Did I say tired?

I went to bed on Friday night, I had already had a snooze on the train, a snooze in my chair and then spent close to 12 hours in bed. I feel fine now but noticeable that I really don't feel up to doing too much today.

It was a busy old week and not going to the Spring Fayre and to the annual Church Service tomorrow are conscious decisions as I don't stop now until Tomorrow week with something or other on every day.

A bit miffed that one of my mob at work has decided to do a full review of my work after I have spent 6 weeks perfecting it and changed everything despite my request to look for obvious typos not content changes. Why can't people leave things alone, I may as well not be employed there if they want to write this stuff themselves. Perhaps I just send it out to them to provide the content and I just collate it - I think that may be a plan and I ask them to write it and I just manage them doing it.

Other than that I need to sit down and do loads of work today and tomorrow to catch up with all the things I missed out recently.

One other thing I need to consider is to actually put by some time for one of my other business interests. I really need to allocate a day a week to do work on it. I think that everyone in the team needs to do this so we can get a move on and make things happen. If we don't the impetus will be lost and the idea disappear back from whence it came. A recession is the right time to bring things like we have to market.

Lots going on. Lots to think about and in between times, it must be getting near to the point when I need to go into Hospital as well. I suppose I need to manage that considering I am going on Holiday in July and I need to be pretty fit by then as I see it being a real physical time walking around the various Baltic capitals and in one case having 6 days on the trot viewing major sites before a 1 day at Sea rest period.

Tiredness goes with the territory

I was out to lunch today and had a good morning and I decided to get home rather than go back to work. So I was home a little earlier than usual. The thing that I notice is that I really do feel tired and whilst I am quite fit, I do find that the full on work I am doing at the moment coupled with the meetings and having to sort out other admin stuff really does make me tired.

I can never quite get it right because right now, after having had about 30 minutes snooze, I am wide awake. Typical.

I have decided to miss out the weekend's activities as if I don't I will never catch up with the work I have piled up.

New Phone

Is a mystery to me and I will have to work out what went wrong between the SIM card transfer. It is as complicated as hell and I thought that, downgrading to a phone that had numbers on it instead of a keyboard and stylus would be easy!

Yea right.

Had a great evening at a Lodge meeting. lovely people but my friend's father just died and much as I wanted him to be able to talk to me, he just couldn't and I feel bad about it. He is a very private person. I've known him for years and still don't actually know his wife's first name!!! But he was hurting and I couldn't do anything to help it at all and I feel very bad about it but if he doesn't feel comfortable talking to me or asking me to do anything then so be it. I did offer and I don't want to impose myself on him. I wouldn't have liked it.

We "Brits" are a funny bunch. We don't do hugs and kisses and back slapping (well youngsters now do) and we really don't do physical contact at all and we aren't particularly good at talking emotions and feelings. I feel a bit liberated as I can talk these sorts of things to close friends at least.

So, I felt kind of useless and that I couldn't help or just listen to this poor guy's grief. Expected or not, it is still your Dad/Father and whilst we all "have to go" it isn't nice and I just felt as impotent as the sort of people who couldn't talk to me about my Cancer. Mind you, I did go and ask and offered whatever I could do. Just words - maybe - but I meant it.

My very close friend gave me a lift home. He is great, he is a Samaritan. If you don't know what they are or what they do then go and look at their web site HERE. He listens to people who haven't got anyone to listen to them and has some major heartbreaking conversations with people who are the lowest ebbs of poverty and distress and generally contemplating suicide or who just don't know what to do next. You can bet there are cancer patients in there and those who are terminal etc.

He and I have known each other for 36 years (or thereabouts) and we are a little remoter now than we have been but are still very good friends and we care about each other a lot. If I go past my school mates, this is my longest and closest friend and we have so much fun and serious time behind us having worked and played together for years. Since the children have grown up a bit we have sort of grown apart a while. I kind of hope that it is transient and we will grow back together a bit more soon.

We see a lot of each other and for 6 months of the year are hardly out of sight for more than a week.

Anyway, I'm just in Awe of this guy as he takes the sort of emotional battering I have been through in the past few years every night and also has a day job. He also works at Christmas with the underprivileged and he can go where I can't. I can't cope with the sorts of suffering these people see as Cancer has just softened me up and worked me over. I tend to go to pieces really easily when I see how desperately bad things can get and I am glad that, there but by the grace of God, I haven't been or will ever be.

