Having Struggled With My Own Problems

Having to struggle with other people's is draining my energy again. I'd forgotten how much one of my 'friends' is having his own struggle but is incapable of letting his friends help him, pride is not a good thing when you are sinking like a stone. The Kubler Ross Cycle can look like this graph and at the moment my man is somewhere between denial and anger and has a fair old way to go to sort through the problems he is encountering.


The trouble is that the anger is targeted at me and his friends and the more you try and help the greater the depth of denial and antagonism. If you don't help or let him get on with it then you're wrong again then too - you can't win when they are like that. I did give him a bit of a bark back but also now let him think that he is right if that satisfies his "I'm the victim" stance. I'm not sure how long I will last out before I explain the facts of life - I've already told him straight a couple of times but there's no telling some folk.....

Enough - I'm just depressing myself now .... :-)

Paranoia

Not my paranoia - my friend - who is stretching that description. You may, or may not recall, that I bumped into said friend when I was going for a couple of appointments a few weeks back, one to introduce my business partner to some very old friends of mine and secondly to meet a potential team member whom, now met, I would parade before anyone who would listen to demonstrate what a lack of social skills and a head up arse attitude will make you end up like.

So, you may recall out of nowhere, this guy appears and takes up my space on the train (this is my friend) and we proceed on a journey up to London, I don't tell him I am meeting the other two as - he has little or no money and we are going to spend a bit for lunch and after all, what does he need to know for? It ends up that he finds out and tags along which completely stymies my meeting to do the introductions and gets his problems off his chest. I am talking to these guys about getting £1M of funding - not how I've squandered all my chances and am pissing off my firends by not reading the in between lines stuff.

Tonight he tells me that I didn't want him to be there. So I said that's right, it was a business meeting even if he does know them - if I'd have invited him he could have come along. The guy can't read the signs at all. He obviously got that I was pissed off with him though as he mentioned it tonight. As I said to him, it was an introductory meeting, to meet my old work colleagues to do some networking, to get some connections and was not a beer fest to which he wasn't invited - it was serendipity that brought him to the same train as me not because I didn't invite him. Did he understand it? No of course not, it just grieves me that this guy is slowly going down the whirlpool and as he's getting faster and faster going under he is just alienating any attempt at logical discussion and giving me a load of grief about it. I'm a little too soft to tell him where I think he should shove his opinions. But you probably guess that it is pretty dark there.

I am seeing him tomorrow perhaps I will explain it one more time that it is business and not personal. If I had wanted him to be there and I didn't I would have asked him. I would certainly not have invited myself along and then dug him out for getting the hump. As it is I need to reconvene the meeting to discuss the points that I couldn't with him being around. Talking £Ms in front of a guy with bad prospects to actually get a job at the moment isn't going to help his self-esteem in that situation.

Things that make me feel a little queasy

I had the most horrible set of flash backs over night. Back to them sticking things into me and my own personal horrors. I know that perhaps you shouldn't say that things are horrible but they are and probably more so now than they were then. A bit more about this later.

A friend tweeted this earlier today and I went and read it and got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and the slight ache of stress in my chest kicks in. It isn't that it is inaccurate - far from it, neither is it anything other than what it is. It doesn't mention one thing in my humble opinion and that is what it does to your head. I think that it must do something if you've got the news that it is - or it may be - terminal - you need to deal with that. They don't say all the ways it messes with your mind. Your perception of self and your self-esteem, your morals, your faith, your friends and family, your relationship with the world and your interaction with your environment. Reality becomes somehow different, things move from extreme to extreme - logic somehow gets thrust to one side and your whole mind and body goes out of equilibrium throwing you a huge curve ball and knocking you off balance. You can choose many ways to behave and many ways to combat it but that whole section seemed to me to be missing as it is in the Consultant's room too. We treat the physical manifestation of the disease and we rarely, if ever, in my opinion and experience, treat the massive impact it has on your psychological well being.

Remembering what I used to be like and I'm not entirely changed so I'm told, I am now far more of a comedian than I was before - I was funny before now I am more so, more sarcastic, quick witted and many other things but I can go too far and don't know when to stop (until I know when to stop which may have been too late). I am confident but also much less pushy and (know it all is probably too harsh) assertive, unless I really want to be. Nowadays I really don't do fools and jobs-worths at all - they really take a bashing. However, I fall apart really Quickly, I get terrible guilt trips and find silly things to reproach myself for even if I could in no way have influenced them or done anything about them, I find many things make me emotional. Anything to do with my children can reduce me to a wreck - just silly stuff this is, remembering them bringing me something back from school can turn me into some sort of weepy film scenario. I'm not sure what that is exactly but it's all connected and this isn't just family this is anything that is sweet or sad - I think it has to do with innocence and starting out that way and then all the stuff that come afterwards. It is one of the many injustices that exist in this world that cancer makes you aware of.

I looked at myself in the mirror earlier and said something about "sorting yourself out" it isn't that I am probably any different to anyone else - I mean what/who have I got to compare my feelings with anyway? Perhaps that's it - I have a few friends who I have discussed it with but I certainly don't tend to talk about to anybody much apart from this blog which - bless its heart - gets the full ire and angst to deal with, it gets the lot doesn't it :-)

So back to the flash backs and these are intermingled with the kids - they are mainly happy memories but these make me sad (perhaps something lost - me working hard when they were little and not being there enough?). I feel bad about just about anything to do with my pre-cancer life. I'm sure they don't feel like that but I just happen to. Then the hospital flash backs - which were just not nice at all. I don't know why but maybe again it is the brain processing stuff and just reminding me that it isn't all over yet and as much as I think I'm walking away from this, it is part of my life and always will be for better or worse, it happened and it isn't finished yet.

