Tuesday, the one in a thousand year palindromic date; 22/2/22.

So on this palindrome day I wake early after a very disturbed night in which it seems I was visited by all the friends and acquaintances I have known who have died of cancer. It felt as is my unconscious was working out all my anxieties by using all my own experiences of loss by cancer. My partner brought me a coffee before I got up to make myself toast and another coffee to wake me up. Todays the day of my oncology review so I select my hospital clothes and get my partner to braid my hair. I have to say that as my hair grows I am increasingly drawn to having my hair braided. So today I think it looks really good.

I drive to the hospital with my partner with me and we settle into the waiting room. My appointment time goes by and we wait till eventually I get called in. My consultant; “he who made a pack with the devil” was very up beat and greeted us with “its all good news”. The scans show that there are no new tumours or spread of the exiting ones. The new antiandrogen has significantly reduced my PSA level and there is nothing to ring alarm bells in my blood results. Apparently the new antiandrogen does not work in 30% of cases, works for a few months in about 30% and for the remaining 30% is goes on working for years. So I am at least in the second 30%, time will how long it will work for me. We agree to another review in four months and blood tests each two months. I will have to monitor the first two month blood tests adn if the PSA has risen again I need to tell the clinic so they can readjust the four month review. It is as good as it can get again so I decide that the blog will reflect that. The parting advice from the consultant is that I need to continue to exercise as it is the one thing that has been shown to be positively beneficial. He was clear that it needs to be fairly rigorous exercise so I shall continue to push it at the gym sessions. He also confirms that the tiredness I am experiencing is due to the antiandrogen. Given the importance of staying fit the balance of how I use my stores of energy is an important decision moving forward. I need to readjust what I am doing and ensuring I can look after myself.

I drive us to the gym where we have a celebration coffee and I have a bacon brioche and do the crosswords in the todays paper. After a prolonged rest I go to the gym floor and get on board a cross trainer. Something clicks and I achieve a personal best. I burn 753 calories and I go 10.08 kilometres. I never thought I would break 10 kilometres but hey there you go, I’ve done it. I shower and wait for my partner in the lounge with a large americano. My partner takes me for a surprise Italian meal. We take our time with the restaurant to ourselves. After a satisfying meal I drive us home to find that the squirrel feeder has been burgled.

The evening is taken up with reading a letter from a friend, football and TV until I settle down to write the blog. Today has been a good day and one that gives me some hope for the future providing I choose the right options to take me into the future.

Here we go Monday. Its a lazy start and my partner and I drink coffee before getting up to breakfast. A lazy breakfast and then a slow preparation towards the gym. We get there and hit the gym floor. I climb up on a cross trainer and grind out an hour. Its tough after not exercising for four days, my body clearly does not like any break from training. It gets slightly easier as the hour wears on. I burn 718 calories and go 8.08 kilometres whist downing 750 millilitres of water. A welcome shower and I am into the lounge with a large americano waiting for my partner. We leave the welcoming of the Tesco delivery to our eldest daughter and sit and talk in the gym lounge and eat a late lunch. We do not leave till mid afternoon.

Home, and before anything else we walk to the village shop to gather up the things we need that Tesco have not delivered. Apparently there is a shortage of baked beans. Shopping done, we return home and settle down to a coffee and a bun before sitting for a while before settling into an evening meal and a DVD of Cirque du Solei. My evening ends with the blog and a quiet time to think about tomorrow appointment with the oncologist. It has become an important day to me already, it feels like much hangs on it, I seek sanctuary.

Saturday and its “have another go at getting to London” day. However I wake to find my blood results are in and the news is encouraging. So here they are:

My PSA has reduced by half, my tentative hypothesis is that the new antiandrogen is reducing the “Tumour flare” as it was intended to. Kidney and liver functions are holding up, platelets are a bit low but not bad. All of this will go into the pot in Tuesday’s review. Just one step at a time at the moment.

Now its toast and order taxi time as we try to get to London for the show tonight. Taxi goes smoothly but the train that we planned to get has been cancelled due to a train fault. We sit in a freezing waiting room. Its cold because some one thought that it was a good idea in the interests of ventilation to combat COVID to leave the sliding doors on either side open. The result a howling, freezing gale whipping through the waiting room. A train arrives and we get on board and settle ourselves in the cosy luxury of first class. Of course the train is packed so all those standing in second glass get ushered into first class, ironically egalitarian. We get into St Pancras and decide to eat, so duck into the brassiere and treat ourselves to a good meal before going to the hotel via taxi.

