Well I'm alright

It would be a turn up for the books if I was now suffering from low blood pressure :-) so says one of my books about dizziness.

Apparently it is possible that as I woke up and got up I managed to give myself a dizzy spell - anyway - I've been fine for the rest of the day.

I'll see what tomorrow brings when I get up. At least the rest has meant my back feels a lot better as well.

I've managed to more than halve the level of salt in my diet and I've knocked out many of the fatty things (you've got to have some of course) and I will see how the diet has gone tomorrow. I feel like I've lost a little around my waist already but I have a long way to go to get back to where I was this time last year I'm afraid. As with all these things you can't just drop and shed pounds in a crash diet it needs to be burnt off gradually and slowly which is what I intend to do.

A might have been bored last night

But this morning I couldn't get up as I was really dizzy. The room was going round and around and it wasn't booze.

I spent the rest of the morning lying down and I seem to be fine now. I haven't had one of those for years and years. The whole room was on the spin.

I'm OK now - I skipped exercise as my back is still twinging and I was concerned in case I got dizzy again and fell off the cross trainer.

I am going to take the rest of the day off and just do nothing and see how I am after that

Bored

Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored.





Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored.





Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored,bored, bored.

Too bored to type it out - Ctrl C & Ctrl V for ever!

Minor Injury

To my back - I obviously didn't warm up sufficiently this morning and I've got a slight pull to my back. I think it will be OK as soon as I felt it start to complain I stopped - I only did 20 minutes this morning.

Everyone out of the house and I'm stuck here trying to get a balance sheet to balance. One of those strange ones everything looks fine but I am a few pounds out. I can't see it for looking - Perhaps I'll take a short break and then review it again.

It is normally something very straight forward.

Collateral Damage

I feel there has got to be some out of all of this. Whether it be those nearest and dearest or perhaps acquaintances. I notice some people have got closer, some more remote and others are neutral so perhaps that's just me.

The problem is of course that I have changed - I think - quite a lot although maybe some wouldn't say that. I do have different values and ideals now.

It is a strange thing to say but perhaps cancer fragments lives - I hope it doesn't destroy them but perhaps you pay for the cure with something else. I have a strong feeling that coming out of this will change my life far more than I could have dreamt.

I'll have to wait and see on that I suppose - it is intuition talking not fact.

Spitting Feathers

Oh poo,

Now "if only" - actually before I start this - I was talking to someone years ago and (this is relevant bear with me), He reckoned that if his wife hadn't have taken the 3 or 4 minutes longer on this specific night that they would have got into the bingo hall in the queue a little earlier where the person who won the thousands of pound jackpot was because he had worked out where he thought he should be in the queue? I did try telling him that there may have been other reasons along the way why he may have been further back in the queue but there was no consoling him.

So bearing in mind my slight diversion. I got a call today offering me the mother of all contracts. If I could start in a week or so and give it a good crack for 3 months then it would probably grow into something really nice and was such a good fit, if it were a glove - oh hell you know the rest.

So as I know this guy really well and I wouldn't mess up his opportunity, all I could do was point him to a couple of potential candidates and made my excuses as it just wouldn't be possible to commit to it with all this nonsense going on. And if I had of had the operation on Monday I might at least have been given an outline of what was in store and I could have.

I'm a lot more philosophical about it than I thought I'd be - I'm not lividly angry just miffed but resigned that this sort of thing is going to happen. This is why it can be damn difficult having cancer and trying to find a job at the same time. The very last ting you want to do is let down a prospective customer.

Oh well, there will be other opportunities I suppose.

Penultimate Payslip

Yes - the penultimate payslip arrived today and that made me think. I'm guessing that I'll be able to squeeze one more of my mobile and telephone bills in with them and that will be that and I'll have to take those on.

All will change again if I end up working for them - I need to let them know, as soon as I do, what is going on with the Hospital. Unfortunately whatever had happened I'd be in some sort of quandary over what is going on. The Hospital would have taken two weeks to do the path tests and then I'd have got the news what to do next. One of those would be straightforward and I'd be able to plan out my life a bit.