At least the race was on

After he disappointment of yesterday, at least the race was on today and I watched that at 7am and followed that up with the MotoGP race straight afterwards.

I decided to take it really easy and have had a couple of hour long snoozes in my favourite chair today mainly to catch up with the lack of sleep from last night - my goodness did I have some strange dreams and two early mornings and the whole week of work.

Last week was a strange old week and an emotional roller coaster - I found myself really troubled and emotionally drained come Tuesday evening and yet once I had got that off my chest the remainder of the week seemed to go better. I'm absolutely flying at work at the moment. After much research and planning at last things are coming together but in a far more uncontrolled way than I wished for. Both of us (my co-founder and I) remind ourselves that at the moment we are treading a lonely road and we produce just about everything for the business. For the 2nd week I have worked in the dining room rather than in my office as I find I can better discipline my working day. For another week I have managed just one serious bit of exercise despite the fact I have done walking and some heavy lifting down the week.

This week gets interesting indeed as we ramp up the work and meet someone who will potentially be our lawyer or will be our legal advisor. We should also, I hope, be in a position to move the description forward and I am aiming for the web site to be completed later this month. It is hard work to make it all happen but no one said it would be easy.

I still feel the best I have felt for years and years. I think because I am getting stuff sorted out. The trip to the dentist this Friday will also help me to commence getting my teeth back under control and I am also hoping to get even more progress on sorting myself out a bit. Last week there were a few occasions where I was out of control, by that I mean that I was unable to control my emotions, my time keeping and my logic and level headedness just disappeared. Very unlike me to get quite so excitable really. I hope that this week I can keep a lid on it.

The dreams are just amazing things - the one last night (featuring Michael Caine of all people) was all about secrecy and keeping what we are doing a bit of an enigma for a little longer. These things are playing on my mind and are manifesting themselves in the most bizarre ways. Last week was definitely not one I want to repeat and I certainly don't want my head to explode into a huge guilt trip again, I don't need to beat myself up, cancer already did that. I just need to take it a little easy and to use my excess energy in positive ways.

I suppose finding yet another person who I know - on top of the lad with Appendix Cancer who now has Lung Cancer just puts the mockers on things, a number of others aren't doing well either. I can't work out why I feel so bad about it, I have no idea if they felt bad about what I had. I don't suppose they did but I see no reason not to feel empathy for them and their relatives.

Let's see - the funny side is?

That I got up early to watch the F1 qualifying from Japan. Like really early and got downstairs, did some pottering about, got a coffee, had my keep alive pills and sat down. Turned on the TV and there was.........

The News? OK exciting news they were just about to get to the Miners in Chile but where was the qualifying? There was nothing there and not wanting to know who was on pole etc. I trawelled around the buttons making sure I hadn't missed it, no it was scheduled to be on but wasn't. So I guess they must have published it later than it actually was and knowing it was going to be on later I contented myself with reading the paper from 5 in the morning rather than watching any more news or sports program until it came on at 1 pm.

I worked away keeping away from radio, internet and TV and at 1 pm the programme opened with a woman standing in torrential tropical rain saying that qualifying had been cancelled and it would take place before the race! Like 2 am our time Sunday and the race would be at 7am. They then re-scheduled all the programmes for the afternoon and that was that. Oh great! Just my luck :-)

As for everything else - its all looking good and work is great - I made myself stop this afternoon and I'm off to bed shortly so I can get up at the crack of sparrows to watch the race. I know I could record it but that really isn't the spirit and anyway, straight afterwards the MotoGP will be on as well so I might as well have a morning full of sport!

Super Nova

My energy levels are just massive at the moment - I could happily carry on working for days and not need sleep - I don't get tired and I'm not getting bored, everything is new and wow and (oh go on I'll say it even though I shouldn't and only for you - awesome). I just don't know where all this has come from. The trouble is it is destructive and constructive all at the same time. I doing some of my best work and some of my worst. I am being self destructive and yet it is all leading some place, I can feel it. It is climactic but not yet - it is just growing and growing and I'm just a bag of energy and I'm holding myself back.

It's like a creative explosion is happening which has fractured my normal logical way of doing things and led me to a point of huge surges in adrenalin rushed effort that may or equally may not end up in me doing something useful.

I've just had a lovely night out with CD and his friend. Last year we were a little tightly packed into the Guildhall. This time we were nicely spaced out. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening yet again.

Here is something that I hadn't thought about. The chap next door to me had been at the Guildhall for a big charity function the night before. He said that he gets to dine here and at Butchers' Hall and a few others down the year. the Guildhall at least 5 times a year and the Mansion House once or twice a year. He then said, and this made me think.... A radio and TV host (Richard Madeley) had been on the radio saying that he had dined once at the Guildhall and how "special" it was. He dined there many time and I tend to go once a year. I hadn't realised quite how privileged I am to be able to do this. It's one of the most historical places in London. The Guilds and the whole history of London, it's Lord Mayor etc. is all wrapped up in this building and there we were meeting and dining in high style in the Crypt of the Guildhall.

Sometimes, I don't realise how lucky and how fortunate I am - I doubt any of my family have ever dined there and as I've been there a number of times, I was annoyed that I perhaps had "taken it for granted". London is an amazing place in terms of its tradition and history. I keep thinking about joining a Guild and I keep holding myself back. I've got the forms for becoming a Freeman of the City of London on my desk too. I just haven't completely convinced myself it is the right thing to do - much as I'd like to - I'm not convinced the Memsahib would be entirely convinced.

