Happier

Have sorted out stuff for the Tribunal with their brief and all is cool on dates etc.

Will be interesting as the disclosures all look back to front to me. Oh well - we will see what the first transfer does for every-one's nerves. It is like playing Poker but you have to disclose your hand first. Interesting.
Off out soon and looking forward to a good evening and a few beers too.

Out and About

It was an interesting day yesterday - I went to sort out some software problems, was bought lunch - nice and then had a few more beers - wandered home and had a few more beers and suddenly the amazing properties of alcohol kicked in and nothing looked that bad after all.

Of course, trying to actually get going this morning is a bit difficult.

A good night out

It was indeed a great night out and I did thoroughly enjoy myself. I do once I get off my arse and get going. I could do with the world stopping for a week or ten and just going away and letting every body else get on with it.

I still end up organising and doing and organising and I'm the one with all the problems!


I had a nice talk with a friend of mine who stared at the man a few years ago with a massive heart attack. He is fine now and has some great views on life, the universe and all of that. Anyway - I must dash as I need to be ready to go out in the morning and I need to prepare myself for seizures in my legs again - can you believe that they hurt like hell still? I really am still feeling as if I will cramp up at any time.

Oh well - let's see how tonight goes !!

Oh Great

Tribunal has been postponed for a month! Just what I needed.

I'd better go see what they want to do with the Witness Statements and Documents then?

What a week and it's only Tuesday!

Cramp - Twice

Last night was not good - I was off my food - unlike me - didn't feel great - probably writing the Witness Statement which sickened me doing it.

Abut 4 this morning I got the wide awake bit and ouch - cramp left leg - a really bad one - the sort where you scream and invent new swear words! Bad - I tried to get out of bed - my leg gave way - I crashed into my exercise machine and gashed by right big toe, so I ended up lying on my back trying to undo the large knot that was my calf muscle and staunch the flow of blood from the right toe!!

I finally managed to settle back down after about 2 hours only to get the right leg do the exact same thing at 8 in the morning.

I really don't need or deserve this right now - I really could do without it. I need to get this ugly nasty stuff off of my desk and into the Tribunal people and leave it for them to sort out. I certainly could do without all the other nonsense going on at the same time too.

That is

Another day just writing up what happened. I think I will do a review and call it a day in the morning and then get this over to the them and see what they make of it.

This is making me ill, I haven't got the belly for this sort of stuff anymore - I may have gone through all sorts of stuff but I really don't care for this petty bickering and greed of some people or their need to bully their way around this sort of thing.

Oh well - get to bed and relax I can finish this off in the morning and that will do - there are other things that need to be gotten on with.

Whoops - I'd better go to bed

I got a lot of work done today but I am still at it and it is almost 1 am. Time for bed I think.

Preparing all of this stuff for the Tribunal is tedious but it is at least making things straight in my head as to what happened and now I a lot happier that things will play out as best they can.

Closure - I need closure on this stuff. I have also to remember that sometimes the Dragon actually wins.

Sleep on it

And I did and things are much clearer this morning. All the obfuscation these guys put up is a smoke screen. I need to prepare things pretty swiftly but don't need to answer some of the more obscure stuff they put in to their statement. I just need to concentrate on what the facts are.

Good - that is a weight off of my mind. I shall try and get it finished by tonight and then I don't need to worry about it.

A friend in need

Is a nuisance - get rid of him (thanks Tommy Cooper!).

No really, a friend of mine turned up today and we went through some paper work that I was having trouble with and I think that helped sort out something that had been bugging me. We then went off for a few beers and I felt a lot better after that as I was able to get some of the worry off my chest about the Tribunal and the nonsense going on there.

I came home and had a few beers and feel nice and sleepy now :-) Which is good as I don't want a sleepless night worrying like I did last night!

Oh well

The documentation is through and they are going to fight their corner- perhaps I shouldn't have expected anything else. It has annoyed me quite a bit that they have dragged a load of unnecessary stuff into the response to obfuscate things. I suppose that is the way they work.

