Tired

Again, it is creeping up on me. A long day yesterday and I was out for a walk this morning, with friends at lunchtime and then at a family do this evening and I am really feeling tired. OK It's late now but I've gone past the sleepy stage. I'll need to remember that I will probably be absolutely knackered once I start back at work again. A big difference working from home and travelling and working!

A Change is in the air

I think that yesterday was the beginning of a change of direction perhaps there was a shift of the way I am with people. I fended off the ignorance of my condition and did that nicely. I was a lot more withdrawn and quiet than I normally am I noticed. I did keep myself to myself a lot more than normal. I was very tired by the end of the day. Something is nagging away at the back of my mind about change or the need for it. I can't tell if that means radical or gradual change at the moment.

Sanctuary

Escaped for 5 minutes to my office. Great day but I am very tired. I'll go and get some fresh air before the evening rush!

This is fun

Yes indeed.

Just tried on a pair of trousers and shot the button across the room. Another pair on at the moment straining - hope they last the night! I've been wearing jogging bottom trousers for months now. Oh dear - this does mean serious dieting if I can only squeeze into one pair :-(

Christmas Eve

Earlier in the year I didn't think I'd make this one and if I had of, I may not have made the next, such was the fear and lack of knowledge about my condition early on. I know differently now and I know that things can change too. So today I am doing what I normally do on Christmas Eve. I cook and prepare and then go to a party in the evening which we have been to for the past 16 years!

Today, I had a good night's sleep and feel a lot better than I have done for the past few days. Not too tired. I'll be cooking and glazing the Ham and preparing the Vegetables for tomorrow. If I get the chance then I'll tinker about with some prep for the gravy too. I can have the Christmas CDs playing around the house, whack on the scented candles and have a few slurps of red wine or perhaps a beer whilst I am cooking. All this gets me into the spirit of the event and then we have the party later on which is a great evening with our friends and all the children all grew up together and get on fine which is great.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas

Easily worn out

I must be out of condition, the past few days have seen me really tired at the end of the day. I've been doing a lot more than usual and most of that has been physical work. Diet starts the day after Boxing Day - and more exercise too.

Looking forward to the next few days

I'm going to be with my family and we are going to be doing things together, going to parties, having the wider family around on Christmas Day and for the next 4 or 5 days we will be able to spend time with each other. We do tend to live in the same house but pass like ships in the night sometimes. It will be quite a good way to end of a pretty poor year for me and to look forward to a better year in 2007.

Comments and an Interesting Link

I am grateful to Lynne (see post below) who sent a really interesting link about the way statistics can be interpreted. I have often found the various figures thrown around difficult to interpret and, of course, everyone is different, has different health issues and so on. The article HERE is extremely good at setting out a positive version of what is shown. So once again thanks Lynne for that.

On the subject of comments on the blog site, it is good to receive these be they supportive, informative or both.

A Bit More Anger Management

I was reading some other posts on a forum and some people were very angry especially as they had some pretty radical surgery. I can understand that. I imagine though that their anger will be tempered somewhat later on, once the pain and discomfort and inconvenience (in more ways than one) have subsided. The reason it will subside is that it really is a lot better than being dead. It really is.

I've said that cancers are survivable and that huge steps now make it possible to survive things like this and so I am being bought time and so is everyone else who has treatment whether radical or not. I think when you work that out then you can control the anger from the absolute rage you get very early on to the stupid stuff I was banging on about earlier.

The trouble with much of this is you probably have to come to terms with this on your own unless you happen to be able to talk to someone who has gone through something similar.. I suppose I am lucky that I know two guys who have both had Prostate Cancer recently and their experiences whilst not exactly the same are good to get a bounce off and to share emotions. Both of them are now cured which is great news. As I said before mine doesn't go away that easily but is able to be managed and maintained.

I could occasionally do with a sound deadened room and a box full of crockery to smash :-)

The Short Fuse

A bit early in the morning to be "Mr. Angry" but the slightest thing can set you off sometimes . Someone hasn't cleared their mess which has been lying around for a day or two, tripping over some discarded trainers left (aren't they always) in the middle of the hall and so on. Sometimes the smallest trigger and it's "all aimed at me". Well it probably isn't but it feels like it is sometimes.

It never gets to much as I can escape to my office and keep out of the way. It just amazes me that I get wound up by such trivial things. I'll be fine now for the rest of the day no doubt. I never used to be so easily "windupable". It obviously comes with the territory. I tend to hide my anger and disappear. Occasionally there will be a few words said.

I reckon I am no longer angry that I got Cancer or that it was me; that seemed to pass pretty quickly you have to accept that it is your lot. There is something more selfish in these little outbursts I find. It really isn't what I am like although I tend to have a sharp tongue at work and not suffer fools gladly.

Maybe it is only me who has changed and maybe only I find that I want (should) be treated differently? Perhaps there is a need to make the best use of my time remaining on the planet (you DO think this way even with a survivable one - I mean what happens if you don't respond to treatment?). I cannot see that those who do not have a life threatening disease can possibly see it that way. I think you do look differently, you've seen the place where you are heading, you firmly believe that you are going to get there a lot faster than you wanted to and your outlook has changed, those around you will not have the clarity of thinking nor will they be operating under the same rules and outlook as you.

