Philanthropy

I feel a blog in my water (bladder cancer joke alert!!).

No really - I do feel that I've become in act and deed, a charitable person. However, there are some serious problems associated with that attitude:

1. Money (salary) is 80% less than I used to get
2. I can't help everyone (a problem I haven't been able to address yet)
3. Use my expertise but I find the job a bit less than riveting stuff now I have sorted things out.

I like to try and return things to society. After all I am here on borrowed time. I really could do with sitting down and talking with a few friends about this though.

Something in my mind is stopping me getting too involved. I don't fancy getting hurt in as much as doing something for the beneficiary to fail whatever I do is hard work. Also, I have my own life to lead. My own "problems" to solve etc. If I go off looking after others what are my family going to think / do?

Another problem for another day - too difficult to answer right now!

Puny and Powerless

I had a lovely day today. My Annual review is great - it looks fab and is the Dogs Testicles :-) I went to my Lodge meeting - the funny one with the bright coloured pinnies. We had a lovely evening but, I had a call.

That call was about a lapsed brother who had really fallen on terribly hard times and something needed to be done. Financially, I can arrange something but emotionally and committing my time? Hesitation. You see, I do so much with my time that I wondered how could I commit more than I already have? I work most days. I tend to be "sort of" working when I go to Masonic meetings and when I am out. To actually support someone is an even bigger commitment on my time and this person has really deep alcohol and other mental problems.

I'm actually not that well equipped for that. I think I can talk to anyone about anything but an alcoholic is difficult as I'd feel so betrayed if they didn't commit themselves. I know I couldn't walk away and just get more involved.

At the end of the day, I have family and household to look after and then it really struck me.

What a puny little insignificant person I am. I have enough trouble keeping my own head together and keeping my family fed to then use spare time on what many people would dismiss as a lost cause or a waste of time. I don't see it like that but, in reality, it probably is.

It is difficult to explain really. I should be generous and charitable but I could only afford time for the one person. In my job I support 1700 + beneficiaries and about 30 staff so the one person shouldn't be so bad but it would take time and I haven't got that.

I now realise that I can't Shape the World or do much else. If I assisted this one case - which I intend to try and do- it may backfire on me. If it got to a point of choosing - which way would I jump? Should I be charitable to all or am I allowed a private life? Do I deserve it and am I helping or not.

Let's get away from how these people end up the way they do. Do I lose what I have to tackle poverty and uncertainty,, only to find that everything else I hold or held dear may disappear through trying to do good deeds?

Best News I've Heard

for ages was that Steve has the 1 year clear. What a relief for him and his family and friends. I felt more relieved than when I had mine...

This is excellent news and should add weight to the fact that it may be a pretty nasty thing but it can be treated most successfully. There are a number of us who can say that now. Keep the faith and do the right things, trust your medical team, look after yourself and above all keep a positive attitude.

I was so pleased when I got in to see Steve's e-mail arrive in my inbox and it just means that he can now go off and celebrate and perhaps relax a little having the summer off.

That was nice news to come home to late at night here.

Well done Steve.

Steve' Big Day

Steve over in the USA is going to have his cystoscopy later today and that - together with some scans taken last Friday will determine what the next course of action is.

Almost a year to the day - this is one of those major milestones in the treatment of this particular disease which if passed means that treatment continues in a maintenance mode and recurrence of the cancer starts to recede. I'm 2 years in and about to go for my 2 year check. Again, if I am clear then recurrence becomes less likely (but doesn't go away entirely).

The odds just get better each time you go for these. So if you pray (or even if you don't - keep in your thoughts) do so for Steve and a favourable outcome. His blog is a really useful piece of work for anyone suffering from bladder cancer and I cannot recommend it to you highly enough HERE.

SO nothing more about me today - I'll be raising a glass to Steve later this afternoon hopefully around the time he will be being seen (in more ways than one by his Consultant). Wishing Steve all the best and a weekend off celebrating and relaxing.