So feeling pretty miserable as a result but will hopefully cheer myself up a bit over the weekend.

A bit better night

The cramps didn't materialise into much more than just a set of twinges although I was up a number of times over night. I tend to forget that the treatment does that. The brain is pretty good at forgetting little facts like the amount of times you need to trot off to the toilet!

Anyway, the main thing is that I didn't wake up with my muscles tied in knots last night and yet this morning I can still feel a slight low down ache in my calves. I shall have to take myself off for a walk or something later to see if I can sort that out.

The deadline has gone for the response and I have heard nothing so far. That determines the next actions I have to do and so with a bit of luck I'll hear today or Monday on that as if I have to produce evidence - I will need to go and get that copied and bound and posted off ASAP.

I am feeling a lot better about myself these days, it helped to talk to two friends over the past week who have been through similar experiences and realise that they are getting on with things - I'm getting on with things now and hope that I'll soon start getting "closure" on some of these.

Ouch again

Mmm, I've got cramps in my legs again tonight - not bad but I can tell they are there! I am still suffering slightly - my mate said to me that I didn't look 100% today and I was a bit whiter than usual.

Oh well, take thing easy - get to bed early and also I mustn't forget to make the phone call I forgot last week!

And I mustn't forget to drop a note to a contact who left me a message last week and ll those e-mails to deal with. I need to give myself a stern talking to in the morning and get on with the growing list of to dos I have here.

Disturbed Night

I get this occasionally - cramp in my calf muscles. It seems to be after the treatment but also - and I am almost convincing myself about this now - as part of these Statins I am taking. Granted, I'm not back up to full fitness yet and so perhaps now that I can start to get myself back into shape this will go away again. However, I'm not enjoying the 3 am wake up with cramp and the yelling and stretching and massaging my leg back to normality. It always seems to happen on or about the 2nd or 3rd day after treatment too.

On a lighter note, I am looking forward to going out to lunch today with my friend. It is a milestone day in some respects as it is the deadline for a response to be entered by my ex-employers. Once that is known then we can go forward again to the next step and see what happens next. Going out will mean that I am not stewing over what the response is. In a way I hope they miss it or realise that the defence they are going with is stretching the imagination a bit!

So - hopefully a good day ahead and a pleasant lunch time.

Still a little painful

I tend to forget that the after effects can go on for a while after treatment and I'm certainly feeling a few twinges. At least this is the last for a while.

Tomorrow is the deadline for my ex-employer to get their response back to the Tribunal and so I guess I will hear on Friday whether things now move forward to the full hearing or whether there will be a default judgement. Either way now suits me and I can prepare the next step of the process.

I out with a good friend tomorrow to discuss the latest in both of our recoveries and to talk about 2008 and new opportunities. It will be a good meeting whatever as we enjoy each other's company. Looking forward to comparing notes again.

Another one

I just spoke to an old friend who had a lump examined under ultrasound yesterday and now has to go and have biopsies taken on Friday. It is the waiting around for the results I told him which was the worst bit.

He hadn't realised what sort of cancer I had had - so he drew a sharp intake of breath when I told him. Modern science and medicine these days is such that you stand a very good chance of survival. I was surprised that some forms of cancer are coming down in their rating and you cannot insure against some of them if they are at an early CIS type stage! In some cases of course, they can now fully cure cancer which is brilliant. A lot more of course live in remission.

Anyway, I do hope that they find it is non cancerous and sort it out and I hope that he stops smoking! I can understand that he is stressed to bits too so I hope that I managed to give him the survivor's view!

I don't envy him the waiting. I remember the last lot and even knowing that it "looked" OK it was still a worry. A wonderful day too for me of course but 3 or 4 weeks of concern.

A good evening

Another old friend turned up last night and we had some good reminiscences. At one point we were laughing so loud I thought we were going to get chucked out of the pub.

I was doing the "every 15 minute" trip to the loo, which must have seemed strange - I've needed to go a few times before but not like that - it is one of the side effects of the treatment, it will go away in a few days time.

