Off Limits

No matter how much I pour myself into this blog, there are bits that are bound not to appear, there are blogs that I have written, read the next day and pulled and there are many that just never get past the edit.

It is pretty obvious then that there was a blog I wrote a minute ago that didn't get to be published and that is because it goes too deep or opens me up too much or is, in my view, very personal about myself or my family.

Over the past year I like to think that these have been kept to a minimum and I reckon 20 would be about right.

So the earlier blog - was about insurance and payouts and then got morbid and didn't seem relevant somehow. Others would be where my soul would be fully on view or the very black stuff from a long time back. I think it would be fair to mention it and refer loosely to it but to share some of it really isn't for here.

So with this rather sombre blog I'll close for the night.

Something is paved with good intentions

I wasn't going to do any work today was I! Well by 10 O'clock, there were e-mails to deal with and then a couple of contracts and a letter of intent, someone hadn't got an address so I had to find that and suddenly it was 4 O'clock and the pile of stuff I was promising myself to do is still there.

I must make time for myself. If I learnt one thing it was that things can get done without me but, I look and act well so it is back to normal.

I am actually going to pack up now, walk away from the screens and go and sit downstairs and hopefully fall asleep for an hour I lost so much sleep last night and with the early calls this morning didn't really catch up.

If there is anything that I can say has changed in the past 15 months it is that my stamina isn't there any more. I know I am not fit but I can do something about that when they let me and I don't go off injuring myself. I eat properly and yet I get tired quickly. It takes a long time to repair your body and to get everything in balance. I've seen what can happen if you get any of these wrong and so I just have to be patient and build back slowly.

I also have to remind myself that I am 50 despite the act that my brain thinks I am 30 still.

That is better

A fitful night's sleep. Then two early morning phone calls which were enough to drive me mad - both people who had forgotten something and needed to ask me what to do! So up with the lark and so much for a lie in today :-)

I'm still clear this morning and I am taking a day off of work and concentrating on resting and relaxing as everyone else in the company are on training duties!!

One of the callers wanted me to pop into London which I declined.

Hoping for a good - quiet and restful day

Perhaps cancel all engagements

I am seriously considering not doing a couple of things I have planned for later this week. I have something on at the weekend that I must do and I need to make sure I am ready for that. I was planing to go to London later this week but, really, if I am honest with myself, perhaps I ought not to do it.

It will mean letting a friend down but then I know he will understand why.

I just caught myself running up the stairs and thinking afterwards - FOOL! I just don't feel ill or anything I actually feel very well and so making myself slow down and taking it easy just don't work.

A blip NOT a setback

So I am reliably informed by a friend of mine. A blip is something minor which this is.

I was out with my friend who had cancer and we had a very long and enjoyable lunch. He now knows what has been giving him a rough time and that is great as he can work towards sorting that out

I am happily peeing as normal and have been all day. It is quite a relief I can tell you.

I should have been at the Out patients today but that is now next week so I suppose that is some relief, I can explain what happened and probably will get told off for not taking things easy!!

Feeling a lot better and my mate and I set the worlds to right, had a nice lunch and a couple of beers and coffees. A nice day and so far even better without any traces of blood or anything else.

Overnight Report

All is OK this morning - I had a couple of trips to the toilet - drinking as much as I do these days, an overnight visit isn't unusual The late night and early morning ones are clear, the first one wasn't but it also wasn't a bad one.

Today I am taking it easy and seeing how I get on.

Blimey - done it again

Some more bleeding and a few bits of debris.

Bit of an idiot and should have taken it easy tonight. Will monitor this and take some action if it carries on I actually think that I need to consider doing a bed rest day or two to stop this and also plenty of liquids.

I knew I'd overdone it as soon as I carried those cases up the stairs.

Trying to take it easy

Not as easy as you think though. I just humped three heavy bags up the stairs before I thought about what I was doing!

I go back to some of my earlier blogs that mention how you don't feel unfit or even look it until you try something that you really shouldn't have done.

