What a great night

Twas my 50th Birthday party and I shared that with an old chum of mine from school days.

What a brilliant evening. I had a great time and celebrated my birthday in style surrounded by family and friends and I didn't get too squiffy :-)

I got some great presents too - people are really imaginative about such things - I wish I was sometimes.

Right - that is enough from me for the moment - I hope to spend the rest of the day doing next to nothing except packing.

1st Anniversary

By this time last year I knew that I had bladder cancer and was probably reading the leaflet the gave me. I had by the early afternoon a phone call giving me an appointment on the following Tuesday. Those days were a blur. Explaining to my Mother that I had Cancer wasn't easy. I remember using all the soothing and upbeat words and actually thinking the opposite of what I was saying.

So tonight - should I wear the "I'm not dead yet!" Tee Shirt? I think I should.

Curious

I've been looking at this label and - is it me - or is this just plain obvious?

Bizarre!

Sleep - As evasive as ever

I didn't have the problem I normally have on a Tuesday night (there's a clue then!) as I didn't have treatment on Monday.

Tonight though I'm yawning away but can i get to sleep! No chance. I think I have done the usual and worked all day long on the PC and that has just meant that my brain is too active doing figures and answering e-mails.

I have no doubt that I will sleep Saturday night and in to Sunday!!

Some sort of anniversary

Tomorrow - when I have my birthday party with my friends it will be a strange old day.

By 10 a.m. on the 21st July 2006 I knew that I had Bladder Cancer and my journey began. It seems a strange quirk of fate that Lynne's memorial service will be tomorrow and also that my party will be on the same day. The next anniversary is the 25th July when I had the operation to take out the tumour. My the year has flown by really and it hardly seems possible that all the things that have happened to me - actually DID happen to me.

Anyway, I shall try not to dwell on that but rather on enjoying my party tomorrow.

Winding Down now

I really have had enough now and I have a few more work tasks to do and then I am going to get on to the personal ones.

Tomorrow is going to be hectic. I want to enjoy my party but the organisation and logistics make it that I'll probably be knackered by the time it starts.

At least Sunday should be good as I can relax with the F1 Grand Prix, the Open and Tour de France (unless it is a rest day).

Treatment fades into the distance

But quite surprisingly I can still feel how tender everything is. I should have remembered from last time that it took a good few weeks to slowly build myself back to my exercise regime.

The Ship has a fully fitted Gym and so I am planning to spend a little time in there slowly building myself back up to fitness. Although I will only be going very slowly as I can feel pulling now when I walk up and down stairs especially.

It is quite frustrating having to wait for things to get back to normal - it just seems to take so long.

Party

Yep - my 50th on Saturday - it should be fun. The food has mounted up in the house, in the Fridge and Freezer. I have 3 days work to fit in tomorrow already.

This weekend is going to be utter chaos but then I meant to thrive on that sort of stuff.

I hope to be a bit livelier tomorrow than I was today!

I'm still not getting any younger

I keep saying that to myself. The problem is that I still think I am as fit as I was a year or so a go. Obviously not, I find a full day out - like yesterday - leaves me very tired the next day. I'm only 50 for goodness sake! I'm not out of breath or physically finding it difficult to walk or whatever, far from it.

This morning I took ages to get going and could quite happily have laid in bed for hours as I just felt so tired. I need to keep reminding myself that despite the way I look and I feel, that I am probably not as fit as I think I am.

Holiday next week - bliss - I don't have to do anything if I don't want to. I intend to just chill out for two weeks.

What a long day

Home about 30 minutes ago. Like it is the next morning :-)

It was a brilliant evening and I am so glad my friend organised a reunion. Last year I was all set to go and had - a few good reasons not to :-) I still have to dash to the loo more often than normal but - then I was in dire straits and couldn't be away from a toilet by more than 20 paces :-)

Anyway a great evening and I had a lovely time.

Some people are so

Thick.

Like how many times do I have to tell someone "no, I am not interested" before the meaning of my words actually gets past their ear drums, converted to electrical signals and actually stops them following their banal sales scripts? According to Danial (from Mumbai) about 10 times before he got told where he could shove his script, what was wrong with repeating himself 10 times to someone who actually could speak English and how mighty unimpressed I was with his ability to translate my words into sounds that he could actually hear and could actually understand.

