Exercise Sucks

In a term coined by fellow Bladder Cancer survivor Steve Kelley which I fully concur with. Steve explains in his various blogs why that is but as he and I are both aware, we needed to be fit and exercise sets in motion lots of things to help you help yourself in the cancer battle. I've now got a Cross Trainer and a Vibration Plate and a small set of exercising dumbbells.

So in today's news was this article from the BBC headlined as "Exercise should be 'standard part of cancer care'" I've complained about this before but think that it is true, unless you specifically mention exercise, your doctor isn't necessarily going to tell you to do it. I mentioned that I was thinking of doing it and was only told to go easy around the times I had treatment and the various operations (TURBT & Biopsy Cystoscopies) as well as a day or so after the flexible cystoscopies which can make you bleed a bit too apparently.

It's part of Steve's and my recovery strategies and whilst we differ a bit I think we both see the benefit of exercising. If you are fit in body then you are likely to be able to help in your cancer fight and in our cases, keeping the cancer away for good.

I think the only caveat I had was when I was having the huge bouts of fatigue (which apparently exercise can help) when I found it difficult to actually get out of bed because it felt like my body was 2 or 3 times heavier and someone had fiddled with the gravity switch.

Anyway - whilst exercise sucks - it has enough benefits to actually make it part of your everyday activity.

I JUST NOTICED !!!! If you can see the video clip on the page - - >> This is my cousin's Pink Champagne Dragon boat crew and there's a shot of her early on doing the exercises with an oar. She had Breast Cancer and the whole team are cancer survivors... Way to go W!!!

Sunday Night

11 pm, sat at the PC, actually did a shed load of business work over the weekend. I did promise myself that I should take weekends off but I was on a roll and finished off a section that I was working on so that made things better.

I'm feeling a little relieved with my Dad's situation and that he is getting a little better but of course we wait to hear the verdict. I wasn't pleased to hear that he had already made up his mind not to have an operation (unless keyhole) or treatment - which did disturb me. I can see one side of the argument but of course I would being me and living through what I lived through wouldn't I?

So there we go, a week over and things are back to settled a bit now. I really want to work hard this week to see if I can break the back of the business plan elements and see how far we can get towards completion. It seems to take an age but the really good thing is that it allows us to consolidate all the work we've done in the past 3 years and - almost like cramming and taking an exam - it actually knits the whole of the journey together and makes it real and quite exciting. I can see my writing style has upped a notch in writing the plan because it really starts to become real and it also starts to make sense and become compelling.

Eventful Day

And it is 1:30 on Sunday morning and I'm sat at my PC wondering where time went and why I'm sat here. It's the usual story really - I tend to be both a lark and an owl when it comes to work and earlier today I thought I might as well do some work rather than sit around doing nothing. I then did some reading and now I can't get to sleep and as usual no one actually says goodnight in this house and I'd lost track of time.

It's been that sort of day - I sent my mum some flowers to cheer her up and I'll speak to her again tomorrow. Dad's lost a fair bit of weight and we are hoping that it is worry and whatever WAS wrong with him which may now not be wrong with him as they couldn't find anything. It's a bit strange if you ask me. I was disturbed by his attitude not to have anything done to him if is was diagnosed - "who wants to live for ever". I'm not certain that is exactly my thoughts on the matter but I'm not him of course. I think that it is the wrong attitude myself and that you should at least see what they say first before making that sort of statement - perhaps it's the denial bit we all go through. In fact the more I think of it the more plausible that is, that the Kubler Ross Grief cycle is kicking in.

I suppose we have to sit back and wait to hear what is going on - it is all most unusual and the great news is nothing there so is it something else, did they dislodge the offending lump or what? I guess we will know in a week or two.

Give you the Willies moment

You remember when you were a kid and went into the haunted house and your heart was thumping as if it would come out of your chest because you never were sure if there was something around the next door.

Well today I had that experience. My friend called up and couldn't raise his mum. So I went around to the house - the car was there and I couldn't see much through the back windows. I then knocked on one of the neighbours house just to check things out. She wasn't but we learnt that the car clutch wasn't working so hence it was parked a little strangely. They have a master key safe and after I'd done some more checks I got the keys and went in disabling the alarm system (My mate is a Policeman and thank goodness for mobile phones).

After getting in I was able to do a sweep of the house and so that was good - but every time I looked in a room I was dreading what I might see :-) Luckily it looks as if she went out and perhaps someone came and got her :-) Anyway - all is OK.

Well - that went better than expected I think

So Dad got taken down to theatre at around 1 (on the proper day!) and returned around 3 - totally forgot to take the normal precautions (once again) staggered around like a drunk thing. HELLO!!! General Anaesthetic Dad!!!!!! My kid brother was apoplectic about him being like a little kid and not remembering the experiences of last week post operative!!!

