Septic Peg or Mystic Meg or

Who knows what will happen?

It is late Wednesday Night and the day of Judgement arrives very soon.  In about 11 hours I'll know what is going to happen to me.  I am primed to take a full re run of the BCG treatments, Operations and all that stuff and yet I'll be disappointed if that does happen.  I know I will be just devastated and yet - I know what the probable outcome is - we are strange creatures sometimes.

At the Lodge meeting the wave of goodwill washed over me and that was nice.  Is it only me who doesn't think it is that serious?  I have a healthy regard but I don't fear things as I used to.   I suppose we just heard that one of our members died from cancer in February - not the first in our Lodge by any means but I know that the worst scenario would be loss of bladder and possibly Prostate in the overall scheme of things and either a bag or a bladder made from other body parts - not bladder (where the problems are) bits at all.  That would actually mean no cancer at all but a different sort of life.

the "matter of fact" part is that - I am living with this, I can accept that it is my last option and I hope they don't say that tomorrow (or ever).  

I will have my future read tomorrow - not by some mystic or medium but by my Consultant.  She will give me the usual logical view of the world.  How I choose to deal with the truth will be be as much about my character as what will happen to my dreams and plans with my new business venture which will be an exciting journey whatever happens.  I hope that I live long enough to see some if not all of it fulfilled.

Finally, it is election day tomorrow in the UK.  I cast my votes last week as I am a Postal Voter.  Have been ever since I was called away on business and was unable to vote one year.  I believe that it is your civic duty to do that.  You cannot complain if you didn't vote - you only have yourself to blame and all the other people too lazy to exercise their democratic freedoms this way!!!!!  However, there is a fundamental thing here too.  People died to give me the vote and how dare I disgrace them and their memory by wasting my vote, built on the blood and sacrifice of the generations who have gone before.  I doubt many fought so that you could ignore it but maybe that is what freedom is about after all?

Me?  Well - I just want to get tomorrow out of the way so I can plan my future a bit better.  I do feel more trepidation than normal as I am uncertain what the results will bring.  I steel myself for bad news knowing that good news would really cheer me up.

As Steve Kelley in the US often reminds us - Judgement Day can be filled with great news, not so great news, bad news and worse than bad...  I hope for somewhere in the middle and wish for something a little higher.  Tomorrow is another day.

Tuesday

Got my replacement sorted - I think he will be good for the company.   Had the big meeting - I got my words right and better still, had a good time except fencing off the question "How are you?"  It is never an easy answer is it?  Ideally I'm fine will do but I don't know that until Thursday so had to skirt the answer with reassurances from myself that I am OK.

Joy of joys Ii bumped into my friend from Denmark who gave me not one, not two but at least three huge bear hugs as he is wont to do.   Missed flocky not staying but we were happy enough with 4 of us on the table and our friends from Hervey Lodge too.  

Not long been home and feeling jaded - another big day tomorrow followed by Thursday and the Hospital.  I'm expecting bad news in a way.  I don't suppose that it can be anything less than 6 BCGs for me.  It will be a surprise if it is any less.

So here comes the busy week

It really is some week coming up:

8 tomorrow - interview with my probable successor

12 tomorrow - on duty for major meeting

7 tomorrow evening dinner

Wednesday all day meeting followed by Lodge meeting back here

Thursday - Judgement Day - I find out how well I am and what I need to undergo to stay as well as I am now.

If time Thursday lunchtime - London Lunchtimers meeting

Friday is the New Business divorce day.  We meet our old partners and set down where we are going and what we intend to do.  We get a clean break and have some sort of tie in that takes their influence away from the new business.  After that - my business partner and I can get moving. I am looking forward to the challenge immensely.

Of course the highlight of the week will be my visit to the Hospital on Thursday morning.  I will either go to London or perhaps wander back via the pub.... drowning any disappointments as necessary.

Helping a Friend

How much do you charge a friend of Mrs. F. for sorting out their PC?  It was a total of 1 hours work and actually was easy to solve once I realised what was going on.  I didn't need to use my amazing gizmos to go tackle a virus, that had already been found and dealt with.  The association file was corrupted in vaulting and destroying the virus.  Easy enough to cure once I found the registry thing.