When you hear the BURRRRRR you have lost the sale dummy!


BURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

No doubt he was still trying to find out who his auto dialler had rung and why he wasn't speaking to the "responsible adult" of the house. Good entertainment though - and cheered me up no end.

Whatever it is

Get over it. I'm still feeling these little sad pangs. No idea what it actually causing them apart from the earlier blog ideas. Perhaps it is the looking forward to being away without having to worry about anything. I don't know - I'd rather not be getting these little 10 second chokers though. It has to be a guilt thing or something like that.

Rationalise this

I do a lot of that. I'm beginning to wind down for my holiday already - I'm looking forward to it, I definitely need it and it is this - not being busy to distract myself - that I imagine is going to give me more time to think, to be glad I'm here, to be as fit as I am and so on.

I'm sure there is some fancy psychological terminology for it. No doubt someone would be able to stick me on the Kubler Ross chart somewhere :-)

It feels like the end of a battle or a war and after all that has gone on, all the things you did with all the noise and in the heat of the battle now past. All that is left is the quiet of the field and then you see all of those who didn't make it. Miraculously you stand there, hardly scarred whilst many of those who went in with you are lying on the ground around your feet.

The benefit of time to let you think about it isn't always a good thing to have. However, mind and body quickly forget the experience and you do heal and you do get on with it.

And that, dear reader, is enough of that for today!

Wiped out

Oh dear. With Lynne dying and so quickly, my Friend's tragedy and also some other friends also passing away - July has just been just awful.

I sat down tonight and watched The Green Mile, I've never seen it all the way through before and it is a bit like the Shawshank Redemption, from absolutely nowhere at all I felt ever so sad, really tearful and quite upset.

Now as most people will tell you, that isn't really me at all, I'm not particularly your blubby type nor do I get easily phased. I can't tell you what it was tonight but there you go. In pieces towards the latter part of the film.

I'm OK now but I was somewhat taken aback by my uncharacteristic emotional crumbling act.

Just another step

I suppose it is just another step - finally Lynne has finished this journey. Lynne's blog was one of those that I read regularly and it seems sad to realise that in a few more weeks that there won't be too much added content. It would be good though if these blogs are allowed to stay and be tapped into in the future.

Here is the announcement.

Thinking of squeamish

My youngest has just got contact lenses. She looks very different with those on but - urgghhh, putting them in and taking them out I am afraid really gives me the willies. Shudder!!

No, you can stick a catheter where the sun doesn't shine but don't ask me to do anything with eyes.

Not going through the routine

It is quite strange not doing something when you have been doing it habitually for six weeks. So I didn't have to stop drinking and eat early, nor have I had to go and shower midday and get changed into "appropriate" clothes, prepare my bed and the bathroom and get my appointments card and stress balls together.

My wife has made good use of today by going up to London with the eldest to see some art and photographic exhibitions.

I am feeling like I am missing something which of course are the routines. I have to say I am not missing the other things one has to do though.

Compressing my week

This week is a little chaotic. I knew it would be and I moved a lot of stuff into this week so that I could pressure myself into getting some work done that actually does need to be done.

Sounds strange to stress up my week? Not really - I don't normally need to do that but recently I find I cannot get the enthusiasm up for mundane tasks anymore (not surprising) and so bunching them all up together and putting a deadline on them should (well this is the plan) mean that I can get a good run and some momentum up to complete all the things on my list.

Mundane things like some outstanding meeting minutes, tidying up some paperwork, filing some old reports, doing my expenses and that sort of thing!

All this stuff is really broing but has to be done.

Did nothing at all

I feel quite tired by the end of the week - of course I had forgotten what sort of week I had - it seemed to go on so long and be a week of bad news.

So today I just let the TV wash over me and didn't do much at all.

It will all start again tomorrow and I expect there to be a certain amount of brown stuff hitting fans as well - at least I can keep my head down for a few days and then have some celebrations and go on holiday.

Getting going is proving difficult today

I just can't get the motivation to either sit here at the PC and get my outstanding stuff done or to go through the two mounds of paperwork on my drawing board and desk. I know I must get on and get them done by next week.

I really just can't be bothered today. I have also found another complete waste of time - a bit of a laugh also - www.facebook.com - it is great fun but whether or not you actually get any work done is another story.