As someone said to me tonight it is a bit like a hysterectomy (I didn't think it was but his words not mine!) Told not to pick up things or do anything for 6 weeks, you feel OK, lift something and put yourself back to where you started and begin all over again!

I hope that I have learnt my lesson!

Ongoing but minor

Well it appears that generally things have settled down although a large lump came flying out a little earlier - at least nothing like Saturday's episode. I wonder if being hunched up over my desk isn't helping? I need to be drinking more liquid but don't tend to do that in the office.

At least I am out for some of the day tomorrow. I'm with my friend who has had and gotten rid of his Cancer problems - but not the aftermath and the Black Dog bits.

It will be an interesting day of discussing treatments, how we feel, how our brains are coping and so on.

I'm looking forward to getting out and perhaps cheering myself up a bit. I haven't lost my general cheery outlook but my confidence did take a sever knock with this last episode.

Even Keel

Today all appears to be back to normal. Shaken of course, but I can pull through that - it was quite a shock I gave myself there and a reminder of what I went through for close to three weeks prior to being diagnosed. It is the little hesitancy you place on yourself as you are about to go to the toilet and the slight worry in case anything else decides to fall out of your body :-)

Oh well, that is gone and I am back to getting on with work. A distraction that I really need.

I am planning on taking it easy this week anyway and so hope that sufficient rest will also heal whatever damage I managed to do to myself.

A quiet Sunday

I did take it easy and only once did I get any more problems which was just a bit of debris. All appears to be clear and all appears to have settled down.

I'm still not greatly confident and somewhat hesitant going to the toilet. I will just have to take it a little easy over the next few days and make sure I don't do anything strenuous.

Off to bed now - I need some rest and to catch up on what I missed out last night with the "worry".

The calm after the storm

At least I hope it is.

During the night, it must have been about 2, I went to the toilet and there was a large clot and some blood but end of stream. This morning, well it looks clear, possibly some traces, but otherwise OK.

Today is going to be a take it easy day. So far, so good and I hope that it stays that way. I just need to rest and drink plenty of liquids and hope that whatever it was sorts itself out. I can actually feel some palpitations and a very slight soreness which I need to make sure are no more than that or else I'll be taking myself off to A&E pretty smartish.

This has happened before so I am not quite in panic mode but it did get me close yesterday.

I'll be seeing the Consultant the week after next and so I will mention it. However, I know she has always said to expect this. Perhaps I need to be a bit more patient and not to have expected to get back up to the level of exercise I was doing earlier on in the year? I certainly didn't jump on the cross trainer this morning :-)

Well there is a start - at least I got my sense of humour back - they can't take that away from you!

Sleepless Night

I don't think it is worry that is keeping me awake. I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that this is what I should expect given that they cut a number of slices out of my bladder.

Logic and common sense are taking over but of course they make your brain whir and with that keep me awake. It has gone 1 and I've been awake for a couple of hours. I will have another go at getting some sleep in a minute.

What a day!

Revenge of the Black Dog

Well I had written the last blog entry and all seemed OK.

Went to the toilet and a full stream of blood and bits came out non stop, it was horrendous and catapulted me back to the early days. There was blood everywhere and the shock of it rocked me. There were lots of bits of all sizes and dark blood not traces this time. I know that a little blood goes a long way when it is watered down but this looked just like how it had when I first got the symptoms. Ugh!

To say I was in pieces might be an understatement. It was pretty horrible and I couldn't believe it, it was as if the last 15 months hadn't happened. It took quite a while to gather myself together and go back down stairs as we were just about to watch the Rugby World Cup Final and wife and daughters were sitting there. I guess my eyes were a bit puffy and red when I got downstairs and no doubt I looked as white as a sheet - I do when I get a shock or feel ill.

C noticed straight away and I told her privately what had happened. I drunk a couple of pints of water and watched the game. So far everything is clear. I have resolved just to take things very easy for the next few days. I can't imagine that it is anything serious now, given that there has been no repetition and I have been a number of times.