So - starting with a new phone and a lovely day out I end up with a tribute to my very good friend K. He is beyond doubt the epitome of all that is good about our society. I still don't give him a hug though :-) Society is lucky to have people like him who draw no salary and give freely of their time to undertake such a service. Kudos.

A long and tiring day

Had a good morning at work, did a lot of bitty work and then on to meet some colleagues. Then on to Provincial Grand Lodge and ran around working like a mad thing for about 4 hours. met up again for beers and a very nice and unusual curry at Masala Zone in Covent Garden.

A quick few shorts in the Lamb and Flag and home. I am tired but not completely wiped out. My shoulder is a lot better. My new mobile phone has arrived all stainless steel and glistening and that is on charge for a good few hours before I sort that out.

I am out again tomorrow evening and all hell is breaking loose at work as we enter the last 24 hours of a 5 year Festival event and none of the figures add up properly!! Doh! I reckon it is just a keying error. I need to spend time looking through hundreds of lines of figures to find it though. Deep Joy!

Glad to see that things progress well for many of my connections and this month is important in many ways.

Still have loads of things to review about getting to St. Petersburg and touring around there. I feel that my brain may just go into full melt down by the end of the week.

Here we go again

Last year, about this time I was about to go in to Hospital for my biopsies which messed up a lot of meetings and things I was doing.

This year, thank goodness, it wont happen this month but goodness me, I will have so much to do and this week is already fully booked. I could be booked out on Saturday and Sunday but, I think I may give those a miss as I have so much other work of my own to do on top of the Charity Work and my Masonic things. In addition we had our business meeting last Thursday and now need to really step up to the plate to get our business plans sorted out.

So a massive amount of work and things to do in the next two weeks and I just hope that I can stay fit enough to maintain the effort. Time will tell.

Generally I feel that the next couple of months are going to be quite important one way or another in terms of what the future brings. My upcoming operation for biopsies will be the first time when no treatment has been performed and so the outcome will be interesting scientifically but obviously holds far reaching implications. I think that I also need to spend at least one day a week on my other business opportunity (perhaps 2).

So one way or another, I'm in for one well of a few weeks.

Planning for our holiday

we spent a long day at home in front of my PC hooked up to the wide screen TV and with another Laptop plugged in doing research for our Baltic Cruise. I have to say I am pretty excited about it. It is pretty daunting too considering that at one point we do 6 days in 5 cities one after the other.

We then went to a friends for a barbecue, the first of the season and whilst it is a pleasant enough weekend with plenty of sun it cannot be called warm in the evenings.

I've still got this shoulder strain giving me grief but other than that and over eating last night, all is well and looking forward to a day off tomorrow for May Day bank holiday. From Tuesday onwards, life gets crazy for a few weeks as I get into a whole round of Masonic visits and events.

Steve is on his countdown for his 1 year check up and no matter how you feel and how well everything goes, you still have apprehension and so thoughts are with him for the next few weeks whilst I am out enjoying myself.

Bank Holiday Weekend and then the 2 weeks from hell

It all kicks off on Tuesday with our annual meeting and I'll be on duty from about 12 or so.  That will finsih about 6 and we will head off and go and grab a drink or two.  Then for about two weeks I am out and about most days.

I'm feeling OK but very tired and I knw that I've had a pretty tiring week of it.  At least three days off to recover.  the trouble is there are lots of things to do and little spare time to do it.

I find myself sitting again downstairs on my own again wondering where everyone has gone.  It would be useful for people to let me know what they are doing so I don't sit thee wondering where they are!  No doubt that would be deemed unreasonable by everyone else except me.  perhaps I ought to adopt that method of communication and just go off and do things and not let anyone know where I am going.  I'm sure that it won't go down well at all.

Not too many problems with my shoulder thank goodness.  It is still twinging but I reckon that it should soon be back to normal.

I saw someone today actually wearing a face mask in the street as they were walking around.  I guess they were worried that the 2 or 3 people who happen to have Swine Flu actually might be in the vicinity of Covent Garden.  So far about 0.000000005 % of the population have it.  More people die on the roads each day.  Someone somewhere needs to get a grip on the press and the media to stop this knee jerk reaction to everything that happens.  Surely, by now, we'd be having hundreds of deaths all over the world and people going down with it everywhere too?  Nah, take precautions by all means but pages and pages of nothing in the papers and hours worth of TV and a child dies every 30 seconds from malaria.  