Just Chill

I am absolutely buzzing and flying at the moment - someone's emptied a gallon of go-go juice into me and I feel like I've been on too many Double Espressos. I haven't felt this well in years but it's as if the flood gates have been opened and I'm just going off in all directions, doing stuff, working long hours, thinking too much, doing too much and then for some reason taking to beating myself up for not helping people and being self-centred. It is a real big bang sort of thing going on. I don't quite get it. Where has all this energy come from - you should have seen me striding down to the Jazz last night - big bold fast steps, I felt fit and healthy - I was glad to be alive and then, I rounded on myself, all the "regrets" of the past - all the things I perhaps should have done and how guilty I feel about this concentrating on myself.

The reality is somewhat different than this space I'm currently inhabiting but this is disturbing me now. I feel the best I've felt for years, I have some physical strength back and I am building a business and being creative and that is building self esteem and confidence. The issue really is to stop my head and my emotions ripping me apart here. The survivor syndrome, the regrets for being very inward facing and full of my own self importance, concentrating on getting myself better etc. I doubt many people would blame me for being like that, for reacting in the way I did. But, I'm not many people, I'm me and I've not forgiven myself for it yet.

I am going to have to try and keep this in check, it is destructive to me and its self inflicted. You learn a lot about yourself whether going through a serious illness or like I am at the moment building a business. It's about the journey - it should be done without regrets. Give it your best shot. I wonder if I have set myself some really high ideals and somehow - now - I feel I am not meeting them? Whatever it is I have to stop giving myself such a hard time, my head is trying to undermine everything, make me guilty and is telling me that I've let people down. How stupid is that? I have enough problems combating what life threw at me I shouldn't have to deal with being given a hard time by myself when it probably isn't justified or particularly well argued.

Superman - Ermm I don't think so...

I am not superman, I do not have hidden powers, I am not able to right all the world's wrongs, I cannot stop wars, I cannot stop people dying, I cannot reverse diagnosis, I cannot do all the things my guilt and my mind is telling me to do.

There's some sort of diametric force compelling me to be some sort of evangelist and to spread the great news of my survival to cure all ills, to repair everything to find jobs for the unemployed to go spread the word and, as I found out last night, I'm just beating myself up for all the right / wrong* reasons (* delete as applicable). I want to do the right things for everyone, I want to sort out everything I need to repay society, the people that cured me and so on......

There is something manic about this. Suddenly I have so much energy. I haven't had this much get up and go, pizazz, karma, electricity etc. for years and years. Suddenly, I've turned the corner and I'm free of hospital treatments, pre-assessments, blood tests and all that tedious sh1t that upsets you and gets you down and reminds you constantly that you are ill.

Now I want to get out there and help everyone and tonight as I walked to the Jazz night I realised that I can't do it. I'm "just me" that's all there is. There is only so much of me to go around and I have responsibilities of my own that I've ignored (or not been able to) for these past 4 or more years. Father, Husband, Bread Winner, Home Maker, Mediator, Referee and Umpire, Head of United Nations, Trusted Advisor to Presidents and Prime Ministers, Chore Owner, Epicentre of Humour, Comedian, Actor, Playwright, Entrepreneur, Political Critic, Poet, Bon Viveur, all round good egg!

There's a self-destructive element at play - suddenly I need to do reparations for my previous life - for putting everyone through the misery that the last 4 years has been (to them - maybe not to me). How I've worked at making it light, humour filled, approachable for my friends (not everyone could cope with that though) and all that work to wrapper cancer in an acceptable package, that everyone else was comfortable with and to weave the myth and legend around yourself for that time and now, it appears to me to need to be demolished and the facade taken down as all of that "nasty" stuff has gone, all the "is he going to die?" stuff is behind us and now, now we are left with the fallout.

Now I feel (rightly or wrongly) that I have to apologise for my behaviour not only during the episode but for all the possible wrongs I did to people before then. Smoking in pubs with your friends around who didn't - it's a crime right? All these things that may have contributed to my illness are now somehow manifesting themselves in me as things I should be sorry for, should apologies for, need to make amends for and so on.

I'm going to say that if you haven't had a life threatening disease or some sort of heavy depression or trauma you may not feel like this. I just feel responsible for everything at the moment and I don't want anyone to have had the mental anguish and wretchedness that I had, I see many friends having hard times and I feel completely inadequate to help them - then if I try I just Horlicks it anyway! I suddenly understand what a horrible time I've been through, I've now (finally heard) what an impact it had on my immediate family and also that my frankness didn't help them (helped me though) get through it. Everyone thought I was going to die. Join the club so did I. No one was more surprised than me that I didn't.

So now, when I should be all up and happy and yay-hay look at me, I've survived - I'm actually feeling massive guilt that I can't use that experience to help anyone.

I haven't balanced the fact that they really couldn't help me much either at the time I needed it - for some reason best known to itself, my brain refuses to take that into account. That we are all frail creatures and that we are generally quite inadequately equipped to deal with serious illness, death, pain and everything else you could associate with Cancer and Serous Illness etc.

I am having a real problem realising that I'm mortal, that I can't actually do much in terms of "good", that I haven't got the time or the money behind me to be Mother Teresa and that this is what life is like all the time. I feel desperate that I can't find jobs for my mates, point them in the right direction, ease their pain, repair their problems and yet, they don't come over here and fix mine. It's a bizarre thing, it has to do with survival, it has to do with paying back and feeling philanthropic but the wish to do these things hasn't fought out the logic and down to earth pragmatism of the situation. "You can't do anything more than you already do and that you would "normally" do!" I just need to get it through my thick head that I have all these great ideas, all this fantastic "do good" thoughts but that is all they could ever be, there isn't enough time in the day, money, social network and other stuff to make repairs of this magnitude on your own - it just isn't going to happen.