So what do you charge?  I made a token figure of £10 but she gave me £15 which she felt happy with.  If you had to do this on-line it would have cost close to £45 but that is extortionate.  Goodness knows how much everyone has to pay to sort out problems on the computers caused by their anti virus software identifying a virus (as it is meant to do) and then messing the system up.   Once I had cured that, of course, suddenly there were loads of updates streaming through and they probably had to sit there updating their machine for hours.  

Why should anyone have to spend hour doing that sort of thing?  I hope that, in my new business venture, no one will ever have to worry about that ever again.  Now to go find a venture capitalist who sill fund us to build it......

Sunday

My wedding anniversary - 29 years with Mrs. F.   A nice meal last night with some friends and today has been a quiet sort of day so far.  I have to go over and sort out someone's PC later today.  Some sort of virus issue and so I've got my small box of tricks ready to go and tackle that.

L is our working and A will also go to work later on today too.  I can't complain about that as they are both earning their own money and that has to be good for them for their future too.  A came back from a trip to Scotland yesterday, ate and went off to work....  

Me?  I've got my preferred replacement coming in on Tuesday morning for a 2nd interview and he has sent me some of his work which looks to me to be far superior to that I've managed to do so I am hoping we can get him on board and get him on board as soon as possible.

I hope that I can release myself from the office as soon as possible after that though as I need to take on some of my new business work beginning in June.  Perhaps a blitz on a few publications and a hard few days working from home will see me able to resolve that.

Thursday Looms Large

And, to be honest I'm crapping myself about what they are going to say.  Sorry for that term but I was trying to think how to say that in a less crude and more erudite way and yet, that WAS the thought that was in my head.

I'm resigned to at least have 6 BCGs starting a week or two after the appointment.  I'm sure that it will be the precautionary thing to do.  Of course, it could be worse than that but that is the worst I'm prepared to play with at the moment.  Believe me, I'm not looking forward to the day but need to get it over and done with.  I find myself somewhat annoyed that I have to go back over the same ground again (if I have to) as I know the side effects and the regime that the next 2 or so years will bring.  I can't even begin to tell you what it means personally but even so, I probably don't have Cancer or CIS present in my bladder right now.  Just the one small, nuisance tumour which no longer exits.

The Terror of Cancer

I read on the BBC web site about Bob Harris and his Prostate Cancer battle.  He mentioned the weeks between realising that he had cancer and then waiting to see if it had spread as the worst weeks of his life and perhaps the most frightening too.  I felt real empathy and was beginning to fill up just thinking about how the poor guy must have felt especially as they thought it had spread.  He was pretty relieved to find it hadn't but then had to go through the chemo and hormone treatments required.

It is the added dimension of Cancer that it strikes this level of dread into the most hardened of us.  The word itself is enough to shake you to your core and to have it brings the added "bonus" of dealing with the emotional baggage that attaches itself to you.  At the end of the day, the word carries more force than perhaps it ought to but it is up there with words like Holocaust, Hitler, Mussolini, and Hiroshima.  It has a bad press and the common denominators of death and pain,  courage in the face of adversity, "no cure", and many other myths and misconceptions are programmed into us so that we respond very negatively to the word itself and have little comprehension about what it is unless you have it, deal with it or treat it.

The press and media need to try and make the word serious enough to respect but not demonised - more education and more openness about it would help without putting people off.  Too many still get the symptoms and will not go to their GP to sort it out early.  

Interviews

You know what it is like.  Life is full of surprises.  Suddenly the world just appeared to be one in which my people just found out my true value / worth.  One interviewee was good, I liked him a lot but the others weren't really going to cut it as dynamic was a word lost in translation.

I found out a lot today - no one wants me to go but they are happy that I'll still be around.  In fact there was talk of asking me to reconsider which was funny.  

I was also asked to let everyone know how I get on next Thursday - people are concerned and I've suggested that it will be a full set of 6 BCG that I am expecting probably kicking off around the 17th May and an Operation in September or maybe October just to round off my year.  They looked pained - how do you think I feel? :-)

So there we go another strange day at the office.  Early morning I arrived to find the new girl had left my desk totally unfit to use, had changed the PC screen resolution and a whole host of other things that really p1ssed me off.  i don't normally get quite so angry.  I had to explain to her that whilst I was happy to share a desk it didn't mean she could leave it unfit for me or anyone else to work on.  I think she got the picture as everything was laid out on the floor neatly as it was on my desk when she arrived in.  I had words.  Haven't had to explain things like that to a colleague for a long time but she isn't particularly sharp and was chosen as a not threat.