The hotel is okay and booking in goes okay. We have some time to kill so we go to the British Museum and wander the south American halls till we discover the courtyard and the café. A cold drink is going down well when the attendant points out they are closing. I managed to get some pictures before I we leave.

I realised that the British Museum is just somewhere where we store all the stuff the British Empire nicked from all over the world and reframed it as cultural education and enlightenment. We return to the hotel and get ready to rock and roll. A taxi takes to the theatre via a circuitous route due to some road closures. There are the usual checks and public advice notices and announcements. Only my partner and I are wearing masks!!! We notice that one or two others are masked but the vast majority of the great British public do not give a toss about COVID anymore. The theatre is an old style one and quite ornate.

The show starts and they do an hour and three quarters first half before an interval ice cream and then on to a rocking finale. Its an energetic production and the crowd are on their feet at the end. The story line is a difficult one but ends on an uplifting high that was palpable in the audience as they leave. The woman who played Tina Turner was excellent and became more and more like the image of Tina Turner as the evening went on. The young girl who played the young Tina had an incredible voice and was outstanding in the rock and roll ending session. My partner and I walk back to the hotel and order what was thought to be a pizza but turned out to be a chicken pesto salad. Strange the tricks IT plays at times.

Sunday and it start with watching the rerun of Great Britain wining the curling gold medal before going down to a continental breakfast. After that it is just travel, taxi, train, taxi and then unpacking and returning to the mundane tasks like doing the Tesco order for tomorrows delivery. So now there is time to reflect on my blood results and to put together my list of questions for the oncologist on Tuesday. In a way he holds the cards as he has the scan results and I guess that’s where I want him to start. Tomorrow I need to get back to my exercise and to a diet that is healthier.

Its Vampire Friday! I’m up early after my partner brought me coffee to get me going. I am at the GPs by 7:50. I am reminded to wear a mask before I go into have my blood taken. The first vial goes well and then my body gets resistant about giving away its blood so I have to fist pump the next vial. With my fluffy cotton wool cloud taped to my arm I return home via the shop for breakfast. My partner and I eat a hearty breakfast and then start the pre travel routine determined by storm Eunice. We constantly check the departure boards on the web and watch as train after train is cancelled. Our intend train is cancelled and so we cancel our taxi and continue to monitor the departure boards. It looks like the 14:45 is a goer, we drive to the station and as we park we hear the announcement that all trains north and south have been cancelled untill at least 17:00 hours. We check with the staff and they are pretty sure the cancellations will continue into the night; it turned out to be the case. We drive home, watch olympics and ring the hotel in London to tell them what the situation is. We will try again in the morning but in the meantime we will keep monotoring the trains. It will be a long evening and in the back ground my bloods will be being analysed. So I am going to call it a day, try and chill and consider the options for tomorrow and hope the wind and the rain abates. I will also try and sublimate my anger and rage at having what was planned to be a good time, a break from the usual shit, turned into a cluster fuck of aggravation. Hmmm I see the sublimation is going well.

Thursday, up early to move the car so my partner can go to the physio first thing. Me, a 9am work meeting. Its a work meeting and goes its merry way until we all sign off. I have a quick chat with a colleague about tonight’s football and our weekend plans. We are both going away and both of us are wondering how storm Eunice will affect us if it does. The post arrives and I am thrilled that I am to be offered a Motorway Awareness course instead of a £100 fine and 3 points on my driving licence. I am happy with this and read the accompanying letter that informs me that there are no face to face courses but I can do it on line. Oh yes folks in this day and age there is a virtual option.

I get onto the online portal and book myself into my course in May at a cost of £91 I get a conformation from the organisers with instructions. The irony that amused me is that the Motorway awareness Course is to be held on Zoom! So I have something to look forward to in May. Before lunch I clean the shower head and renew the filtration beads in the head. I lunch and continue to drink pints of water prior to going for my blood tests tomorrow morning. My nephew and his wife with new baby come to visit to talk about setting up as an independent counsellor. We drink and nibble chocolate biscuits as we chat. Its a good conversation and is punctuated by my young grand niece chipping in, in her own inimitable way. Our guests leave and tidy up some admin tasks before my favourite Thursday tea of tuna pasta. I immediately drive my eldest daughter to her circus skills session and return home to watch football.