I feel bad because I can't change the world, I can't right the wrongs and I'm pretty much powerless to do anything that what I am doing now.

I need to eat a huge slice of "realism pie" at the moment my head is in the clouds for the right reasons but my head and my heart need to go and have a chat to set things back onto an even keel.

I once said that I never felt I could change the world and got soundly rounded on by a friend for that - she reckoned we could all change the world and that we all did, some of us changed it a little and some of us changed it a lot but that we should never lose sight of the dream of making the world a better place. Isn't she lovely? :-) When I stop having these wild swings in temperament perhaps I will be able to change the world a little - I hope so. I'm just trying to deal with these massive swings again. I had them some time ago when under treatment, maybe this is things switching back.

I don't feel as if I have any mental problems as such but I can see how you could have given the huge swings in emotions I get on a daily basis at the moment. It's learning to cope and be normal again (I'm sure of it) but, of course, how CAN you be normal after all this has gone off?

Leave you with it for now....

Jazz Night

See if the young lad is there and if he is, how he is with his Appendix Cancer. A few beers, live music and perhaps a little time to chill out. I was really wound up last night and beat myself up a lot. You may wonder about that but it is a strange thing to hear from someone how I had changed in their eyes. It was nice to hear that I listen more and that I take into account other people's points of view. Being a Project Manager makes you self assured but, by the sounds of it, a little too self assured and confident. Well that's a good change.

I beat myself up for a lot of reasons these days. I beat myself up because sometimes I don't think enough about other people. I've heard myself answering a how are you and then impolitely forget to ask them how they are. I am doing too many things at high speed, whether to make up for the past 4 years, whether through the buzz of what I'm doing or perhaps some other thing. I'm getting excitable and I need to just tone that back a bit.

So tonight an enjoyable and relaxing evening I hope. At least I'll get some exercise which I didn't yesterday or today as I was still firing off documents as 6 pm.

That wasn't nice

What a horrible dream - must have been triggered by something in the news yesterday I'm guessing. Was stuck in London and heard a large noise and looked up to see an large passenger aircraft with wings broken off about half way down spiralling into the ground somewhere near St. Paul's Cathedral. Was then, somehow up in North London at a building site (don't ask me Iijust dream this stuff) chatting to a guy about rebuilding a small hospital when a nurse runs up and says they need to use the facilities there as there has been a major incident. Then they realise that there is nothing there - it's just a building site. As we say that a bright coloured aircraft rushes past and arcs into a huge building about a mile away. Shades of 9/11 but amazing colours and explosions etc. A little while later I go and grab some chap at a coffee shop and apologise for that but need to know if my daughter is all right as she works for him? He assures me all is OK and I make my way back through the streets and then wake up.

Strange stuff for a Wednesday morning, very strange indeed.

Out with my friends and I am reminded ...

That about 4 years ago my friend KP suggested that I write this blog. I only hope that he is reading this now as I miss him a lot and understand the he is going through hard times himself. At the moment, I also realise that I can't help, I'm not wanted and that I have to keep my distance. Or maybe I'm wrong - here's the open note to say - can I help you? You've been a rock to me, even if you don't know or don't admit it.

I understand these things because that's what I was like when you spoke to me 4 years ago - it wasn't quite "I am your Father Luke" but it was near enough. Oh yes and I didn't know the difference between Prostate and Prostrate Cancer - DOH :-)

That's the way it is, that's how you feel at the time but - you know - we're you're mates, we're your friends and if you can't confide and let us just listen, then maybe you've not remembered what it was like when I was really ill, when I was down to my lowest ebb, when I thought I was going to die and when I'd reached the bottom and was preparing to dig down further and you said to me that - "it wasn't as bad as that". "Why not write a blog and tell everyone what it is really like". When you base-lined what was happening to me, it made it seem real and made it all make sense and a reason for me to start this blog. you did that fella - it was YOUR suggestion.

Fella, I did it because you told me it would help me and that it would help other people, because it was a way out of my cul-de-sac, because we are great friends and go back to when we were nutty teenagers together - for all close scrapes we got into, for all of those larks, those explosions, those precious moments, those laughs and the drunken evenings and the great gigs and the girls and all that. What times we had - how cool those times were how we still laugh at them - "Who me sir?!"

Don't leave me know (Supertramp). For everything you did for me for the past 4 years - for making me write this blog and for being there when I needed it the most - don't leave me know, don't sit alone and wonder, don't sit there and brood, don't blame yourself, don't wonder "what if", don't think I (or we) don't care. You've been there for me for these past 4 years, you really have, you've been kind and cruel (in only a way that a true friend can be) we've shared the grim reaper jokes, the Monty Python Tee-Shirt (goodness you were in on that as much as I was) and you've got me through what can only be described as the lowest point in my existence. I'm coming out of that now - 4 years of darkness, depression and all that stuff - it was you my friend that helped me do that. Yes you did!

Please, please, let me be there for you now, whatever it is, whatever ails you, I would never have been brave enough to bear my soul on this blog as I have without you - this record both good, bad, ugly, bigoted, right wing, left wing, commie, rubbish, true, half true, helpful and unhelpful is all because of that wonderful time when you spoke as a real true friend to me and suggested a blog could be the cathartic way forward for someone, like me, to share the emotional and physical issues I was about to have.