So one more interview tomorrow and I need to sort out a bucket load of stuff for Lodge too over the weekend.  Next week is as busy as hell - Monday is a Bank Holiday, Tuesday the Provincial Grand Lodge Meeting, Wednesday a huge Committee Meeting followed by a Lodge Meeting, Thursday Hospital and if I feel up to it going to my Luncheon Club and Friday we meet with the 4 business partners to explain the new regime and the new business plans and venture.  So after that, the rest of the week is my own!!

A Productive Day

If Monday turned out to be a day when my friend drained my energy from me through his troubles (not his fault you understand) and I was the person who listened and took the hurt and anger away then today was the opposite.  My business partner and I had a brilliant day thrashing out the elements of our business and setting out where we were going.

The bugger of it is me at the moment.  Another reason that I am a bit miffed.  You see I felt I was going to be pretty much clear to go and sort this out with him and run the business and yet - so much is now reliant on my meeting next Thursday with my specialist that it is a bit upsetting for me as I felt I should be able to give this a full time go.

There is much energy to be gained from getting involved in a massive undertaking like we are at the moment.  Creativity today was amazing and we are trying to find some time when we can go and lock ourselves away on a "boot camp" to brainstorm much of the work we have to do.  I can only hope that my consultant comes up with some radical way of treating me that allows me some time to get away and get this done.

I feel really on top of my game today - more so than I have for years - the feeling is great and I hope that I can repeat it many times over.

Dealing with Death

It is strange n'est pas readers that of all the people in this household, I'm the one who has to sort out the dead pets when they pass to the grand menagerie above.

Our valiant little Hamster passed away sometime yesterday I guess from the state he was in.  However, it had to wait until I could see if he was indeed dead, shake the cage, open up the little sleeping quarters and bless him there he was.  I then had to do the transfer from there into a little box with his name on it so that my daughter can do the rites tomorrow and this little fella can join the others at the back of the garden.  

It is pretty sad but I can't work out why Mrs. F. or younger daughter wouldn't do it?  

Anyway, I have always been against keeping animals although I suppose fish may be all right.  I find that keeping an animal in doors really flies in the face of nature but that's just me - I guess the other argument is that pets wouldn't be alive unless humans wanted and looked after them.  Something deep inside me doesn't "get it" about them - maybe companionship.  They say dogs are man's best friend but go ask your dog for some money as a loan and see where you get!!

So the poor old Hamster finally died - he made two miraculous recoveries from what I thought were death throes some months ago.  There will be a little ceremony somewhere down the end of the garden and I don't know whether she will get a new one.  

I had a mixed day at work yesterday as I did loads of work but then went as a guest to Lodge in Middlesex.  The meeting and food were great as was getting there and back by train but the chap I was with, who is an old friend is really down on his luck at the moment and there isn't an easy way out of the situation for him.  He will be flat broke in a month's time and is in danger of losing the house and everything.  The trouble is I can do nothing for him but listen and try and advise but I don't think he is listening or maybe he is but doesn't understand that this has been coming for years but he just hasn't faced up to it early enough.

Of course he looks mightily hurt that I am able to stop paid work and go and do my bit.  The trouble is that when I was raking in money I didn't spend it - it went into a fund that made sure that I secured my family first and now that is done I can work on securing my remaining years.  It is also plain that he wasn't best pleased that he didn't get to round two in the interviews for my job.  The problem is that the others are far more qualified.  However I tried to say that it felt as if I was spraying him with pepper spray - I felt really quite bad.   It is now a situation of what on earth can I do.  There isn't anything I can do apart from keeping telling him to be realistic and then ask me if I can help in some way.  I can't do it for him and I'm odds on certain that I'm going to end up with some sort of treatment coming up which will severely restrict my availability to do anything for a while either.

Strange that after all the years I've known him - I am just not able to help him like I thought I could/should.  I feel bad about it but I'm being the one who is being realistic about things.  Of course it isn't nice to realise that you may lose your house and have to go love elsewhere and make changes to your lifestyle.  It isn't nice at all.

Strange Day

I have been really angry all day today just seething.  Mrs. F. managed to screw one of the computers by shoving the wrong connector into a USB hub and I had to sort that out.  Then the PC wasn't responding, then the mouse and printers didn't work. 

I feel that I am begining to get angry about what will possibly happen to me in the near future and the treatment that I have somehow convinced myself that I will now have to undergo.