What a day again

I was full on today until about 4 pm and then - I'd completed what I needed to do and that was it. I'm not out tonight with my mates as that is deferred for a week and so I am sat at home trying to catch up on various things. I could have done with going out for a beer and whinging about the never ending tweaking that people like to do to my documents. "It will never get better if you keep picking it" comes to mind sometimes..

My DJ and Tuxedo have arrived - I suppose I ought to go and try those on and make sure they fit.

I suddenly realised I have next to no time at all until I am meant to be in Hospital and I've not heard anything. Maybe I ought to warn them that I wont be around if they want to do it in July!

So where has all the deep and meaningful stuff gone

Where has all the insight and the what's it like to have cancer stuff gone from this blog?

I suppose that I don't think about it as much and gradually I am used to spending longer periods of time not thinking about what might or might not happen. I can't say I have control back as I don't and I feel pretty tired still but all of this is manageable. I'm fit although I'd like to be fitter. I am alive, I am existing and today I thought, for the first time for a long time, a little bit sorry for myself. Just a little. You see Steve is about to have his check and apart from urinating fire for 24 hours afterwards, he also had to have a CT scan with an IV Iodine trace. I have never had to have one but I thought about it as I had an IVU X-Ray (similar) and really really really hated every minute of it. It isn't the same thing but I can't even begin to tell you how bad I felt and I was almost close to tears. I was walking to work, headphones on and all on my own and shook myself out of it. The backs of my hand where the cannula tends to go started aching and it all came back to me. Perhaps because of the news I heard over the weekend too about this guy that I know.

Generally, I don't get this and I was fine for the rest of the day. These little flashbacks do tend to bring back to me how much I went through and there is a fear of having to go back and do it all again. Imagine, if you will, that my fear is actually finding out that I need to repeat everything I have been through before. Right now, I'd find that hard. indeed, very hard to cope with. I'd do it of course but to know what I'd have to go through, rather than not knowing makes it different. I must say I am not looking forward to June and the next Operation. I will however, make it known how badly I felt I was looked after in December and ask that I be put on the proper ward this time rather than God's Waiting Room...

I was feeling the other day that it might be difficult for people to get their head around why I am like I am and yet it takes just a few moments to make me quite serious too. Someone noted that i hadn't been providing the Joke du Jour for many days. I need to re-establish the liveliness of the office again.. Tomorrow I shall attempt to do that.

Work

Sometimes you wonder why they employ you and other days - you find out when the project I have been working on for some time started to take shape today and we start to move away from stuffy annual reviews to something much lighter and attractive. Mind you, old habits die hard and it looks as if they still want to write war and peace even though only the hardened few actually read it.

Lots of sneezing everywhere today - Hay Fever not Swine Flu I hasten to add. I'm just about to have my last evening of Lodge of Instruction until September which gives me Mondays free for a while but this week is still chaotic.

Steve goes in for his test later this week and prayers and thought must be with him this week as he comes up to 1 year. I'm certain that things will be alright but I wouldn't blame him for being very nervous - I was pretty bad.

Back to earth

Bump. It happens I suppose? The chap I spoke to last year about September time who told me he was on Chemo for Prostate Cancer and couldn't help when I needed some assistance for a meeting.

I found out on Wednesday that he was due for an operation to take our a Kidney and a Tumour in his Stomach. I found out today that they stopped short on both as the Tumour was too near to a main artery and then they also decided not to take out the Kidney either. He may now have to go on Radio as he has had max. Chemo.

I hope that things will be positive but I have a horrible horrible feeling about this and the way it was expressed. He comes home on Tuesday and so I suppose I will find out more then.

On a more positive note, I find that I am really looking forward to our holiday. I have been sorting out my new DJ and Tuxedo, shirts and stuff as well as our tour of St. Petersburg. It has taken an age to get a specification together and to get what we want to do priced up and then to compare all the possible variants. I suppose that the next thing to "manage" is getting the biopsies done in June and hopefully get a verdict to go onto poke and peeks rather than these full blown operations and general anaesthetics.

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.