Slightly Empty yet Overloaded

I saw a blog post from someone also with BC who was in "burn out". They'd got to a point where they had information overload about their condition, had lots of recurrences and more procedures than you could count on two hands. The upshot was that they were just staring at loads of paper, reports, and their job was messed up as there was no continuity through the amount of time off. Finally, they had been concentrating so hard looking inwards that they had forgotten everything else that was going on around them. That's about the time I reckon I'd just go and lie down somewhere or try and get a break.

it made me stop to think and consider that this is a lonely disease and quite an introverted one at that. I have this blog - it has been really good for getting stuff off my chest no matter how trivial it may appear. This is an outlet for much of the anger, aggression, sadness and minutiae of the things I go through. I can see that there is a build up of negative energy in the way things have panned out for me. I'm particularly disappointed that I never really got to celebrate being given the all clear and that I cancelled a lot of things for the business (and I use that term in its loosest possible meaning) that I worked for. I had a lot of focus last year on that and it took my mind off of what was going on here. I was busy and up until the end part enjoyed that. I don't have that enthusiasm at the moment nor can I get that sort of enthusiasm for this new venture. It is as if that spark has been extinguished.

What am I getting at here? Only that I begin to recognise the barriers in my way and the things I now need to overcome to get myself back on form and back to somewhere near my old self. I presently have too much time to think and analyse rather than getting on and doing. I hope that this weekend will convince me to either go or drop my business plans. Whatever way the decision goes, at least another hurdle can be navigated and things can move on.

I don't feel like I'm burnt out, I do feel like I am overloaded with detail and fact and that I am taking ages to come to decisions (not surprising considering the thought that went into taking the last job and the outcome so far). I am probably doubting my own abilities and I am still coming to terms with things round the disease, even now!

More as I work my way through this. It isn't new information, it is what I have been struggling with since December in reality. Oh well - another set of things to overcome and without my magic wand none of them will go away easily. Perhaps knowing what all these things are will make it easier to deal with - I certainly hope so, I'm not enjoying life at the moment, it is full of conflict (real or imagined) and I don't need that. I guess some of that will iron itself out in the next few weeks - let's hope so.

Dawn Breaks

The sore throat is still here but hasn't got any worse and the sneezes are at bay at the moment. I shall take a few pills to see if I can shift it as it is quite annoying.

I'm up early as I set my mind to it and I have a stack of things to do today - not least of which is to work out how to do some partial labels in a mail merge. That will be fun.

I'm off out tonight and have to do a table plan and sort out the dining and so that is also something to get on with.

I've been OK so far this morning - I still feel sore around my middle but no debris falling out of me so far today.

I will not overdo it today though - nice and easy with the recovery. Only one more to go and this time next week I should be looking forward to a couple of months rest before the next phase!

Onwards and upwards

Certainly - I have been taking it easy today and tomorrow I intend to get cracking at last and get some more off of my to do list sorted. Today I have taken it easy but i needed to as I have been having quite a bit of debris falling out of me and whilst things are a lot less sore than last week the debris tends to give off a little stinger every now and then.

I spent quite a bit of time on the new business plans today. I'm looking forward to the weekend when I go on the course run by the IHGS - Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies. I think this will give me the "acid test" that I need to determine whether this really is a viable business opportunity or whether I am off on some dream. I tend to think that I can put myself to this, I certainly hope so and I really want to make a success of it if I do. After the course I hope to meet up with a friend and have a few beers and perhaps grab something to eat too.

I'm a bit worried tonight as I have been sneezing a lot and have a slight sore throat. I don't think that I have had a cold since July 2006! All this immunotherapy has seen to that. I need to be careful as it can be one of the side effects or, if I do have a cold, I have to be certain that they will let me have the last treatment - they don't want to confuse the side effects with a cold that looks like flu that is! Fingers crossed it is just me stirring up the dust in my office :-)

Ongoing Treatment

I was told a bit more about this as I explained that I was due for a Flexi but cancelled it (the right thing to do). Apparently, in the short term - no flexi at all!

I get the operation for biopsies and then further treatment and then another operation for biopsies and on we go until they are happy. The reason is that they need to look at the cellular level for the tests. The flexi can only give an overview of what is going on. So - whilst I wasn't happy that it will continue to be operations I am glad that they don't take any chances on this.

I was wondering whether there ought to be a customer rewards scheme for the Hospital - I go there often enough I could collect loads of points!

Anyway - all I need to know now is the ongoing treatment regime so I can understand that as the period between treatments slowly extends. The nightmare would be to get this to recur and have to start it off again! Let's not go there shall we :-0

Recovery from treatment 2

Well I certainly know I've had this treatment. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was expecting and was less than last week's in some ways. The treatment definitely worked though and there were some large bits of debris which were really the only eye watering moments. The catheter this time was OK - you'll never get used to it but it was much quicker and nowhere near as painful as last week.