Maybe it is just me that thinks like this.

All went well

My shoulder has been giving me serious jip since yesterday - not sure whether it is lying funny or what.  So have been in agony for most of the day and pills and creams don't appear to have sorted it out!

The meeting went pretty well and we were pleased with the results.  Now is the time to work out how much effort we need to put into the job to actually make it happen.

We have a great idea, good work so far and well documented and thought through but we all need to give up some time to take it to market.  I need to rally the troops to do it.  I feel there is no natural leader and so I may need to get into it and lead from the front which I really didn't want.

Hectic times coming up, loads of meetings and things to do in the next few weeks.

How stupid of me

To forget that everyone turns up on the annual investiture date and wants a piece of you even though they don't have an appointment or even warn you. Ended up, at the pub meeting some guys we are working with but then my friends from another Lodge turned up as well as they were dining in the pub and so it was all a bit rowdy. I ended up, with my colleague grabbing a Pasty on the way to the station and getting home about 10:00.

So much for getting home on time ready for tomorrow. It will be an interesting day tomorrow as we are meeting with a high profile executive to present our business venture, now honed and tailored for the market.

I hope that I am actually awake enough to sort that out - at least no one will be around when I slip out of work for my meeting!

I am well and still "respectful" of not having any symptoms of BC nor of Swine Fever either!!!

I really shouldn't be working

But I am.  It is one of those things that people just expect you to help them out of the mess they have gotten themselves into.

So I have downloaded spotify - which is like a music radio juke box on your desk top and you just dial in what music you want to hear and it plays it!  Brilliant.  

I feel tired but much more "in control" this week.  I whacked off some heavy lump of statistical work today that should help the management team work out how things are moving in terms of numbers of beneficiaries coming into the charity.  With the current problems in the financial world we are finding not more cases (at the moment) but the cases we get are terribly complicated to work out all the problems and what we can do to help.

May is a crazy month.  Last year at this time I was going in for biopsies but this month coming - is  crazy as somewhere in the not too distant, I am out for about 10 evenings in the trot!!! I need to work out quite how I can manage that.

The change in diet has begun to pay some sort of dividend and I feel much better in myself now that things have settled down and my body isn't thinking that my mouth has been sownup.

I see everyone is bigging up Swine Flu.  You tend to wonder if the whole world has just gone paranoid or what?  Get a Grip people for goodness sake.  It could be me but recently everyone makes a huge deal out of everything and this massive overreactions and knee jerking just doesn't do anyone any good.   

EVERYONE - just chill out for a moment, stop running about, take a deep breath and relax.  Did the world stop?  Did something terrible happen?  Chances are probably not.  

So, onwards and upwards.  Another two crazy days at work this week.  It will be interesting to see how many people I bump into in the next day or two.   These are the Annual Investitures of Grand Lodge and so the place will be packed with Masons for the next two days from all over the world.  We try and keep out of the way but everyone gets the same idea - whilst they are visiting they pop down and see us.  Let the fun begin.

Mind Games

I saw the boss today and he was sympathetic about last week's events. I don't think too many people get quite how debilitating these event are and what it does to me. In so many ways the after shocks of the treatment and the stress of living through this are getting fewer and far between and I noticed a few things about them this time:

1. For a day or so before, I loose my bubbly, joking way and try hard to maintain my level of humour, one-liners and ability to laugh things off
2. I actually get quite sarcastic and cynical - more than I normally am - almost nasty in responding to some people
3. I get listless and fall asleep easily on the train on both journeys to and from work
4. I find myself taking a long time to do things

Getting back to work I find that I have to ease myself back and grow my confidence again. It is strange that this ebbing and flowing of energies is both physical and mental but it is all about how I deal with it at work now.

I reckon most people know that there is something wrong here and yet don't acknowledge it. The boss has his own challenges and so I think appreciates the sorts of issues I go through which are different to his. He has to keep going in and out of Hospital himself and it cannot be easy for him either.

Mind Games? Not George Harrison's one - my own.

E-Mail a message sent is a problem passed

So it appears that in my inbox is a message for someone who wants me to check something, then print it and do the labels and probably have it back to him (well) tonight now as it is early Monday morning.

Two Hopes on that - Bob Hope and No Hope!