Think about what you did for me? At a time when life was just a matter of weeks or months survival (as I thought then - who was to know), when it was black and beyond the colour of pitch, when I was at my absolute lowest you gave me something to work towards and lean on and base my future on. Giving, at the very least, hope or consolation - or perhaps a realistic view of what cancer was like to others as a legacy (for that is initially what I thought it was) about the way to approach living with the disease.

Tonight, at the pub, I sat there and wondered where you were? You were really down the month before last (of course you would be) and unfortunately I cannot make next Tuesday (unless you can?? - I will cancel to meet you). Please note.

I want you to know how much you mean to me. I want you to realise how important you are to my survival. I want you to understand that if by your actions and my following them we made a difference to one person in this world suffering from cancer - what a good job we have done and I want you to realise that this blog - that I started because you suggested it to me, has been a real life line in my 4 years and 3 months (but whose counting) battle against this disease.

Understand you've helped me work my problems out (sure I've done them in public) and shared those with many other people who also now realise that to get angry, be tired, get frustrated, find stuff funny or find stuff sad is just part of the journey we are all on with this disease they call Cancer.

Whatever it is, let's talk, let's meet, let's sort it out. After all that you've done for me, it seems that this is the very, very least I can do for you.

I can't always sort out the problem but I can at least listen. I owe you so much but you want so little from me. You are a true friend indeed KP.

Oh No - Why?

Why indeed. I mean, I can accept getting Cancer myself and I can blame myself - my lifestyle and all that sort of thing, I've hung myself out to dry and argued the case here on the blog for getting on 4 years soon. What I cannot understand is those who've already been dealt a bad set of cards getting it even worse. It seems to me to be a very cruel world sometimes.

Here's the deal, a young man of my acquaintance - I've known him since he was born and he has Cerebral Palsy - he was a lovely child and an equally lovely young man and I see him three or four times a year sometimes more, he was involved with the local church and so we saw him a lot, I knew his sister well and I also remember his father dying when he was only a young lad. A tragedy and what is stranger still is that I then found out through my family history research that his family are related to my family about 3 generations back so - we're almost family so to speak. I know his Uncle and he is a great friend and we all meet up, when we can, at the monthly Jazz night.

I saw his Uncle tonight and he tells me that he may be a bit tired and not quite up to it if I do meet him as this young lad - and he is only about mid or early thirties has Appendix Cancer. It's pretty rare apparently and he has to go to a remote Hospital to get it sorted. I'm just stunned. I mean what more does life need to throw at this poor lad. He has struggled on, worked hard and held a job down for years (he is still going in but is tired at the end of the day). What on earth did he do to deserve that? That is the faith testing question I have. The problem is I don't "get it" I don't see why there is this lottery of people who just get one disability (perhaps that is too strong a word - how about a challenge for the PC people) and then, when he struggles through all the prejudices and the levels of hardship to get on with his life and is a happy, lovely and thoroughly nice guy (you'd enjoy his company as he has old fashioned manners and charm) - why then does he get Cancer? He doesn't smoke, he has a lemonade shandy once a month at the Jazz night - what did he ever do to upset someone and afflict him all over again??

I felt that my faith (such a little faith as it is these days) was tested with me but I think that I accepted getting cancer I wasn't sure after having got it, why surviving was difficult to understand, in a way I still don't quite "get it" but I find giving this "innocent" young guy cancer as being cruel in the extreme. I still don't get why "he deserves it?"

Maybe I'm just hung up over it but it does seem to me to be unjust in his case, if it can ever be "just" in anyone's case. I wouldn't wish this on anyone but I don't know, it just doesn't seem fair to me that young people are struck down with such diseases. I suppose it's a bit like the expectations that these days you can wage war and not have any casualties.

It is a massively rare cancer and the figures are misleading and the quick and dirty internet searches I have just conducted are as helpful to me now as my first searches were when I showed the symptoms of Bladder Cancer. At least I can be some sort of help as he knows I've survived and he knows a fair bit about what I went through as we have discussed it.

I might be a bit of a wreck on Thursday morning after going out with him on Wednesday night so prepare for blog hell after I've spent time with him. I'm gutted and annoyed and displaying all the signs of a Kubler Ross episode - at the moment - I'm dong denial - I doubt I'll be in that zone come Thursday.

Life can be so unfair sometimes - you just wonder why the hell that should be?


PS: None of us deserve it BTW....

Exercise again

I couldn't believe it has been a whole week since I exercised but then I worked myself to a frazzle last week and didn't have time. the tale of the scale was I am down by about another pound so around 222 but nearer 221 by the thickness of a needle. So that's good - slowly going down but it isn't going to happen without exercise. Again this week is interupted by work and I can't moan I suppose but I will anyway. It would be nice to concentrate just on my health but I'm eating the right stuff, not overdoing it and if only I can fit in a bit more exercise it would be perfect.

A big meeting is mucked up tomorrow as one of the most important guys (the bloke writing our 30 and 60 second drills) wont be around and cancelled late this afternoon. Nuts! I hope that he gets his act together fast as he needs to come through on this element so we can move on.

So that's annoyed me as I guessed that was going to happen - you get a hunch when someone lines up the messages during three or four emails before. I'm feeling great still and finally begining to feel so much better about myself and just generally feeling well - well :-)

That hit the nail on the head

The Kindle is rather good - I have it set to deliver some newspapers and one of the joys of a Sunday used to be getting a couple of Sunday Papers and then spending the rest of the week reading them. Having them delivered electronically is a bit bizarre I know but there was an article in the Observer HERE that caught my eye. Bill Oddie, who may not be known outside of the UK was a mainstay of my younger life when he starred in the Goodies a quite surreal (at times) and often slapstick weekly series that has (sadly) never been repeated - these guys were pretty much superstars in their day. They all went on to other things and are still writing and in radio shows etc. Bill Oddie became a TV naturalist and whilst things like Springwatch and Autumnwatch may have their place in light entertainment - I actually wasn't convinced that Oddie and his co-presenter actually got on well together especially as if you doubled Kate's brain cell count it would have made 10. Bill disappeared a while ago suffering from Depression.