I'm pretty sore around my middle - I would have said feeling like I had been "Kicked by a Mule" but I have no idea what that feels like so let's just say it feels as if someone has punched me just below the stomach and just above the Crown Jewels :-)

I intend to get a day of rest again. I could sit here and start to "do things" but I'd only put a strain on my middle and I don't want that. All I want is severe thumb strain from using the remote to dodge day-time TV - whoever invented that ought to be cathertherised and made to watch it with lots of fizzy drink!!

Anyway, only 1 more to go and then I can relax for 3 months. Then I have to have an operation. More of that next post!

Here we go then

Off now to turn off Phones and PC and then it will be a shower, loose clothes, get the MP3 player ready, the pills are there, the notebook and hold onto the rails and strap myself in for he free roller coaster ride!

Here we go treatment day 2

Well the Giants won but I really couldn't stay awake long enough to watch that.

Even now, despite getting off to bed early I still feel a bit tired this morning. As usual I feel OK if not a little tentative about going to get the treatment. As you may recall the 2nd one is often the one that gives me the most side effects and that in itself is the bit that is most difficult to explain to people in the suddenness and ferocity of them and also how quickly they go too.

And it is just like that - for a few hours afterwards everything is OK and it creeps up on you and all of a sudden it is as if you are aware that just about every bit of you is having some sort of trouble. It is that quick and I think that it normally comes on about 4 to 5 hours after treatment. It tends to last for a good 4 hours after that and then subsides. Overnight you know you've had the side effects as it is almost as if you are getting after-shocks from then to remind you as they finally subside into your memory as you subside into fitful but later deeper sleep.

Typically side-effects include being very sore, difficulty urinating (you need to go, you can go but it feels like glass or emery powder is included), aching legs, arms and lower body, sweats, generally hot sweats, occasionally cold ones too! Urgency, wanting to go every 5 or 10 minutes which is not the right thing to do you need to try and hold back if possible otherwise it just hurts more. Unable to get comfortable; this is caused by the aches and sweats and you just cannot get into a comfortable position. When you finally do get somewhere near bearable - you guessed it - you want to go to the loo again!

Anyway - we will see how I get on. I have most of my standard pills ready by my bed so I will make more use of these today if I need to.

Other than that today feels relatively normal although I need to remember to eat early and hopefully I wont get harried by phone calls which used to happen a lot - perhaps I shall just let them ring this time.

Superbowl Tiredness

Sorry - got to go to bed - too early and not even half way through the second quarter.

And yes - we do like the New England Patriots over here, or the Dolphins, or the Giants. The trouble is - it is on when it is live too late for us :-(

Come on Patriots!

Right - off to bed - treatment in 13 hours!

Countdown

Just 24 hours or so until the next treatment and the countdown starts now really. A number of phone calls and e-mails arrive that wish me well for tomorrow. I am - or feel I am - recovered enough to go for treatment and so the worry I had about being too sore to go is no longer there.

I've a few e-mails to review and some paperwork. Tomorrow I intend to get 2 major postings completed and some more of my to do list completed. That will allow me to have a few days off recovering. This one, the second, is generally the worst of the lot although you may recall that the third one from the last series took that particular spot last time!

i shall be taking the rest of today off and just sitting down and getting myself ready for another hectic week ahead. I am gradually making inroads to my to-do list so who knows, perhaps next week will be the week I can see what the original colour my desktop was!

Now I thoroughly enjoyed that

What a great evening. I met up with a nice group down from Scotland for the meeting and one of them handed me a Mark Token - a penny because we had never met. How nice was that? It is a specially struck coin that is handed out to candidates normally (in England) and so I have a lovely memento. I imagine it has similar uses in Scotland - someone I know has his penny always on him. I have a nice collection of these now and this one is very special because of the meaning behind the giving. A token - wondrful, charming and memorable.

The meal was great as it was part Scot and Part English - Scottish Beef for roast beef and a Haggis - piped in and addressed properly in the old tongue. Then slashed up ready to eat. It was fantastic and I have to admit (don't tell the wife) to having two extra portions! We had Neeps and Tatties and gravy (whisky) too.

So I had a great day out and it was a lovely meeting and a lovely meal Great company and a shame that I could only have a little to drink - they are off out drinking until the wee hours tonight.

Well - I am cheered up a lot by that and it is nice to get out - I do sometimes find that it takes me a while to get out of the house - but once I do I generally feel a lot better for it and for making the effort.

Where does the time go?