Waiting to get the Blood Pressure sorted out is a real pain as it just delays everything and makes the chances of me working in May difficult to plan unless I dictate the timetable and make the Hospital revolve around me rather than vice versa. I'm not confident enough to do that yet as I'm concerned that the short delay I am on now is going to prove detrimental. Someone did say that the cancer is slow and the Doc says not to worry but even so I'd rather be being treated and monitored than have some sort of opportunity for the cancer to come back or to spread.

The e-mails from those leaving and the leaving parties are coming thick and fast now. I don't intend to have any such thing as a leaving party as there is every opportunity that I'll end back up there again looking at the way staff are hemorrhaging from the business without being pushed then they won't have sufficient people left to do the work which is of course what makes the business profitable.

Watch this space. I'm a bit sad that I'll be history three weeks on Tuesday :-(

After a Long Battle

I'm not sure what to make of phrases like:

"After a long battle"
"Faced bravely"
"Short and bravely fought battle"

And so on. Sure, these are on epitaphs but it made me wonder if you'd ever get anything other than that. I can't imagine anyone with cancer has any option other than to fight it. It isn't like a cold or flu where you can lie around and just recover. Generally Cancer requires radical things to happen, radical surgery, toxic chemicals shoved into you and things that you really don't want to know about I'm sure.

So I think everyone fights a battle. There are the physical battles - dealing with the pain, the surgery, the chemo or immunotherapy and all that is associated with the actual treatment including the tests and the diagnosis. In these cases people do things to you and you suffer. You battle with the results.

Battling may also mean you taking a stance and doing something for yourself. Otherwise you feel pretty helpless. There's got to be something you can do to improve your chances (yes I know not in all cases) but there are physical ways you can help yourself. Looking after yourself better, proper food - a balanced diet, physical exercise, these sorts of things give you the best opportunity of overcoming the physical problems and to some extent the mental problems too.

The brain I find is the most difficult area to work on as it can help or hinder progress. You do a lot of battling with your brain. It would be great if you could just focus on getting well again and positive thinking and to a point it is generally like that but it also has a negative side too. The dark thoughts and the working out of odds and so on. I think that I've been reasonably lucky in having a positive attitude. I look at what happened as the biggest wake up call possible. I'm also certain that I am probably the only person who doesn't think it is as serious as it is.

Cancer is with you all the time when youve got it - barely a day will go past when I don't think about it, get worried about something or the other. Again the brain plays tricks along the lines of if you recover from this then they'll get you with something else. Hardly rational thought but the sort of stuff you have to deal with. Every ache and pain is some other cancer coming to get you as well - less so now but early on it felt like my number was up and I was going to be "got" one way or another.

So is it a battle? Is it a fight? Of course it is - cancer works on a lot of levels and you can't let it get to you physically or mentally. I'm a firm believer in doing everything I can to support the work of my specialist and the larger team that have spent so much time getting me back to where I am today. Keeping fit, thinking fit and giving yourself the best chance are your part of the deal. No one else can do it for you. Cancer isn't something you get rid of in a few days - the fallout can last years and you are always being tested and checked so you could almost say it lasts long enough to be a war.

I'm not certain I'd like the words used at anytime to do with me. Bravery, battles, fights. When you see the words printed it reminds me of defeat. I mean does nobody win out of this? Doesn't it mean you lost if words are used like this (I don't think it does just being provocative).

I'm not sure whether I've come to a conclusion on this or not. I'd not like to be remembered as battling, fighting, brave or any similar thing. I'd far rather be remembered for something else - although to be honest I haven't got a clue what exactly that would be :-)

Anyway, have a think about those words, perhaps they are printed for the living and not for the person who died?

Managed to get through the drudgery

It was a long old day doing mundane things, filling in a large spreadsheet and totalling figures, finishing off a reorganisation of my office and generally tidying up those odds and ends that get left. The odd signature, the renewal of a subscription and all those sorts of things. I might just clear all of that in the next few days if I can just keep my discipline and work through it. I am too easily distracted these days.

Confirmed Date for 24 hour blood pressure monitoring

I don't know if I said this earlier but now the date is the 30th March - tomorrow week to get wired up for 24 hours and get constant monitoring of my blood pressure. At least that is better than the 19th April some 4 weeks away!

I hope that somewhere along the line they can get this sorted out and make a decision one way or the other about it. I really don't fancy taking these pills to reduce my blood pressure and certainly anything to do with kidneys and that really (I imagine) should be avoided considering what your kidneys are connected to.

