No Post on Sunday

I was in recovery mode on Sunday - I just had a lazy day and so did my PC as that blue screened overnight!

I have no doubt that work will get started again this morning - it is 1 am and again, I'm having difficulty sleeping properly - in that I am awake not that I have forgotten how to sleep of course :-)

So as usual - late - no sleep, brain in overdrive so I could be here sometime before I can get to bed.

Today was a good day

I was amongst the company of many friends and acquaintances and we heard from two speakers about Prostate Cancer and the new research etc some of which is very interesting indeed.

I was inundated with well wishers and I'm really pleased if not a little embarrassed to be the centre of such attention. I felt very spoilt today - very spoilt indeed but it does make you feel so much better after you've got over the initial embarrassment of it all.

A Friend on Chemo

I met a friend of mine who has been on Chemo for Lung Cancer. He has another two to go, has lost his hair and will afterwards go on to Radiotherapy. I feel a bit of a fraud standing next to him, you can't tell other than I'm a bit of a fat boy at the moment and not quite as fit as I thought I might be.

He is doing well and it was brilliant to see him this evening. He didn't want to say much at all and I guess that I can understand that too.

Waiting isn't nice is it?

I can remember that last year's operation was so quick and so was the follow up that I didn't really have time to think about it. I was told on Friday and by Tuesday I was being operated on. The follow up was a week or so after I was told they wanted me in and again I was so busy and distracted.

This time I've known I have had to come back in for about 4 or 5 months since I was told all about my treatment and follow up. I suppose it is knowing what is going to happen to me and just the thought of it that is upsetting. I don't remember being this worried last time. I suppose I had other things on my mind and they were far worse on both of those occasions than they are now. Maybe I'm concerned what the outcome will be too. I am very conscious though of the dread in my thoughts about this one.

I have to keep telling myself that if it is good news then I'll have to go for flexibles every 6 months (not nice but there you go) and may get away without a Hospital visit. If it is bad news then they'll probably operate there and then and we will move off down some other avenue.

Yuk

Did I Say back on track

The wonders of modern day e-mail. I just got an apologetic e-mail back.

Did I say the 12th March. Nah! Try the 19th March instead. Mmm 3 weeks and a few days to go.

Shudders.........

And Another Thing

Apparently the Hospital have completed the form and it was sent back in January and has been sent back a number of times since.

Strange and curious that one says they haven't got it and the other says they have faxed it through a number of times. Perhaps the sheets were upside down in the fax - I've seen that in the past?

Now Back on Track

Looks likely to be back to the 12th March now. It was going to be 19th or 23rd March.

Anyway- doesn't matter what day does it? I'm still not looking forward to it.

Good Day out Yesterday

Phew,

It was a hectic day yesterday. More to come today as I try and sort out my presentation for tonight and get things ready for tomorrow morning. It can all get quite frenetic at times. I have a load of things to get done and just today to finish them. It just seems to have worked out that way. At least I have some sort of dialogue with the Hospital - not quite what I was expecting but a start I suppose. The trouble is they are pushing it back towards Easter which could screw up any chance of me getting away on holiday then.

Damn it they are pushing my admission back

At least a week maybe two weeks. So it doesn't need to be accurate to the 12 weeks then?

How should I know - it is only what they told me :-(

I think I might call in the morning as it just keeps slipping and therefore the opportunity to get a new job keeps slipping and so on. It is a vicious circle!

No doubt more as we progress on this!

What a Crazy Week

I thought that I had set out my stall a little better than this a few months back. I wasn't going to take on too much and I was going to take it easy and this week has just been absolutely crazy. Last weekend wasn't the best one I've had and I wasn't particularly impressed. The week has just been full of things to do and deadlines coming at me as stunning speed. It is Thursday, I have got to go and get ready to go out in about an hour. I am out for the rest of the day and probably won't get back until the very later evening. Tomorrow I am out again as I am Saturday. In each case I have to do some preparation work and I have yet to write a presentation for tomorrow. The trouble is it is relentless and an interruption here or there is enough to completely throw my timing

Back from the party

Earlier than I expected. Still it has been such a rubbish day. Now the pressure is really on as I have to be out of here tomorrow morning and up to London and I have a conference call on Friday morning and I have to think about, research and prepare a 20 minute presentation for Friday night.