Getting ready to go out in a minute and that will be Saturday done for. I hope an interesting and enjoyable day as I won't be doing anything. That is the plan anyway. It is the first time that I have been to this particular Lodge and centre - it is a bit of a drive and a bit out of the way which is great.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to that but I didn't get half of what I wanted done this morning again although, having said that, I have managed to get rid of a stack of unwanted e-mails. I also have one of my old e-mail accounts closing down so I have taken the opportunity of removing it from my e-mail systems and hey presto - spam e-mails are down to perhaps 1 or 2 a day now. Excellent.

I am working my way through about 6 months of "to Do" lists and I should be able to return about half a Brazilian Rain Forrest into recycling by next week!

I'd better go and get myself ready now - Time flies.

Now I remember

Why I unsubscribed to a number of Fora (I suppose that is the plural of Forum) some years back. These are great places to find researchers or people who share similar interests to you. So genealogical fora are good places to find out about other research and get hints and tricks but, and here is the big but, there are so many posts that are not of any interest to anyone else but the person who posted and perhaps one or two other people around the world so you have to trawl through pages of stuff to find a snippet of good stuff.

It reminds me of a story someone told me about a Princess trying to find the right man to marry - "You have to kiss a hell of a lot of Frogs until you find the right one!" I like it - not kissing frogs you understand - the story!

I actually see that these fora are going to be good for me in the future if I pursue the genealogy business. Consider where else you could get captive audiences for your words of wisdom? Let's say there are 20,000 on a single forum, I only need 1% of them to remember my name and pass it on to a punter to start getting a "reputation" and building a network from there. So you have to be there but separating the wheat from the chaff is the difficult thing. Ho hum.

There may be trouble ahead

But while there's moonlight - oh go on - you get the picture.

I'm feeling - TGIF right now. What a week. I still haven't quite recovered from Monday's treatment - I hope that I don't end up going to get the next shot on Monday tingling like this or it will be "interesting".

As for the tribunal stuff - well, we will have to wait and see. Apparently there is no chance of arbitration and they are submitting their counter and so what will be will be (Thanks Doris).

I have an interesting weekend - I am out tomorrow for a Lodge meeting and I am looking forward to that immensely. I am also beginning to get on top of understanding what I want to do next or think that I am getting there. So the plans are crystallising in my mind about what I want to do, how I want to do that and I need to flesh that out some more. I have the training course next week which will help me get to that decision faster.

So I am going to have a bit of a relaxing weekend and try and forget all about the nonsense of this week and move on.

The Centre of Attention

No longer is everything revolving around me, I've got the clear diagnosis and only every now and again does it comeback and remind everyone - like now - under treatment with quarantined bathroom and me lying in a darkened room etc.

Normality is something we have always strived to maintain in the house and I think that we succeeded but things are back to normal now - it is just I haven't caught up with that yet!

I must try harder to tune in to what is going on outside of and around me, I have become very insular and very self critical and inward looking. I try to be normal here, at home, I struggle to do that elsewhere.

I feel a need to redefine myself, reinvent me and yet I cannot do that whilst I am still analyzing what has happened, what I feel like and what I want to do. Frankly, I'm not sure what I want to do.

Further thoughts

Is being given the all clear an anti climax? Do the things you've told yourself to help your recovery mean you will actually ever go out and do them? What is it all about?

Interesting isn't it? I'm readjusting to the fact that - in reality - life hasn't changed that much. I'm both stronger and weaker from the experience and that in both the mental and physical side of the meaning.

Let's take the physical side - I'm feeling a lot weaker in terms of strength - I don't know, let's say to put up a shelf or do something that is exerting. Also stamina - I can't do things for any prolonged amount of time. The only thing that I would say is that I do seem to be able to manage to walk for a long time or exercise - albeit I need to get back to some routine in that area after this batch of treatment. Where I feel I am stronger is my ability to take the treatment and ability to handle the hospital and things they do to me. I couldn't imagine them doing that before. So what is that? Physical pain is easier to handle than it used to be.

Mentally the roller coaster ride I go through most days is the obvious outcome. I go through huge mood swings daily. These used to be weekly if you look back across the blog you'll see the ups and downs. A lot is caused by FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). These seem to be things that I was never fearful of before - work, what people think of me ,has my judgement really gone, do I mightily p*ss people off these days, paranoia, edginess, nervousness etc. They are little things that gnaw away endlessly undermining your self confidence - and that is the last thing I need eroded.

Before BC, these things were still around of course but afterwards they are magnified and are like huge barriers to get over and just when you get clear and are in an upbeat mood - along comes something else to send you back from whence you came. I'm not overly worried about these things, I know they are here and I have to deal with them. They arrive generally one at a time and you have to get over them one at a time. You can clear one only to have it get back into your head a few hours later. Such is the position I find myself in now that just when I get on top of something or try and finish something off - an event happens that tumbles me back down again. These are like ongoing disappointments, they are annoying and niggling but not like a wall of despair or anything like that - just like splinters really.