On a lighter note, the concert was good tonight even though I had to drive there and back in the "indulgence". Mind you it is nice to roll around in the Jag. Funny old world. We are all of that "certain" age now where we go to these tribute band concerts and are all grey haired and all a bit nostalgic. I got into the car park to drive out and I was surrounded by Jags, Astons, BMWs and other "up market" cars. How we have let down our generation. We used to be completely anti-establishment and left wind (I meant Wing but thought what a great freudian typo and left it there). We are now the most right wing bunch you could meet, we can solve the world's problems over a pint of ale and we all live in our suburban houses, driving posh cars and have our 2.4 children :-)

Ssshh - don't tell the children that they'll turn out like us in the end - they'll be horrified.

I had a slight turn at the Theatre, again being hot and packed into a seat away from an aisle. I almost walked out but managed to control my breathing and I was fine after a few minutes. I don't know how to fix that but I might get my hypnotist in again to see if he can fix that and do some more reassurance about going into Hospital after my last not so good experience last December.

Saw some friends who came around at Christmas but I was ill and asleep in bed when they arrived so haven't seen them for a while. They got married 28 years ago yesterday and they came back from their Honeymoon to see us get married this Saturday 28 years ago. Not sure that was what I needed to hear as most asked where my wife was last night. Mrs. F. doesn't care much for Genesis or any other "loud" music for that matter so she rarely makes an appearance at such things. Which is OK as I tend to attract the loonies to come and sit next to me. Tonight, rather than the out of tune banshee chorus from the last concert, I had the Air Drummer, at least it looks a little less "suggestive" than Air Guitarist. I've never really got Air Guitar or Air Drummer as, I suppose, I actually used to play a Guitar in a band and so actually could 1). Play a guitar and 2). do all the on stage flashy stuff with it too.

Anyway, I must go to bed, it is another long week coming up and a big day for me on Thursday as we get to do one of our final presentations of our IT project. I imagine the day after that I will be totally shattered though.

Sunday and day for recovery

I had a good day in London and my talk went down well. We were at St. James' adjacent to the Mall which was closed ahead of the London Marathon.

We dined in the Board Room which was very pleasant and not only was I wined and dined which I enjoyed but also I received a cheque for the charity too. I was home by 09:30 which was also a result.

I am glad it wasn't a late evening and I am very pleased that today I will take it easy for a short while doing work for the IT project I am involved in and watching the Marathon, the F1 in Bahrain and the Moto GP before heading off to go to the concert. Again, I am disappointed that there isn't public transport late tonight from what is quite a local event. The last train is at 10:45! I doubt the concert finishes until about 10:30 and so it is just ridiculous that there aren't any later trains. Buses don't run that way on Sunday either. It makes you wonder quite how serious everyone is about getting us out of our cars and onto public transport?

The coming week has some serious time commitments from me. I hope that I can keep going without feeling so tired again.

Fatigue

I'm coming out of this short trough of fatigue and climbing back towards some levels of fitness.  Unfortunately I was out yesterday which took me to Suffolk/Norfolk and back so about 5 hours on the road - I didn't drive thank goodness.  I am out giving a talk on the charity this afternoon and will not be home until late and tomorrow I am out at a concert in the evening. I am then out Monday night too.  I expect to be out working Wednesday and Thursday night.  I hope I don't end up back with the fatigue bit again.  Think of it as Post Traumatic Stress and you will get an idea of how debilitating it is.  Utter fatigue and concentration goes completely.

I feel very good, I will probably feel quite pumped up after talking to this group this afternoon.  Perhaps I should have been on the stage?  My careers teacher thought that it was a bad idea and no one else thought I should when I was a kid so I didn't go into acting, music and all that side of things.  De Niro may have had a problem - well probably not :-)

What else is going on?   L is off on a training hike today some 10 miles or so - they are getting them used to walking fair distances with their rucksacks to get them ready for Argentina and their trekking stage of the expedition.  A is playing "Guitar Hero" far too loudly next door.  C is desperately trying to find all our tax forms and bits as we need those for A's University grants and tuition fees.

I am about to get ready, make sure I have all my literaturs and speech in my case and then get ready to go off to London.   The sun is shining (not sure for how long rain predicted) and we are meeting in a really nice location off St. James' London.  Of course, the food last night and today are going to be a problem!  It was pretty good last night but once again I ended up with a cheese board that needed me to overcome temptation as they left what must have been a 1/2 lb chunk of Stilton in front of me.  I managed to hold back a bit!