No pressure then :-) ????

Like watching paint dry today

I have sat here at my PCs - I have three of them - and have been hardly able to complete or do anything tangible today. Whatever I have started I've been interrupted on. I've answered e-mails, filed some stuff away and I don't even want to know how many times I've picked up a piece of paper only to put is straight back down again.

It has been so frustrating. I thought I'd get this evening to finish off and I have just remembered we are going out to a Birthday Party - this isn't like me at all - normally I remember things like that and can blast through the work on my desk.

Attrition hits ex-employer

It was bound to happen I suppose. Injection of cash, new plan to take the business forward, bye bye MD and hello new one. Additionally there were about 7 of us went in the redundancies and a further 5 plus the MD have just resigned and so there is a lot of collateral damage. For such a small company this represents about 35% of the workforce displaced since January. It will make them reel for a few more months too.

On the up side at least they can pay me off now.

It doesn't take much

to cheer me up. Back up on a high again today and yet up until last night I'd been quite down.

Easily pleased, that's me.

A Laugh

A week or so ago this happened and I had to laugh. Youngest daughter is 13 and growing up fast but English - well, it could be a second language to her - bless!

So it is lunchtime, I'm looking through a recipe book, No 2 daughter (13) looking over my shoulder. I turn the page to find squid - from behind I hear "Look at that, it's disgusting look at all those testicles!" My wife had to rescue me whilst I was trying to explain the difference between tentacles and testicles. I almost hurt myself laughing. Daughter, for some reason didn't think it was at all funny.

Luckily I suppose they know the difference in the Hospital.

No - don't go there :-)

I Must be Sh1t to live with at the moment (or perhaps all the time)

I can imagine that you can never quite know how I am or how I am feeling or whether I'll smile or bite your head off. I think I'm pretty good at being "normal" still with just the very occasional slip up and growl or snarl.

I've been saying that I have been getting it in the neck I suppose that I could have been giving it out rather than getting it?

It is possible

Strange what picks you up

A good deed, a pleasant conversation, someone who had something similar to you, a funny line. a smiling face, a pleasant bar girl, a sincere word.

What a difference a couple of hours makes. As I get towards the date so my emotions flip flop between the ecstatic and the morose :-)

Anyway - it just shows what a group of people can do for your morale.

Lifted at last

Tonight was a great night. I run a business networking club and tonight was one of the best responses ever. New people and some who we hadn't seen for ages turned up. It was great to see them and it made so much difference to my demeanour.

Guardian Angel was there - always good to see my friend keeping me on the straight and narrow and all in all I feel really lifted as it was such a good evening.

Off out of the house

in a few minutes - going to see someone about some work I am doing for them. At least I might get out of the house for a short while and take my mind off everything else.

Any chance of getting some work done today

Has evaporated - I can't concentrate on anything at the moment. I've got one train of thought running around my head. It is going to be one of the bad days.

This is one of those days where your brain takes over and starts to beat you up - all sorts of things can get dragged up. Stuff from your past that perhaps you regret, stuff that hasn't happened yet and the consequences into the future. Stuff to make you question how you feel about yourself, your family, your friends, your life and so on.

I don't think that this is new but it is just heightened since diagnosis and I get into periods like this where all I do is try and break out of the torture my brain is putting me through. It's a malaise that just stays with you all day long. I think the scale of the issues facing me are such that this is the brain computing all the options and kicking around how to react to each potential outcome. The trouble is of course, you can't predict the future so why try. The other side of that argument is that you do probably need to work out what living with cancer is going to be like for you going forward and you need to manage it.

I'm making my head hurt now so I'll stop :-) You can still keep your sense of humour during these periods of brain over-activity. :-)