What on earth has this got to do with me and this blog you may rightly ask??

Well it was because this leapt off the page at me "It would be silly to pretend my mind is at rest. Last year was the worst of my life. It destroyed my confidence and identity."

That really stuck with me. I was talking to my Mum earlier today and saying that for the first time in years I actually feel really well, I'm getting things back into some sort of order, I'm getting myself fixed up and doing all those things that for 4 years (at least) I haven't done. Things just got put on hold, stuff I should have done hasn't been. When I look back and beyond the 4 years (you may recall that in hindsight I felt I had been ailing for a while before) I see that I just switched down all activities other than what was immediately important. A bit like the words with the dentist earlier in the week - it hasn't been on my list of things to get done until now. Suddenly life is more back on track and this week has been full on and productive and, dare I say it, optimistic.

A new optimism and a new outlook and I am absolutely certain that whilst I always portrayed things in a positive light, was able to see the funny side and be quite brutally honest (most of the time) that in reality, I was far more depressed and certainly, like Bill Oddie, had lost my identity and a fair amount of my confidence too. I know these are different illnesses but this is why that leapt of the page at me. Denial (not a river in Egypt btw) is perhaps too much of a word for it but certainly how about deflection and illusion maybe?

What I realised as I read this was that it suddenly answered some of those questions and here I am being so much more upbeat than I have been for ages. Actually tackling things that I left 4 years ago - head on - like these accounts Ii haven't completed (and it is only a few hours job). The will wasn't there, the belief wasn't there and neither was the energy or the confidence to tackle them. Along with many other things I'd rather not do something than do it. I'd rather talk about doing it but then not do it. My University thing was part of that - I needed it to prove I could do it and it was easier to not complete it (even given how ill I was) than to try and catch up. Now I could have knuckled down and have done that - then - I didn't have the drive, certainly not the energy and, as strange a sit may seem, my brain would not have coped with it. Now I feel I can work with all my brain, most of the physical energy I have and things like concentration and stamina are really good. I don't have the tired spells any more and feel what I guess is about 80% fit but certainly much much much better than I have for 6 or 7 years I think.

I feel for Bill Oddie and the results of his illness just resounded with the sort of stuff that now I look back at, realise I have been through.

I'm actually pleased, in an strange way, that I have been through these things, these "tests" if you will, that I've had a bit of a stare at the dark side and that I've had to work my way out of the abyss that was requesting the pleasure of my company. Why? I think that the experience and the lessons I've learnt can only help to serve me (and others perhaps) better for the future. Age and experience - that's what I've got now and if I can call on the experiences properly it can only make me stronger.

That's enough for a Sunday - back to the papers - or the eReader should I say.

Accounts and Stuff

What a week that was - chaos and I don't normally like chaos but it was caused through needing to get involved in logos and design work, web design, copy-writing and other such stuff. My Kindle feels like it is weeks old and yet I've only had it 4 days. What a great little asset that is. At the moment I am using one of the experimental features - an MP3 player which is running in the background whilst I work. I've worked downstairs all this week to give myself a break from the Office and that appears to have worked as I have also been distraction free but the downside? I've worked every night into the early hours apart from last night where I consciously took the laptop in to the lounge, and watched a couple of movies. I'm listening to Yann Tierson and music from Goodnight Lenin and Amelie as well as Ennio Moricone and the film score to the Legend of 1900 - a great film.

Yesterday I went to see the Dentist. My jaw is a little aching today through one of my teeth being in not particularly good shape - but I knew that. The plan is pretty extensive and in two weeks time I'll go and get a couple of fillings and I need to make up my mind about some root canal work on one tooth and an extraction on another. I have a couple of others to be sorted out as well but at least I will finally get around to sorting this lot out. "How long since you were last here?" "4 years and 3 months". "That's pretty precise", "Well as you can see that is about a month before I got Bladder Cancer". "I wasn't sure if having great teeth would be much use if I was pushing up daisies!" "I can see that"

He was very nice and went through all the things that were needed and described what was going to happen pretty well and so I got the plan and now all I need to do is go and sort out that sort of money - pretty expensive stuff.

I'm finishing off a series of accounts, again mainly held up due to a series of unfortunate incidents which I can trace back to being ill. Like having to take over as Treasurer from someone who was leaving and then wondering after 2 or so years where the Statements from the bank were and having to sort out the "fact" that despite accepting my signature and me going in and out of the bank paying stuff in etc - they didn't have me down as the owner of the account!!! Great - so now I have that sorted and have enough statements (and an on-line account) I can go back and check and reconcile my records with the bank statements which allows me to present the accounts to the Auditors. What a nightmare - anyway - glad to see my record keeping was pretty good and it all appears to balance.

So finishing that off at the moment and then see what else I need to sort out as next week is busy as you like. My Dad's 80th Birthday on Thursday too.

Wow where did the week go to?

I have been setting a blistering pace this week but getting to bed in the wee hours of the morning will take their toll if I keep that up. The trouble is once I get "into" something I have to keep at it. Today I did 10 hours straight on our business architecture and set-up. Additionally I had a number of conversations about our business cards which look great, our Letterhead which looks a lot whiter than I thought it would :-) and other design stuff.