We are due to go to London tomorrow on a planned trip to the theatre and on checking my emails there is one from EMR telling me not to travel tomorrow. I’m just demoralised. The consequences of not traveling tomorrow means huge amounts of rearranging travel, hotels and taxis. Its the aggravation that is so sapping and the fact that it has fallen on the one weekend that was meant to be a well earned time of relaxation and rest. So tonight I am gearing up for an early morning blood test and then some juggling and decision making all based on the bloody weather and a train service that seems to be taken by surprise when its windy.

Wednesday and I wake up aching from yesterdays gym work, quite a pleasant and reassuring feeling. I wander downstairs and make a muesli and coffee breakfast, which I eat on the “soffice”. I check my e-mails and messages and gather myself for the day. A friend is having her foot operated on today and sends me a picture of her leg emblazoned with a large arrow pointing downwards with the words “this one” written on her shin. Its a kind of comfort but also a bit scary. The fact that they have to so boldly label it suggests they have got it wrong in the past. I head for the Shed and settle into it like an old friend. It feels like ages since I snuggled at my desk surrounded my writing implements and inks. I light the candles and begin to write. I’ve missed this and I feel inattentive to my friends when I have not made the effort to write to them or reply to their generous letters. Even now time presses as I have a work call late in the morning so I endeavour to make sure that I have at least written one letter before retreating to the house to take the call. I succeed. I take my work call and then do some environment maintenance like bringing in the bins, move the cars and post my letter. Time for lunch before the afternoon meeting but there is enough time to start the blog and include some pictures of the miracles that are happening in the garden. Everywhere I look there are signs of spring and renewal.

The meeting is a mixture of guess work and fencing. It wends its way to an end and we all go our separate ways. I tidy some tasks away and then take a call from a friend who was going to inspect a potential party venue, life goes on despite COVID and and its aftermaths. I start to change to train, take another brief call and then head for the garage to row for half an hour. Its cold and the weather outside is blowing up a gale, so I strap my feet in and get on with it. Half an hour later I am done and relieved I have trained.

The family agree that today is to be a take away day and so I order and then change out of my training gear. We are just catching up with the winter Olympics when the food arrives and we tuck into our selections. Food, Olympics and idle chat and then I watch a football match on the laptop as the others watch something called the Tower. Football over I return to the blog before I slip off to bed. Tomorrow starts with a work meeting and then I have to get in a training session before my nephews wife comes to visit. I hope I still have chocolate biscuits left to entertain a guest with.

Tuesday and it starts with a work meeting, so I am up promptly, make a coffee and settle down in front of the laptop. Its a productive meeting and takes up half the morning. Once the meeting is over I take a call from a colleague and exchange some views and ideas, being Brits we of course talk about the weather especially as both of us have weekends away, the difference being that he will be in the middle of storms Dudley and Eunice. I note that the squirrel feeder has had its lid propped open by the front panel being lifted up by birds eager to get to the contents. I fill the bird feeders and make the squirrel feeder good. They should be okay for the week now. I store the garden camera pictures on the laptop, clear the data card and put it back into the camera, hoping quietly to capture more pictures of foxes, mice and other visitors.

I tuck into lunch and take a call from a friend who is battling the effects of long COVID. It would appear that others seem not to understand just how debilitating long COVID is and how demanding it is have to keep managing energy levels. We chat for a while and then I get myself ready to go to the gym. I find the gym almost empty and do an hour on a cross trainer. I go back to listening to Rammstein as I train and burn off 736 calories and go 8.58 kilometres. I also spend some time on the weights machines before the luxury of a shower. I treat myself to a post training americano and bacon brioche before returning home.

Today its an early tea and and the last episode of Young Wallander. It lives up to being typically dour Swedish with a prosaic super realistic ending e.g good people die, bad people go free and the grinding unfairness of life is played out in spades. I watch football and write the blog. The lesson from today is that when I make the effort to go to the gym I feel much better and if I couple that with eating simply I feel even better. Note to self: remember this and do it more often.

Monday and a fresh start that stalls, my body just does not feel like it. I have a breakfast of muesli and check my day. The fish are pleading to be cleaned out as they cannot see out of the tank and they are missing the winter Olympics. So I sort out some work emails and then gather up the tools to clean the fish. I spend an hour or so removing algae and refreshing the water levels. It will take a couple of hours for the tank to clear and then the fish will reclaim their place in our lounge. With the fish happier I set about reading the draft training resource that is to be part of a work meeting tomorrow. It is a document that has been edited well and I have fun recognising the bits I have written and identifying the authors of other parts. By lunch time I have addressed the parcels to go to Sri Lanka and my partner and I walk over to the post office to send them off.