Christmas Notes

I'm getting a lot of supportive notes and the odd person admitting to having had or still having Cancer - so that will allow me to have a chat with people I know about things next year. It still surprises me how many people look for cures and full recovery and so on. I am getting to the point that it no longer bothers me and I am now quite happy to explain the situation. I still haven't got to an "Elevator Pitch" to say all I need to say in about 60 seconds - I'm sure I will perfect that with time.

Appears to be gone

That was a strange episode yesterday, I don't have too many of the symptoms left this morning, I'm up early and raring to go as usual. I was due to go out last night for a few beers which I had to cancel which was a bit of a shame.

Strange - Flu now gone

How strange is this? I got up this morning got to my desk and felt really tired and all I wanted to do was go to sleep. I've spent most of the day collapsed in a chair and decided to have a few paracetamol this evening and I feel fine again now. Hopefully that is it. A friend reckoned it is something that is going around and lasts anywhere between a day and a week!

Great - Flu!

Just what I needed. I was alright until about 9 this morning and suddenly I felt really awful. Been lazing around all day with some sort of mild Flu symptoms but the worst bit is I just don't feel like doing anything at all. It is too long ago since the treatment to be that. Its bound to be the usual thing, stop work and get a cold!

Everyone is home for the holidays

This should be interesting. Everyone is home and I am normally stuck in the house on my own for hours on end - I wonder what the dynamics of this will be? I'm the only one up at the moment and all is quiet - let's hope it stays that way

What on Earth am I doing here clock watching?

I just caught myself at it! What an idiot :-) I have just been working away cleaning up some files and sitting at my PC and thinking - "roll on 5:30, I can pop downstairs and relax" Then I looked up at the clock and thought "Doh! I'm on holiday this week - what an utter wally!"

Maybe they took my brain out when they operated :-)

Why do I keep doing this to myself?

The trouble with looking stuff up on the web and then reading it is, occasionally, you can take it out of context, don't understand what it is actually saying, or be skilled enough to read exactly what it is getting at.

There is a great deal of stuff out there and I come across new bits of information all the time. What I did today was to follow someone's link to a presentation which was a little depressing as it has figures that looked, to me, far more pessimistic than I'd been led to believe the success rate was for BCG treatment. I certainly don't like the idea of "highly likely" tumour recurrences - that would put me off - but apparently that does happen a lot. I'm kind of hoping that I'll get maintenance but even that doesn't rule out getting more tumours.

The other problem is how do you interpret the statistics - they are probably normalised somehow but who is actually "normal"?

So - try not to do too much of this without putting it in perspective. I do have to admit though that having read this latest one I feel quite down. That won't last longer than an hour or so and I'll be alright again but it can be a shock to the system to read facts and figures. You do need to find out the data behind it and also read some of the things like sample size to start to realise that some is good science and the other stuff, due to the small sample, could be out by a long way.

Perspectives

I was out this morning and talking to an old friend who has to have heart surgery. It was an interesting conversation as the worry is that it is 4 months to get the angioplasty and "I could drop dead tomorrow!" So one of the things he is doing is sorting out all the "dead" things in a "Dead File" - who to contact, what bank accounts and insurances are held where and so on. That brings it home to you having to sort these tings out. I have most of my stuff well organised but I don't have a dead file yet. It wouldn't be a bad thing to make sure that everything was in order and available rather than trying to sift through my office and find it all.

Bit of a sobering thought. I guess if I did it next year as a project it may be useful - not that I am planning on doing anything that would need it but just in case of course :-)

A Real Treat

For the past 6 Mondays I have missed my regular meeting with a bunch of very good friends. So tonight it was brilliant to meet up and have a beer before Christmas and a catch up of all the things that have happened over the past 6 weeks. We put many things to rights of course and once all the problems of the World had been resolved, we went on to discuss the finer points of politics, religion and some of the simpler issues. We had some fun discussing the interesting application methods of my recent therapy (as blokes are inclined to do) of course when it got to anything that may be eye watering or even slightly "below the belt" they gave up on that! :-)

So nice to get out and meet up with my friends again - what a relief to still be able to drink. The only problem is my clothes stink of cigarette smoke - yuk! OK I know I used to but suddenly I am really very sensitive to it. I noticed it with people smoking outside the Hospital - it really makes me feel quite ill these days.

I am off again tomorrow resolving someone's PC problems and I have now managed to track down some legacy equipment for the other problem I inherited this morning. That is my lot for today, I've done more today on my holiday than I would have done if I'd gone to work!! I must be doing something wrong...

A different sort of Monday

Normally I'd be lying down and getting ready for the side effects of my BCG treatment but that finished last Monday. It has been strange today, almost as if something was missing :-) Really though, I don't miss it.

I am meant to be on holiday, so far I've fixed three PCs today and I've another to do tomorrow! None of them mine I hasten to add. Trouble is I'm not really a PC technician - I know about it of course but that is about all.