I'm angry about loads of stuff really and even now can feel it in my body.   It isn't like me to be this angry for this long.  

What a busy few days

I went out with the girls from work on Thursday night and had a few glasses of wine and a rather nice Steak Au Poivre.  Time rocked by and I caught the 23:30 vomit comet train home.  The next day, St. George's Day, was great.  We aren't very good at celebrating our Patron Saint in case we offend anyone.  We met for a Full English Breakfast near London Bridge and headed off to Green Park and then Shepherd's Market for a beer at the Grapes and then wandered in the Spring Sunshine off to the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane.  

There we have a nice meal - not too sure how Scottish Smoked Salmon made the menu but there is Roast Beef and all the trimmings - we had plenty of drinks before and after.   There are plenty of sportsmen and this year a number of our members from the armed forces were there and the Band of the Blues and Royals.  There was also Englishman of the year - Sir Ranulph Fiennes this year.  We raise around £30,000 for the Gurkhas at the table collection and then we go on to Shepherds Market afterwards for a few more beers and make our way home.  The 23:30 was OK and I got home at a respectable midnight thirty.

I met my friend's on who I've known since he was about 2 or 3  He is a doctor and we chatted about my situation - I said I was surprised and hadn't the carcinogens gone - apparently not - these things hang around for many years.   Not that he is a specialist in it but he suggested that BCG would probably be the way to go so perhaps that is what it will be.  I can't say that Ii would look forward to that but the alternative is far less pleasant.

Lacking elegance

Escaping from my job isn't going to be all plain sailing because it isn't actually structured properly.  I need to give out some sort of Press Release saying that I am taking a back seat role now and that I'll still be available.  

No date is set for my departure from the office but I think I'll just have to exit over the next three weeks or so.  Interviews are happening next week so perhaps we will strike it lucky and get someone who will just slot straight in and be able to pick up the job without too much difficulty and as long as I can support them a couple of times a month then that will work out cool.

I need to extricate myself in a nice way leaving the new person enough to work on without deserting them or over managing them.

So THAT'S what work is then

Back to work - it was pretty hectic but I got loads done - caught up the week and a half in a day....

Chosen my successor(s) to interview and will see them next week.  The Photos are coming through from the case studies which are lovely and the personalised diaries arrived today.  Cool

Lots happening the next two days.

Left early but a fatality on the line meant a slow journey home.

As I lifted a huge box of diaries into the office someone said "Should you be lifting anything?"  trust me - what a pillock!!  I'll see if I pay for that with any bleeding - sometimes you just forget.

Down

I'm feeling pretty down today.  Just not quite with it either in myself, in my head or about much - I am just hoping that I cheer myself up a bit later on.

The next few weeks are all a bit uncertain and not really planned in any way and that always leaves me a bit flummoxed.  I suppose I just need to take some sort of control over proceedings and perhaps do a bit of leading here especially in finding and bedding in my replacement at the charity.  That will be a good start as there is a fair bit to be done in the next few months and time just isn't on my side at all.

I need to get clear in my head when I am actually leaving and being retained is all well and good but that needs to be set onto a secure footing.  Perhaps I can put my mind to that too?

I can see that to get clear and ready to run with my colleague on our new venture is also a paramount goal too.  

I just need to shake off my current gloomy outlook and sort myself out a bit.  

On a lighter note my application to become a Freeman of the City of London has just arrived and I need to complete that and get it sent back to my sponsor.  As far as I can tell you have to go back 16 generations to find one of my predecessors who was a Freeman of the City.  Something to look forward to there.

A bit more Bladder Cancer Information

This is from the BBC Web Site and the University of Texas http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8629358.stm 

"Eating lots of meat, especially if it is overcooked, increases the risk of bladder cancer, say experts.

Frying, grilling and barbecuing until meat is charred can form cancer-causing chemicals, research shows.

In a study, people whose diets included well-done meats were over twice as likely to develop bladder cancer than those who preferred meats rare.

The research findings, based on over 1,700, people were presented at a US cancer research conference.

The University of Texas investigators found the risk was highest for those who ate well-done red meat such as steaks, pork chops and bacon."

Something more to think about then. 

Peculiar times

I'm not anywhere near as upset as I was when I was diagnosed with Cancer and yet, something is gnawing away at me about the current situation.  The "comfort" if you can take any, is that this is controllable and manageable and that I'm in good hands.  If they'd have found this tiny pin prick of a tumour coming up to 4 years ago then I'd have been a lot happier than what they did find.