As for the life style diet, apart from last night and tonight, I am doing really well keeping to smaller portions, low fat, high vegetable and fruit contents and eating sensibly with no snacking in between.  I must have lost a bit of weight as my trousers fit loosely which they didn't two weeks ago.  I am not jumping on the scales and measuring every week or anything like it.  I will do it when I think about it and not get too paranoid about that.  Blood Pressure is acceptable and I must print that off and drop it off to the Doctors.  I don't want to actually go in again - what purpose would that serve other than to record a bit of weight loss and for them to see how different my readings are between theirs and my own.  

Some Good News

A has received an offer of a place at University. If you don't remember September last year here is part of that link. She lasted about 3 or 4 hours and it was my last BCG treatment when she and Mrs. F reappeared after having moved into a flat and all sorts! For some reason best known to Mrs. F and A they then decided that they'd try and talk to me after I'd had the treatment and frankly, the very last thing I wanted to do was to do that (if you've had BCG and had some of the more painful twinges you'd know why). They took it the wrong way completely but I really wasn't feeling up to having any sort of conversation when my wedding tackle was stinging like hell and my stomach felt like someone had put me in the ring with Mike Tyson!

This University looks small, she can commute from here and it has a very good set of Alumni and is full of creative people and creative people only. So, fingers crossed, things will work out but at least with this one she has got her offer and filled in the form immediately and sent it back, no hesitation at all. Mrs. F and I have not seen the place but I know where it is. It has all been done by her and so we hope that it will be sorted this time.

I'm pleased that this time it looks as if she wants to be there and she will be happy. It is within easy reach of here and so she can live at home (don't know how long that will last though) and so I'm hopeful that she will do well there.

Interestingly enough there are 40,000 too few spaces for Students this year so she has done well but, of course, she already has her results to hand and so meets the criteria for, has enough points, is a year older and has her foundation course under her belt as well.

One less thing to worry about - hopefully in the three years before she comes out we will be out of this recession and she will be able to find a job.

Chronic Disease eh?

I have never ever thought of that phrase until prompted to in Steve's Blog of the 23rd April. England's St. George's Day but we don't get a holiday or do too much to celebrate it!

Back to the subject. Chronic kind of means recurrent and ongoing and long term and I suppose, in a way that is true whether you end up cancer free or not. If they take away your bladder I guess you can pretty much expect not to get BC again! However, for those of us still lucky enough to have that particular and quite useful organ, it still means a long time in follow up tests and checks to make sure that there has been no recurrence so I suppose then that Chronic is the right term.

I'm almost recovered from my fatigue now and back to some level of normality but find my concentration is a bit shot and my ability to complete things is as bad as it ever has been (it was fine before I got BC). I have a list of things to do and I'm just not feeling like doing any of them.

As usual, once I get going, then I can complete things but that is just the way it is these days.

On a more positive note though, the sun is out and I am off to a meeting up in Norfolk/Suffolk area this afternoon. We are initiating a 93 year old into the Lodge which will be interesting if nothing else. You are never too old obviously :-) This Lodge goes around the country to the old people's homes run by one of the Masonic Charities and holds meetings there so they don't need to come to us. An interesting concept. I am an Officer this year and will be involved with the work. As luck would have it, I am getting a lift there and back with a friend. I was going to go by train but, as usual, to get there would take half a day and getting back is almost impossible! This crazy country who want us to use public transport but removed half the infrastructure in the 1960s!

You cannot be serious?

Good old John McEnroe :-) Bless him. I was re-reading the previous post and perhaps ought to state that I wasn't being flippant about Bladder Cancer rather that I was suppressing how bad it could be. It isn't nice, it isn't superficial even though they use that to describe it. It is a cancer like all the rest and if it does get out and about in your body it will wreak the same damage the other more well known ones do.

It is still a strange phenomenon that Bladder Cancer, arguably the 4th biggest Cancer in men and sixth in women is still hardly known out in the non cancer world. I know men fear Prostate cancer and yet no one tells them to fear this one. Strange.

So, not being flippant, just being protective of my own feelings about BC. If I am not being serious it is because I am using that tactic to convince myself about it and also to assist others to come to terms with my condition.