It will be interesting to see what the results are.

Rabbit Food

Yes - salad for lunch - I am being very good - I've not touched a bit of cheese or processed meat this week and the bread has been the stuff made with 1/2 the quantity of salt and using lo-salt as well. The biggest difficulty is getting from 5 fruit and veg a day to 9 although the salad itself meant that I was able to do 5 of the 9 already. You can't have double portions of one and call it two portions of your 9 each has to be different.

I've started not to notice the lack of salt and the food tastes OK without it now. I was expecting it to take many weeks but it appears to be - what - 5 or 6 days? I am hoping that I will get some good results from all this exercise and eating properly. Whilst I can't see a huge change in waistline yet (and really it should be gradual not sudden) I am feeling a lot fitter and I do feel remarkably well. I could get into my suit yesterday which was a big bonus so I must have lost a fair bit already but I haven't been measuring until this week.

Back to reality

Exercises, diet, work.

Looking at the pile of stuff to finish it looks like it is going to be a long and boring day. I shall just have to blitz my way through it. Even curiouser is that I still keep thinking that I should be working when actually I'm sitting out my redundancy. I keep my eye on the laptop to see if any e-mails come through but the PCs is on but there's no one in. There is a certain amount of guilt I suppose but I really shouldn't complain as I got three months notice.

Now what pile of disinterest shall I start on first :-)

Nigerian Scam

So I got an e-mail tonight from a poor bloke who has been diagnosed with cancer and wants to share his millions with me.

Fair enough. Trouble is - I just told said joker where to get off and used particularly unsavoury language too. I hope my ISP doesn't ban me for double use of the "F" word and other such stuff.

Honestly these sickos - just let me have ten minutes with one of them with my trusty baseball bat and I'll show you one less con artist.

If people weren't so greedy and downright gullible none of this would happen in the first place. Do you realise that there is up to a 5% take up on Spam mail? I rest my case - a lot of people really do deserve what they get.

Like those lottery winners who never bought a ticket yet miraculously THEIR name came up in a draw and the lottery people guessed that your e-mail was the one you got the message on and you fell for it.

Call me an old cynic but - honestly - it just doesn't compute and yet these people happily go and get suckered in all for some stupid return. Frankly they deserve what they get...

The Diet is Shot but

What a great evening I have had - hundreds of people assembled together for an evening out and because I didn't get the Op I could go to this. I'm so glad I did. There were some great people there some who didn't know about my condition but those who did - well it amazed me. They walked the full length of the room to come and see how I was.

I am so pleased that they did that - honestly. It is so nice to see someone recognise you, make their excuses to whom they are with and come straight over and see you.

I have had a lovely evening and it was made special by those who just came and said hello and those who listened to me wittering on about all my troubles. They serve so much those who listen.

Oh and by the way

You get your Prostate checked when you have the flexible cystoscopy (or I did). They cannot do a PSA (prostate specific antigen) because when you have BCG treatment the readings go through the roof.

Of course the other reason they do this is how close the bladder and prostate are so also a good reason to be extra cautious it is only a very short distance for the cancer to metastasis to so you can imagine that it needs to be checked.

The DRE (digital rectal examination) or "finger up arse" as my mate calls it. Isn't that bad. Considering what they had just shoved up the other opening a finger up my bum was nothing believe me. But really it didn't hurt nor did it last long either - all very quick and over and done with in seconds.

The DRE is also pretty quick for diagnosis too. Anyway for those of us with bladder cancer it is part of the territory and rightly so but for everyone else do start to think about getting yourself checked out even if it is a PSA on your next blood test - just ask them to tick the PSA box. At least you'll know.

Ladies - you have nothing to worry about of course :-)

Prostate

I was annoyed when I heard Hugh Grant saying on Top Gear how much his DRE Prostate examination hurt him. Thanks Hugh, how many people have you put off getting checked? Actually, it doesn't hurt and so it may be a little disturbing or slightly embarrassing to have done but as Prostate Cancer is overtaking Lung Cancer to be the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in the UK perhaps it would have made sense for him to have thought about the cheap laughs and actually got it home that 10,000 men in the UK die of Prostate Cancer each year - that is one an hour. 32,000 are diagnosed with it.