A lot of this still has to do with how shabbily the people I worked for treated - and continue to - treat me. Their posturing and white noise and general venom take their toll on me but I should know better. These aren't "reasonable" or "normal" people and yet as with all of "their sort" they are the "bully" and their tactics are those of under the surface terror. Sorry to sound dark about it but - real business people don't act like this. At the risk of sounding like "the victim" - it did get to the point of me asking myself whether I actually deserved this or not :-)

So, each day at the moment is a constant fight to keep on top of and above all this negativity and to try and get back the real me and whilst I know I can never be what I was before, I wouldn't mind getting back my drive and enthusiasm as well as my motivation and to kick this constant procrastination into touch. Oh yes and at least some of my phsical stamina as well please.

Deep and meaningful? Perhaps - I'm sure some reading this would advocate bringing back National Service - it never did them any harm :-)

Setting goals and targets

That is my next task. I have some high level things I want to get done and I have a number of "to do" lists lying around and not everything is getting done. The trouble is that interrupts are coming in thick and fast and trying to keep all of the balls up in the air at once is proving a little difficult for me these days.

I'm just not getting on and doing things. I think that it is brought about by this lack of stamina and this inability to break away or to get clear of where I am.

I said that I thought that there is perhaps some anti climax in the way that when you are ill you use your imagination and your sights are set on things - "If I pull through this, I will sail around the world" or "I will climb a mountain" or whatever. The reality is that you are still you, changed a bit, with most of the stuffing and self confidence knocked out of you. You feel things that before you never did, you are over sensitive, over reactive, soft! You don't go and do those things - you get back to living your life and sometimes, that can be a let down (not in a depressing or phone the Samaritans way - so don't worry about that - in case you were - I know you lot!) :-) You know, job, money, house, kids etc.

You take a series of quite major blows to your physical and mental capabilities and you doubt yourself and your abilities. Many will say that isn't like me. I don't have the personality and the bravura that I used to have at all now, I am losing sleep over some idle threat about winning or losing my case. I know deep down inside that I have all of the documentation to fight this. Years ago I'd have loved the fight now I don't fancy it at all. It is actually stressful and it never used to be that. I'm certain that this is part of the healing process and that you don't regain equilibrium for a long time - perhaps years.

You can recover in some way to the physical stuff you go through the operations and the inserting things into your body but you don't seem to get over that they did it to you. It is as if someone got a large spoon and shoved it inside my body and just stirred everything up so that it no longer balances out.

I think I have probably said enough tonight but the holistic must be looked at sometime and perhaps I still treat it like any other illness still. How else can you treat it any other way? That's all you've known?

Thursday Evening

And still there is an urgency about needing to go to the toilet and whilst it isn't pain I'm feeling, it is certainly a tingling . I am SO glad that I didn't need a flexible cystoscopy tomorrow - I'm not sure that I could have managed that or if not me a certain part of my anatomy twice in one week. It sends a shudder down me just to think about it.

I hope that next week isn't as bad as this - I think that the catheter snagging on the way in is a bit to do with it this week. I hope that the lubricant does it stuff next week and hey guys, if you want to get the willies or make your eyes water - there is no local anaesthetic - just a very sharp intake of breath as it travels around the "S" bend and past the Prostate.

As I keep saying though, better this than the other outcomes and other people suffer far worse things than this, far worse so I shouldn't complain and I should be thankful that they are treating me with same stuff they cured me with!

Settling back down again

I find this whole thing far more traumatic than I ever used to before. It does mightily p*ss me off the way people behave these days. Far more these days than it ever did before. It is their bare faced lying and defiance of common law and the norms of society that I cannot get to grips with. What gives people "the right" to try and make money out of you and turn you over is just beyond me.

I'm just getting back down off of the ceiling and realising that these guys will need to produce documents to back the case that they are making. If I remember my case law they actually need to have something signed by me to state that I didn't want them to pay me - I must go and look that up now.

It just doesn't seem to go away.

That's better

A lot better. At last I've actually managed to get on and do some things this morning and get letters and files sorted and to begin to clear things. It isn't as fast as I want it to be but gradually I am coming free of the mud so to speak. I must remember that it is all small steps as I expect a lot of myself. Small steps, a bit at a time and I'll get there.

It is amazing how pleased you become with yourself once you get things done and achieve even small goals.

Off to tackle the next bits now.

By the time

I got to sleep it must have been 3 or later. I'm up this morning and feeling a lot better than yesterday and ready to tackle the ever growing list of things to be done.

I'm going to have to make a start at moving things around, by that I mean adjusting where things are in my office. The PCs, printers, scanner and files have been in the same place for 10 years and perhaps a change around will make it look and feel new. I also need to work out ways of being productive where the current setup of three PCs on an "L" shaped desk doesn't give me much room to manoeuvre.

So many things to do, so little energy to want to do them :-)