Consider that I have been clear for almost 2 years and yet I still suffer from set backs like the past few days when utter fatigue just sets in without warning. I worry that people who don't have this will not understand but this is just the way it is, this is my body saying STOP, rest you've overdone it again. The false sense of well being is the worry - I have been happy and working well and getting on fine these past few weeks - never felt better and suddenly that came to an abrupt halt. I still think I can work at the levels I used to before I had Cancer and actually, I am not back to "normal" even though I think I am. Almost 3 years of treatments and operations, body imbalance and everything else has got to have taken its toll. I forget that it takes a while to get back to normal and that I must take it one step at a time.

The mirror test

How are you feeling? Go look in the mirror. I look like a bag of dung this morning. I was very surprised how bad I looked, unshaven and dark baggy eyes - yuk.

Had a shower and shave which appears to have made me look almost human again. Read Steve's blog this morning on the bacon and its relationship to bladder cancer - not sure if that is through the smoking or processing but it has been published before about the risks but no sort of explanation why that should be and perhaps other cuts of meat aren't.

Interestingly in the blog was a note about how HK's doctor said that Bladder Cancer is a chronic condition/disease. It may well be but I've had to put it to the back of my mind as a serious disease that I've gotten over but may come back. But, perhaps I need to take it a bit more seriously than I do. I don't for instance tell people when I discuss my condition with them what it was really like unless they want to know and often you have to stop short as it isn't pleasant. It all happens around a piece of your anatomy (especially men) that is pretty much a no go area and only occasionally do I go into some of the really heavy detail about the black shadow, the dark dog of depression and other stuff that you go through on top of being ill! It just doesn't belong in polite company and so I tend to just be holding back and not saying much about it or how serious it is.

You can die from BC, bottom line. If it gets out, it can kill you and it can be an aggressive and frequent visitor even if you think you have had it removed and that you have recovered. Believe me when I tell you that the fear of recurrence is still an everyday thought and worry.

I see that Asya is about to have her TURBT today and best wishes for a successful outcome. I'm getting close to three years in on my journey. About three years ago I was just about to embark on what I hoped would be my last career change and one that would have been a major change in the way I worked and would enable me to settle down a bit. That all went by the board after I was diagnosed and worked on but, it is fair to say that looking forward from the time of being diagnosed you don't see very far at all. It is a life shattering event and you get the whole 9 yards at once. The physical and the mental bits all come into play and you have to adapt.

Looking back, reflecting on what has happened, is different as is coming out the other end and being (as far as you can expect to be) clear has other challenges. I can see at least a year ahead now if not 2 or 3 where before I could only really see my next treatment and my next operation.. Those were little milestones in the journey. When you got to those, then you knew what the next part of the journey would be. You hoped it might be along the road you would wish to choose. Fortunately, for me, the roads have all been the ones I wanted for myself and for my family.

I feel for everyone who is newly diagnosed as the big cancer wall appears and there is no way over it and your mind just has to deal with so many things. Once you've accepted the first bit you need to reassure others which is the most strange part. However, you need to elephant eat the situation and take small bites, and do a bit at a time. It gradually gets better and it becomes clearer and on you go day by day, week by week and so on.

I try not to "dumb down" what I went through or to trivialise the situation but at the same time I do try and fight against it by not letting it be as dangerous as it is, as frightening as it is or as physically and mentally demanding as it is.

PCF

Post Cancer Fatigue - strikes again. I suppose I should have predicted this one as I was beginning to feel tired earlier in the week.

So absolute tiredness yesterday to insomnia tonight. Bizarre.

Thwack

Well I said I was feeling tired but this morning I got a rude awakening when the alarm clock went off. I was so tired I could hardly believe that I'd slept for 6 or more hours. I got the warning signs yesterday at work when I started feeling tired at lunch time.

I actually just feel out of salts and very tired still even though I slept for most of the morning and just got out around lunchtime. I feel quite strange and whilst I can't actually tell you what is wrong with me - I have been unable to concentrate and have been falling asleep on and off this afternoon.

I feel that it might be a precaution not to go in tomorrow so that I can just get myself together.

Yesterday was an interesting meeting and I'm interested to find out whether it was my fault that I got cancer or I was given it for some reason. Now call me an old cynic but, I think I only have myself to blame for getting cancer and I don't see blaming it on someone else or indeed to apportion it to someone else is the right thing to do. I can only hope that I will be able to discuss that again with my companions from last night. One was a creationist as well and that was interesting and where I see allegorical meaning, he tends to have a far more solid belief in the words on the page. I can stretch my view of the world to suit most things but it did indeed give me a different insight into someone who hasn't had their faith stretched and questioned.

I still like to believe that "I" have some sort of say about things.