It feels like a major set back and it probably isn't.  It feels like I've failed somehow and yet that isn't the case either.  It feels like I have managed to beat the odds and the figures that show the longer you go without recurrence the better things are (reading that this is a failure of course).

So that is how it "feels" and there are a number of emotions rolling around.  There is a loss of self confidence.  Another realisation of mortality.  A "fear" of having to re-do the Treatment (even though it may be the right thing to do).  The treatment is challenging, let's face it, character building stuff and all the side effects that go with it are also things to be concerned and aware of.  How glad I was to see the treatment end must be tinged with the reason I'd be somewhat upset to see it return.  Then there are the other concerns and that includes my relationships with friends and family who were just getting used to me returning to normal - maybe even better than normal with my new found freedom of expression (shall we call it).

Perhaps it is the uncertainty that is also unnerving.  Knowing what is going to happen to you is important and understanding why there has been a reversal of fortune is also a prime concern to me.  Did I do something somehow to set off this cancer?  I would have  hoped that I am keeping clear of carcinogens but maybe my diet or other pat of my lifestyle needs changing to give me an even better chance.   It's all playing around in my head and that adds to the mix too.  

Feeling a little fragile

I found myself feeling a little bit down around mid morning.  I'd picked up some of my medical notes and re-read some of the treatment stuff and the recurrence data and suddenly found myself feeling quite sorry for myself and quite emotional about it.  I can't say that it lasted too long but I do feel a little less happy than normal and a little less buoyant but I can't say that I'm surprised by that.

I'm still battling with the fact that there was something wrong with my tests.  All the other doubts also start to surface then too.  Stuff like whether anything else is about to go wrong with my body.

Sitting on my own doesn't give me much time to distract myself but at least I have short listed some candidates for my job so I hope that I have been fair and objective.  I've submitted those to the office. Perhaps that too has just added to me feeling a bit down? 

Back to normal

I'm up early and at my desk before 6 am.  I'm planning on getting things done today as most of the family head off back to work after the Easter break.   They're day looks fun with people stranded and casual staff being called in whilst they make their way back from various locations by land travel whilst all the planes are grounded.

I'm still a little tender which is only to be expected and I was intrigued to read that apparently you can go to work the day after a rigid cystoscopy - surely they mean if you only had an inspection not if they've cut lumps out of you.  I've yet to have the "joy" of the scabs coming off which believe me is a very strange and disturbing event.  

I'm in a slightly better sense of humour this morning and I feel that I can start to get myself organised and get my head into the zone for my new venture.  I need to find somewhere for my partner and I to go for about a week to have an intensive planning and thinking session to kick us off.  Of course, if I get treatments that will have to be less than a week and travelling too far is out as well.  I need braodband access to really make it useful and we just need this intensive burst of planing and creative effort.

With no date set for my finishing at the Charity I need to settle on who to interview today and get those sorted out - perhaps I need the boss to do the interviews as they have to work with them.  

Mixed Emotions still

Strange how I feel at the moment.  I'm not frightened and I'm not thinking anything other than things have been set back a little bit.  I suppose that when you get a set back, tiny as this is, you really weren't expecting it.  It is funny how a number of people wonder if I feel ill or not well and yet I probably have been feeling as well as I ever have.  Perhaps that too made for the shock.  I was definitely ill when I got BC but hadn't seen it coming really.  At the moment I feel unfit but only because I am over weight and so perhaps that is something to do with it.

I just feel a little low a little upset and a little let down.  I think it is only natural to feel a little like that after all it wasn't great news.  On the other hand I have a pretty good idea what treatment will be like if I am to have any and also I'm pretty much accepted that I'll need to have a good few more of these operations.  

The operations I guess will be the thing that will make me low.  I'm caught in the spiders web of tests and blood taking not only by my GP but also the Hospital and I'm just going to have to accept it.  

I'm sure that I'll be looking at this a different way after the 6th May and my appointment.  I hope that I'll feel just a little more upbeat.  It was only 6 days ago I had this operation and I need a little more time to rationalise my thoughts.  At present it is my heart and my emotions that are causing this wobble in my attitude.  Once I get my brain loose and get some solid logic wrappered around the situation then I should get things into perspective once again.