Wednesday and its oncology review day. I still feel crap from Mondays jab and apprehensive about todays review. I get up and do some last minute blood pressure calculations, take my meds and eat the marmalade bagel my partner makes me. We both wait for the call, my partner delaying going to see her mother until the call arrives. The call arrives, the oncologist does not sound so eager to be away so I know this is not straight forward. We both note my PSA is going up and I point out its doubling time and the acceleration rate. The oncologist (he who made a pact with the devil) says he wants to scan me again a couple times and to see me in eight weeks, quicker than usual. He also wants to prescribe me steroids, low dose, to see if it helps. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. If it is does not then the usefulness of the Enzalutamide will have come to an end. We agree that I will be seen face to face as it seems we are at a tipping point. I come off the phone feeling that I am in for a tricky rest of the year. So there are to be more scans, more bloods, more meds and more juggling of my time and cycles to be done.
My partner goes of to see her mother with her brother and I try to clear up my space a bit and do some organising. Despite feeling grim I get my training kit on and after some prevarication I go to the garage and prepare to row for 30 minutes. It’s a tortious row, and I am well below par but I get to the end just pleased that I have done it. It just highlights how important it is to train regularly so tomorrow needs to be another training day.
My partner returns as I finish my row and makes me a sandwich before I get myself into the shower and try to refresh myself. I spend part of the afternoon watching the world athletics and then emailing people who helped with my anthology asking how I get copies to them. while my partner makes pie for tea I start to drat the blog. I decide this is a new phase and change the heading of e blog to reflect what is going to be different over the next two months. The prospect of taking steroids is not one I am looking forwards to, he could have offered some “uppers” just to lift things a bit. So now I wait for the message from the hospital pharmacy telling me my new prescription is ready and my new combination of magic potions can begin.
My evening is going to be quiet and mundane, I need time to process and reflect. There will of course be night meds and then the challenge of sleep, before I get on with life tomorrow. I am wondering if the wind has just blown and I have lost more of my dandelion life clock. Time will tell, in the meantime there are always things to be done.