Had a brief but interesting conversation with my friend who didn't set up as self-employed but as a Limited company - I need to go and think this through now. I cannot decide whether to go self employed, a limited business change my existing business or quite what. Thinking cap on for the rest of the week.

I'm still a little bit sore but not too bad considering the side effects on Monday night. I am hoping that I can start next week without having to worry about anything and also getting my Monday and Tuesday back to useful employment now that I don't have the treatment to contend with.

A quick post

Before I go out and meet up with the lads. I deserve a beer, I really do. I need to make sure that I am also quite near the toilet too :-)

No really - it will be good to meet up again - it seems ages but is only a month since the last one. I hope to get some good data out of one of my friends who is self employed. One of the key things I got from the weekend course was that it may be worth me doing that than having a company behind me. Of course that opens you up to liability issues but the business isn't one where I will be buying massive chunks of equipment or owning anyone money so it shouldn't get to that.

Anyway - I'd better go and get ready and make my way over and enjoy a few glasses of warm british beer.

Treatment News

So yesterday was the last of this batch - my goodness I have had 18 of these - I'm sure the Urology nurse has seen my tackle more often than the wife :-)

Anyway - so I asked what the next steps are if all is clear:

Another batch of BCG like this one - which is 3 followed by a 9 week wait and another 3 and then operation and biopsies 12 weeks later. If that is clear, repeat the same one more time. If that is clear - then that is it! No 8 years worth and longer periods in between operations etc. I imagine that there would be some visual scoping and tests along the way.

That was a surprise - I was expecting a lot longer but modern practice appears to be this regimen. I could be finished with all of this around about this time next year in that case. Amazing.

A change in the wind

I am up, I am hurting (you'd better believe it) and I'm feeling good about myself at last.

First, the treatment was instilled quickly and easily and with minimum discomfort - better than the previous two but the side effects this time were immediate and started bang on 2 hours in. I am pretty uncomfortable right now as not only is the area sore but also there are occasional spasms of my bladder and urethra. Interesting and these things are strange - imagine if you have had a muscle spasm or twitch and then transfer that downstairs - a very strange sensation (where do you change the batteries?).

So I am going to leave his PC alone and go and rest up in a few minutes as I know I need some rest - I should have stayed in bed longer but someone put the phone back in my room and someone called about 45 minutes ago so I was awake then.

Other than this - I am feeling a lot better knowing I don't have another one of these next week and that things seem to be changing, my outlook is better and I notice that I am beginning to look outside of my own little world which I've lived in for quite a while. I am not feeling so thunderously depressed as I was and the weekend seemed to do me good - perhaps I had someone who had suffered the same stuff as me and so I was able to get a lot of it off of my chest. It was very therapeutic and I feel like a huge weight is lifted off me. I also think that the course I went on also made me confident that I could make a living at it and that I could be successful (not being nasty but a lot of people hadn't thought it through before they went).

I've written off for details of a BA Hons History Degree that I think I'd like to study and I have the details of the Professional Genealogists course too. If I can make the figures stack up, then I will look at this if the other job that a friend has lined up doesn't materialise.

So whilst I am not feeling great this morning physically I am feeling very positive mentally - more so than for a long time. Long may that continue.

The Unsung Hero - Heroine actually

Is my wife. Today she will run me up to the Hospital and double park to wait for me to have my treatment, she drives me home, keeps an eye on the timings and puts up with all the side effects such as me being grumpy or tired or lazy or sleepy or wide awake or insomniatic and just about everything else. I can't imagine that it is great to see me in the state I'll be in later today or to hear me grunting and groaning every-time I try and move to make myself comfortable.

She has never once complained about it, she has just got on and been there all the time and she has cheered me up when I've needed it too.

I will have to start acting as if I deserved all of this attention.

Right - off to get ready for the last one this session - I'm sure that I'll be back on this stuff again in June or July if all goes OK with the Biopsies.