THE ENZALAMIDE AS SOON AS I CAN. IT ALL SEEMS STRAIGHT FORWARD.

Thursday rocks round and I wake after a sound nights sleep. It seems that less drugs, exercises, and a nasal strip are making a difference. I let myself wake up slowly and take my vitals, which were okay. I decide to train again today originally thinking I would rest today. So I get up and get into my training gear, take my morning meds and head for the garage. It’s chilly today and the house heating has chipped in. I get on board the rower and decide to go for 45 minute session as I may not be able to train tomorrow. I get going and with my ears full of Radio 2 and keep going pretty well, in fact I row further than my other 45 minute sessions. It feels that deciding to go for 45 minutes was a good one.

So I end the session satisfied. A lunch of cereals follows which I eat watching the latest space walk and Politics Today. Australia are going to lock children off social media, that will be interesting. While I rest after training and eating I start to draft the blog. It’s Tesco delivery day today so I am hoping I can at last create my new back tortilla recipes.

My afternoon sees me write a poem and then bake my new dish of tortillas for tea. After tea I get a call from a friend and we talk for a while about how we are both doing and how we can gain some perspective in order to get some thinking time and time to rest. It was a real pleasure to have the conversation and to catch up. My evening is mostly TV before I take my night meds and retreat to bed. Tomorrow I shall go for my pre oncology review bloods to be taken and then I shall put todays poem on the blog.

Wednesday, I wake up after a reasonable night and do my vitals, they are okay. I watch a couple of short videos and get up. This is a challenge day and todays is to row for an hour. I get into my gear and take my morning drugs. I get myself into the garage set my ear buds to radio 2 and the rower to 60 minutes and then the challenge starts. The aim is just to get to the end, or is it? A little voice in my head says “10K, make 10K”. Always there is an internal dialogue, a voice that chats away. It is always positive to start with and as tiredness piles in it becomes a tormentor of self doubt cloaked in reason and self survival, which is really capitulation. Its soon warfare in the head and it can go either way. The first 30 minutes is easy , the voice is positive. After 45 minutes the voice is suggesting enough is enough, don’t over do it. Then it start to gets get nasty the voice starts with its “I know there is part of you wants to stop, I know you are think it too, there is no reason to continue, you don’t think you can make it, I know you and I know you will stop, so give it a rest, stop now. ” It is at this point that my pixies kick in and I find my voice and start to argue: “I am Roland, I have held my own in rooms full of killers and thugs, I’ve been in the heads of monsters and seen the worst of humans, no one wanted me in their heads, because I could stand and hold my own in the face of anger and hate. When I hear your voice tell me you know I will stop, I will fail, I hear the other part of you that fears I will succeed and the longer you fail the louder you know I will succeed, so we both know I will succeed and this gives me strength. Your fear of failure to stop me only gives me strength” And so it is, I finish the session and there I am over 10 kilometres and burned more than 600 calories. I am Roland and I stand. With Rocket at my side and my gems of self inside we renew the war on my cancer. End of.

Oh yes don’t screw with me. I’m back to being a one hour training man. I get out of the garage and record my session before getting out of my training gear. I empty Daisy dishwasher and bring in the bins and then prepare to make a new dish in my new pan. I intend baked tortilla for lunch. The tortilla is thrown into the new pan, a perfect fit and then I go to get the eggs and cold meat and cheese goodies that will make up my dish. I find only two eggs and I need four. Pissed off and disappointed I have muesli for lunch.

My afternoon sees me fill my drugs wallet for the week. Its down to the minimum of a twice a day blood thinner to ward off a DVT, a pill to help keep my blood pressure within limits and a night pill to ensure my prostate does not interfere with me during the night. All of this while I play the Pet Shop Boys live on the i-player. I draft the blog while I take some rest time and down a Red Bull. If I have not got Testosterone to drive me I am doing caffeine instead. Coffee gives me a bad gut but Red Bull is cold from the fridge and refreshing and as far as I can tell the only adverse effect is that I might fart more frequently, a small price to pay for feeling less fatigued. Bizarrely I am more concerned that I can only get the non diet version of Red Bull. Its not the biggest threat to my life right now, but there you go. So now my mind turns to what I can now do while I recover from my row.

My solution to my activity conundrum is to make four videos of me reading a poem from each of my poetry collections and putting them on my YouTube channel PROST8KANCERMAN. I think one of them is available now but three of them are scheduled to go live at 11:30 tonight. Of course if you are here before then they are below:

I edge into evening without a plan, I am sure today will catch up with me at some point so I am likely to take it slowly unless the Americans ring me up or I get a secondary burst of energy. I am strangely hooked on the Inspector Lynley Mysteries, they are so dated but incredible middle to upper class, no swearing, there are bounders and cads and no representation of any marginalised groups, its a real anachronistic watch but still manages to be an engaging watch. Ideal for an old white bloke to watch, I think it is because there is no disturbing “noise” apart from my own as I crunch my way through a bag of cheese crisps. Some times I just need the world to fuck off and leave me alone. It will be night meds and bed for me.