Tomorrow I have the dubious pleasure of visiting the Dentist. My least favourite job of all time and yet, you know, I reckon that it is nothing much after what I've been through these past 4 1/4 years. I mean its not as if he is about to ram something up my nether regions - well I hope not. I've specified a check up as after 4 1/4 years we need to catch up on my medication and my situation and then he needs to see the recent damage. It isn't going to be a one off visit and will need some planning I guess. Anyway - will see what he recommends and then have to go and get some cash moved to pay for it all I guess :-)

I also realised that I wrote the Web Site specification last night too. Blimey I've been busy. We have now got to that point where almost everything is coming together. The research is mainly done, deliverables from 3rd parties are due this next week or so and the planning and background work has been worth it as we can get a proper move on towards finalising business plans and financial forecasts. All exciting stuff but tempered with caution with some of the rumblings on the economy... Let's hope that it isn't as bad as some say it is.

Well I had better finish off this, convert some more books for my Kindle - which surprises every day - I had a newspaper delivered on it this morning. As I turned it on, so the Newspaper arrived ready for me to read over my morning coffee. How cool is that?

Better steer clear of Garlic and Onions - I don't want to give the Dentist a hard time - hopefully he won't give me one then :-)

Kindle Day

My Kindle arrived around 9 am which was great as I could get it booted up and charged, connected to my WiFi and downloading my first batch of books. I've been busy for days converting my existing books so they can go on and that was pretty painless.

The Kindle itself is great, brilliant technology and it sure helps not being backlit and makes it easy on my eyes. I'm just having it read to me whilst I do this - neat.

The business will take a big step forward tomorrow as we should settle the Logo and fonts to be used. Next week we hope that we will actually get to the delivery of the 60 second drill from our sales and marketing guy. He said it was hard - blimey - I could have told him that - I've been at it for 18 months or more :-) and 3 or 4 months now full time.

well this time I need to get to bed - leaving the converter running on a 50Mb conversion job. Some of my books are that large and a couple of thousand pages - it takes a fair amount of processing power to convert them.

Feeling a little jaded after hitting the exercise bike today and recording what for me are very low blood pressure readings. I did feel somewhat light headed as I finished and at 105 over 70 I was not surprised. I've started to lose weight again, just a pound down this week but my trousers are falling off my waist and I've noticed that some of the bulk around waist and neck have gone. I'm hoping to get back to a more regular regime but working the hours I do I am sure I am burning up calories just doing that.

To Tweet or to Twitter or whatever

Well I signed up for a Twitter Account today - mainly for the new business but suddenly got engrossed in the buzz that is Twitter. The business logos were flying around everywhere today and it got really amazing as we got more excited and animated about our logo, our mission statement and all that. Added to that - I managed to finish off 5 years accounts all in one day, get everything filed and sorted and lord knows, I can get that lot verified and sorted out. Here's the rub - I should have done them in June 2006 to start with which was just before I got diagnosed with "Der Big C". That can now be sorted - I knew I'd kept the record properly and once I sorted the paperwork out, verified it was correct and filled in the right columns the whole thing just clicked into place (balance sheets do just what the name suggests). I then ran that on and 5 years accounts were sorted.

I was frightened to hear how much unemployment is out there at the moment. A number of my friends are close to closing their businesses as a direct result of the spending freeze by the new Government. This moratorium is killing all the little businesses that actually prop up the bigger companies and it is really hitting home. Schools and Hospitals that were planned are stopped, no money for them. The arguments about the contracts etc., will go on for years but an industry looks to be lying in ruins from what I heard tonight. The trouble is, it is the people who voted for this Government that appear to have taken a pounding. I hope it isn't as bad as it was painted tonight but my friend, who I've know for getting on 37 years or so now is in trouble as well as his market has faded away. It is all the more worrying as he is one of the top in his field. Also saw my other friend who is hoping that his training next week leads to some decent employment. It appears to me to be the experienced people who are now deemed too old and to expensive are getting hit. I don't want to go there with that argument here but it is a spreadsheet manager's decision. I used to surround myself with older more experienced people because they'd protect me and give me sound advice and I'd get more out of them for less effort and I'd get less trouble on my jobs with an old hand doing it.

I'm glad I am out of that construction area business and in the IT world. Even that is seeing a change in dynamics but, I like to think that an old dog, such as I, can chart a way through all of that.

Do you know what? I feel like I am really getting back to my fit and healthy self at last. Having worked through those accounts and been quite busy with the other business stuff, I felt really good and massively confident and suddenly back on my game. I began to believe in myself again today.

Tomorrow is special (oooooppppps - later today it is late again!) as I get my hands on my Kindle from Amazon - I am really quite excited about the prospect as at last I will have something designed to let me read these technical books and journals without being connected to my laptop which being back lit and wide screen really isn't conducive to achieving that.

Long Post

Yesterday's was a long post - just a load of ramblings but it was a bit of a mind dump and probably needed to get it out of my head and onto - well - paper - albeit electronic paper.

Speaking of electronic paper I finally got my despatch notice for my Kindle which should be with me on Tuesday. Here's hoping that it actually does. It's an e-reading device and I am hoping that it is going to help me to read some of my existing ebooks - it is meant to be easier on the eye as it uses a display called e-ink which is completely different to backlit displays. It can be read out in the open. All of my technical books may then at last be viewable to me and easy on my eyes.

I've been quite good today and although I've been on my PC I have steered clear of work itself.

I have been looking at some of the accounts I need to get settled in the next few weeks. I'm pretty pleased that they are in good order but I need a little longer to sort them out for auditing. Hopefully they will come together as good as they look now. I've kept the records really well but it is ensuring that the balance sheets actually show the right figures when I bring them in.