How fragile my mind is though, I was in blind terror when I saw this again. I can't even begin to explain to you what it looks like or feels like.

The Black Dog shook me about and even now I catch myself hesitating to go to the toilet and feel my heart beating a little faster than it should and the tears are subsiding but that really wasn't a great couple of hours to live through.

Unfortunately your brain jumps to conclusions, if it had continued, how long do I wait before taking myself down to A&E etc.

I am off to bed now - I hope I can sleep. Not surprisingly I will not be exercising tomorrow or for a few days as I take things easy. I'll talk to the consultant, my guess is that it isn't particularly unusual and lets face it - I had this sort of thing (on a very much smaller scale than this) before. Maybe they took larger biopsies to be absolutely sure?

Whatever, it brought me back to earth with one hell of a bump and I haven't been this upset for perhaps a year or more. I'm obviously not as mentally strong as I thought I was, I must be aware of that going forward. I still feel a little tearful but nowhere near as bad at the moment. I can feel the slight sting of the blood still but it isn't painful.

Well, lets see how I fare overnight. I really wasn't expecting this sort of day or the shock of that. Take it easy, plenty of drinking and perhaps I can get back on course.

And another

After a few more clears - another one.

I don't think anything to worry about particularly as this has happened before. It just turns you over seeing the sort of thing tat used to be frequent and concerning - again.

Taking it as easy as I can at the moment to make sure that I don't aggravate it.

Spoke too soon

Another scab came flying out with associated debris and blood. It is weird and and disturbing all at the same time. Again, it sort of shook me for a few seconds but then the stream went back to normal and so all is OK. Drinking a lot of fluid today and taking it easy.

I am up to 20 minutes exercise a day - could it be that? I doubt it, just nature taking its course. If I was bleeding then I'd definitely stop doing anything. That happened last year and I took things easy for a day or two and was fine.

Anyway - it is the weekend and I don't feel ill or anything - it is just something to monitor I suppose.

Well that brought me back to earth with a shock

I had two "OMG" moments last night (OMG Oh My God!!)

I went to the toilet and it was strange but I suddenly felt that something had happened and I looked down and there was a bit of debris in the pan and then a small trickle of blood diluted.

Now I "should" know what this is - how many times have I been in Hospital? But the brain doesn't remember that first off does it? Because of the association with what blood actually meant prior to diagnosis - your brain goes there. Quite how it made the leap to think that I could possibly have tumours in my bladder where 18 days earlier all was clear is not certain.

I rationalised this afterwards. The next time I went was horrible as three huge chunks of debris (probably scabs) came out along with lots of little bits and again a diluted rusty coloured urine. This is , believe me, enough to make you recoil in horror.

Of course these are just the scabs from the biopsies coming away and so they are only signs of the bladder wall healing itself. I imagine my bladder has probably had enough of being cut, scraped and generally subjected to pretty awful chemical attacks - bless it!

So it was quite a relief, last night and this morning to have no debris or any colouration in my urine.

What a relief even though I know what this should be.

Too Young to Die

That's a strange thing to say. You hear it a lot. I often want to ask what is the right age then?

English is a peculiar language.

Outlook

I'm still really positive about everything and still feeling on top of it. I need to get a bit more structure back in to every day life and I need to work on work / life balance as I haven't got that right yet. I am actually taking time out to do more things and get out more. I'm off to London to meet some old friends tonight and that combined with a meeting just before that will allow me to get a bit of business done before having a great time out with my mates.

Life gets back to normal but it takes a while to get back into it that's all.

Exercise

Back up to 20 minutes a day now and that stretched my muscles around my stomach a bit. I can feel everything beginning to get tightened up already which is great. It is amazing how little it takes to get you feeling better.

Now to get my diet under control and I can start to improve on this.

I'm reckoning that I can be somewhere around my fighting weight by Christmas if I lose my weight gradually. I must have lost a few kilos already this past 2 weeks. I'm sure I'll have to have a set of treatments before then as well. They may break some of the momentum for me but I hope not too much.