There is soup for lunch as I wait for my i-pod to charge. I dither as to whether to wait for Tesco to deliver or train, I decide to check the garden camera to see if our hedgehog had woken up yet and wandered around the garden at night. I retrieve the data card and pop it into my laptop. I start the slow plod through the captures, stopping a couple of times to do other chores. There were the usual pidgeons, squirrels, collared doves, birds, cats and even a lone mouse. Suddenly there was this:

FOX! Yes we get visited by a fox, a big and beautiful fox. I get childishly excited and call the rest of the family to come and view the pictures, who in their turn appear to be excited to. What follows is some techno juggling to get the pictures so I can put them in the blog. Ta Da! The time has flown by and it’s tea time in no time at all as I have started the blog. Tonight I shall continue to watch Young Wallander. I find it an interesting series, refreshing and very working class Swedish. The making of a tortured middle aged man with artist father issues, just up my street. Then it will be drugs and bed.

Friday, a busy day. The morning is filled with the gym, where I cross train for an hour burning off 710 calories and going 7.79 kilometres. I indulge in a bacon brioche before returning home to sit in front of my laptop as I do the second half of a training course. It goes on till 4:30 when I log out and got to a call with a colleague from a therapeutic community. Its an early snack and then my partner and I go off to see Fascinating Aida. It is a great show, full of laughs and some very acute satire. We wore masks very many did not. At half time we moved back a couple of rows and had an entire row to ourselves. They are an act I would happily see over and over again. The drive home was prolonged by the rugby crowd filling the roads in the centre of Leicester. Home and its almost midnight and time to sleep.

Saturday is simple to sum up, breakfast, a walk in the local park and then rugby, more rugby followed by football. There was just time to watch the lead show showcasing tomorrow’s Super Bowl before clearing the kitchen and going to bed.

Sunday and its a long lay in before I get up and weigh myself. I am expecting bad news given my tardiness in my exercise routine, plus the fact that my diet has been crap over the last week. I look down at the scales with a sense of foreboding. Its 95.0 kilos! I am vey very pleasantly surprised and vow to return to my fighting ways and sensible diet on Monday. The family brunch together and then make the weekly call to our youngest daughter. Of course it takes us up to kick off time for the England v Italy rugby international. It goes well and we then drift into an evening of TV, package taping and odd and ends of tasks, including the weekly Tesco order. So the week comes to an end and that much closer to my oncology review. Its a constant that rumbles on in the background of life and I know that this one is going to inform whether I’m going to stop working properly and reinvent myself. It feels like its time to rebalance.

Tuesday was all about travel home from York. I treated myself to a hotel breakfast and took my time preparing for the drive back to Leicester. I’ve learned not to rush my traveling, it is a far more healthy way to be. I drove back at a sedate pace and arrived back about two o’clock. My afternoon meandered and I was tired. I spent the evening watching football and finally went to bed.

Wednesday was a day that started with a lazy breakfast and moved on to a meeting with a group of peers, where we found a new way to keep the communications going between meetings and to become available to a wider membership including our international friends. It was a good and positive discussion and I think has moved us forward. A brief lunch and some admin work before I took myself to the shed and put an hour in on the exercise bike. It was a tough session but I lasted the hour and ended up quite pleased that I had made the effort.

I emerge from the Shed to find my partner’s friend has arrived. I go and change and sort out some food for myself as my partner and friend go off to a pie night at a local pub. I spend my evening lazing and watching more football being aware that I was tired and my body had no more to give me.

Thursday and I am up early for my 9 o’clock work meeting. There is time for breakfast and coffee before the regular team meeting. Its all about up dating and checking how we all are. The meeting ends on time and there is little time for post meeting chat. I set about writing a section for a training manual which is due to be discussed next week. I get it finished along with last months invoice in time for lunch. The postman then delivers a speeding summons. I am guilty so fill in the form and pop it in an envelope to be posted later.

My good citizen act done I am straight into a training session for the afternoon. The session lasts all afternoon and I watch people form my services get engaged or detach quickly. Its an interesting exercise. I will be going back tomorrow for the second half of it. Once the meeting is over I do some business with the team and then finally log off. I drive my eldest daughter to her circus skills session and wait the hour outside doing crosswords till she re-emerges. I drive back and cook myself tuna pasta and settle down to watch yet another football match and to catch up with the blog.