The biggest change

Is that what's important to me these days isn't important to my friends and family. Not that it should be of course, everyone has their life to live. I'm still not quite up to the bit where I want to do the world cruise or do some outrageous things. What will be will be and in the interim I am pursing my particular dream and seeing if this project will deliver a living for say the next 5 years which will kind of do me. If I can turn a few bucks, sick some of that away I have plenty of things Ii want to do and that will keep me amused for quite a while I hope - if I'm spared that time of course.

Now this all sounds a bit strange you may say? I was out with Flocky for a mid day curry - we were the only ones in the restaurant and the food was excellent and the service was of course exemplary. Now we are both, more or less, in the situation where our high flying crazy, work all hours, burn yourself out culture of work has resulted in the two of us taking a different view on life, work and all that. Whilst I may have come out of over 2 years in the Charity, I would never have lasted there because I come from corporate life where it's all about economies, smart ways of working, change and having really good productive people. So I've opted for something that at the moment is intellectually challenging and if we get finance will be physically challenging too. However, my choice and it could never be like the way I used to work years ago.

So trying to get back on track here. I find that so many people are getting stressed out working and taking it all so seriously (OK the market is bad, the economy is rubbish and the way work is these days is stressful enough). However, getting ill really does stop you and make you ask the question of whether or not you are enjoying this thing that takes so much of your time. Ask you why there are all the petty little things that go along with and all that. Is it all worth it? Are yo doing the right thing? Can you stop or alter your life and actually go and live a little.

I've been mulling just that - I'd like to go do something else, I'd like to spend some time with my family and friends but everyone is so busy that they really can't afford that time. It seems that the attitude that it isn't that important, that nobody died, that I tend to have is not the way non-cancer, non serious illness sufferers look at things. A bit like the terminally ill lung cancer patient continuing to smoke - sort of what's the point of giving up? Indeed! But there is the other view, a very personal one. The euphoria of surviving it - like me I know the years and months and almost the days and hours if I thought about it from first symptoms to here I am. The joy of living is suddenly a different thing. I suppose nothing, not even a close family member or friend dying actually prepares you for your ultimate destination? I mean it isn't something the average person thinks much about.

One of the guys in the Lodge, 62, wandering along the High Street, heart attack and was dead before he hit the pavement (side walk). That's it, there's no second chance, no goodbye, nothing. Walked out of the door, down the road and no one saw him alive again. I bet people were saying, I didn't get to say "so and so" to him blah, blah, blah. It is the nature of these things. They describe it as tragic. Everyone regrets something about a tragedy.

I feel the need to be doing things today so that if anything happens in the future there won't be regrets or what ifs but only me - no one else gets it (well probably not true - some people I know will get it - guess what we've got in common?).

A life lived. I doubt I could claim to have that but everyone makes a difference one way or the other. Sometimes you hear of these lives where people have done amazing things and I'm not interested in that either. I just want the remaining time I have left of which I don't know how much that may be to have some sort of meaning or celebration or experience to it. Given the circumstances behind my bladder cancer I'm not ruling out some other such occurrence before I turn my toes up. All I want to do is to spend some time doing enjoyable things but most of these are met by a reason it can't be achieved. A weekend away, a holiday or short break, a trip out somewhere. Something to do, somewhere to spend some time together. Oh well, maybe the answer is to go do it myself or find someone who fancies joining me on some of these things.

Well that all looks a bit jumbled up, I think it means the same as some of my earlier postings. You change, no one else does and you can't expect them to. They just need to get over it. Either that or I'm just changed so much that I'm not the person they knew before I had the experience. Whatever it is, it kind of shows that cancer does more than getting a broken leg or a heavy cold. I've come out of it changed in so many ways that I tend to forget how difficult it is for others to deal with my view of the world. It changes the dynamics of your relationships, your family life changes quite a bit, I know now that everyone was sh1t scared but they never told me - I suppose you wouldn't do that.

It has made me a much nicer person (some people would have difficulty remembering how I was before this all blew up) I'm not sure I liked myself very much in those days and yet I do feel that I was coming down with something for a few years leading up to diagnosis. I lost the job I'd always desired but that doesn't matter either now - it's all experience, stuff I bring to bear these days for helping people and whilst I still have a major problem with fools and idiots (I have a very low threshold for people who are stupid. Stupid and Ignorant really gets me going!) I get on with people a lot better and generally feel I've come a long way now to being a more patient, all around good guy.

I think it is difficult to articulate this without it sounding wrong but let me see if I can try it. A friend of mine told me that he didn't want to live on his own as he didn't want to die alone. How sad is that statement? I'm seriously considering whether that would worry me or not? I'm an INTJ I can go for days without needing to say anything to anyone if I want to. My public face and who I am are completely different and so I think it would work OK. if I need to see anyone there are coffee shops, pubs and all sorts of distractions. I think what I'm saying is that I just want to please myself and be selfish, do what I want to do, when I want to do it and not be held back by external forces and limitations that are not of my doing, not in my control and that, perhaps, may finally settle where I want to go and what I want to do. I'm as tired of my home life as I was of working at the charity. Like the place is full of nice people but the word dynamic just got cut out of the dictionary when they joined. Not all of them there are a couple of good ones there as there is here. I feel I should be doing more with my life than routine and imprisonment by factors outside of my control. By imprisonment it means that I naturally wish to involve people in my plans. I will, I notice, not do things myself if they cannot join in. Perhaps, I take control and just go and do them myself it may clear my head and my conscience too.