The good news is that on diagnosis they can do something about it and if you are under treatment you are more likely not to die of this at all.

Cancer isn't funny and men are notoriously bad patients and don't go and get checked - the last thing they need is someone telling them how bad it is when it isn't and it may well save your life. There is always the PSA blood test as well so it just annoys me that for the want of a bit of education people could be diagnosed and treated.

More information is available here

Don;t put stuff off like this - Whilst it took me a few days to convince myself I wasn't well, the best thing I ever did was to get to see the doctor fast.

Whoa - not yogurt as well

I was about to try some cereal with yogurt on this morning and I thought - check the pack...

Blimey - a small pot contains 0.1g of sodium which of course equates to 0.25g of salt. Has nothing escaped - I suppose it is used as a preservative or taste enhancer.

Needless to say I didn't have that on my cereal. It just stuns me how much salt you find and in the most unusual foodstuffs.

Keep your eyes open it is everywhere :-) I sound paranoid now don't I?

Whew - Exercise Buzz

Now I haven't experienced this for years - in fact when I used to exercise regularly and play badminton and squash. I'd play for an hour or more and there would be this real buzz throughout your body and you'd feel great. In those days I could do exercise and then go into the bar and have 4 pints of beer and smoke away quite happily! I imagine that really helped :-)

Anyway - today I did my 30 minutes but this time I used two other programmes I hadn't before, one where you dial in a maximum heart pulse rate and the computer thingy sets the resistance to keep you as near to that for 10 minutes. The second was 3 peaks in 10 minutes but starts much higher on resistance than the one I tend to use most of the time. That was really good and I noticed on all of the that my distance is increasing and so are the number of calories being burnt off. So after this not only did I feel great but also it was as if I could easily carry on for another half an hour so I'm feeling quite fit - which is pleasing. I'll be pleased to see what happens over the next few weeks with this.

Of course today I'll need all the calories burnt off I can as I am out tonight for a meal and there will be wine and cheese and all sorts of stuff I really shouldn't have - I shall try - very hard to be good and only eat small portions. I don't want to undo the good work but.....

The Fear of a Relapse

It is one of those things that you cannot contemplate unless it has happened to you.

To go to the toilet and just see a stream of blood coming out and into the pan is so utterly repugnant. It shakes you to your core and also you get occasional bits like small clots firing out too. Then after three or four weeks they repaired that although there was still a bit of blood and bits it went away. The relief is palpable - believe me. Additionally there is a mild almost background feeling like a very distant stinging goes with this - like very mild cystitis. That goes too I am pleased to say.

Later, during the treatment, I'd get this again but only on the night of the treatment and perhaps a little the next morning. I'd been warned and prepared for it. It was a different feeling as it meant that the BCG was doing what it should and (frankly) it was bits of my bladder lining getting passed out of the system. I also knew it was going to be "here today and gone tomorrow" something on the initial symptoms that didn't happen it just got worse day after day.

So what is the trouble now you might ask? Well, it is that with the delay in the operation, I'm acting as if I almost expect the blood to start flowing again and there is this almost, I suppose, anticipation this slight holding of my breath and then relief when I don't pass blood. I'm thinking that this is just my brain concerned about the delay in proceedings. I'm sure that if things were time critical, knowing how quickly they dragged me in the first time they saw me, that this isn't so.

Anyway, it is just one of these things that add to the worry of waiting. Whilst I say it doesn't worry me - like stressing me out. It is a little nag at the back of my mind.

I'm beginning to realise that "Cure" is a long long way away and that I'm going to have to learn to cope with two hospitalisations a year as a minimum even if things have gone right, more if they find the treatment hasn't been successful.

I must also work out how to write things down in such a way that they are what I feel but don't lead to people thinking I am depressed. I'm a reasonably "up" sort of person most of the time and wear my heart on my sleeve (more so recently) - you'll know when I'm down and you'll know how to cheer me up. Good company not sympathy are my pick me ups.

Diet progress

I think today has gone extremely well so far. I am jotting down everything that I eat and the timings as well. It means that I can see when I last had a coffee or something to eat and it keeps me in check.

The low salt bit is also interesting and no margarine on my bread was OK - so I will be interested to see what things are like this time next week.