So - having got that far the surgeon / consultant comes out and say - well we couldn't find anything there - no lump, no tumour - nothing. Well - what could have happened? Apparently they could have dislodged something when they put the stent in last week so whatever they did -there is nothing there now! He decided that he ought to take biopsies of the Pancreas as he was there and so that's what he did. However he felt that there was nothing sinister there at all.

So I spoke to mum who, not surprisingly, has hardly any voice left, and said how pleased she must be - I think you can tell a lot as we are so close - I told her to go and just sit down with a cup of tea and take it easy - I can only half imagine what it has done to her but I could hear it in her voice. So I rang my Aunt on her behalf and that was OK and I'm much happier myself in perhaps getting away from what I strongly believed was my dad's diagnosis (you learn a lot about all cancers if you are interested when you have it BTW). I'm frankly amazed that they found nothing. He's lost weight this past few weeks and I was hoping that it was more to do with anxiety than disease. I do hope that from this point onwards that stops.

So it may not be Pancreatic Cancer - which was what I feared - but perhaps something else. We now have a week or so wait to see what it is. If it was just a minor blockage that they have fixed then that is great...

I'm relieved for dad and my mum and thankful to my kid brother for running them around.

Now it is wait and see.

AS they say in the UK

Should have gone to Specsavers!! got a note from my kid brother to say that they battled through the rain and got to the Hospital only to find that mum had read the wrong date/day and it is actually planned for tomorrow.

I'm not phoning the house - I imagine it is in uproar at the moment - I also doubt that me texting "Should have gone to Specsavers!" added anything to the embarrassment of the situation. If it were me I do think I'd have been seething but then again, it it was ME I'd have checked time, place, and all the details....

So now it's tomorrow - thanks goodness my brother can sort this all out as he is local.

Thursday and thoughts turn to Dad's Procedure

Well I know how he feels and can but sympathise with him. It's thrashing down with rain and so will be a thoroughly unpleasant day. He's going to Addenbrookes in Cambridge for this inside out scan and to have needle biopsies taken of this tumour (or whatever it is).

At least he is pretty cheerful and in a lot better condition than he was last week. I can only imagine how he must feel. Oh well nothing I can do sitting here worrying about it - I can't change the course of things so will just have to see what the results of the test are.

And thoughts turn to my dad

Who tomorrow will have to have his second endoscopy in 7 days. I feel for him but can't "take the hit for him". My mum often said to me, if she could take the medicine for me she would. I'm hoping that they find something that isn't what I think it might be. I guess 80 years of good health and never being in a Hospital is pretty good going really but I do feel for him as these places terrify him more than they used to terrify me. I think I said this in my earlier blogs some 4 years ago that I'd rather he never have to know what I'd been through knowing his dread of hospitals. However, the cards are dealt and he has to face up to what hand he has. It isn't nice and an endoscope isn't the greatest of things but last week they managed to do it without too much trouble apart from him not knowing what a general anaesthetic is capable of doing - he looked like Pinocchio without the strings to hold him up apparently! This time he knows what is going on and he has recovered suitably enough to bring his mind back to him (he was worried he was suffering from dementia some months back) and so I hope he realises this. My brother will be there with him tomorrow so I hope that it all goes well.

As usual - there's me doing a guilt trip as I'm not there to assist but as I said before - I don't recollect them ever coming down here and running me in and out of hospital or even visiting me at my death bed or at home!!! But that's OK I'll beat myself up about it - it must be something in my nature?

I think a lot about that because I'm off the opinion that parents are a back stop for when things go wrong - if your kid gets into some sort of trouble etc. I say this as both girls have their boyfriends staying here. I know because the toilet seat is up - that's a girl joke - they'll understand. As I have lived with a house full of women for 21 years - I KNOW MY PLACE and therefore, the toilet seat is always left down so when the boyfriends are here I sort of work it out from the angle of the toilet seat :-)

However, I digress. When I was my oldest daughter's age I had left home, I was working and earning pretty decent money, I was just about to embark on my career and I had a nice flat but I always knew, if I needed it, I had the bolt hole of my parents' place. I needed it once in between having to vacate my flat (which is no more than 2 minutes walk from where I live now) and buying my first property. My parents have always had my best interests at heart, keen that I didn't make the same mistakes (or as I prefer - learning opportunities) as they did. Whilst I may regret not going to University - it would have meant following a different path and not having the life that I have now which despite my constant whinging is in fact pretty damn good when compared with many who don't have the opportunities that I have had.

So back on track - all I was really trying to get to was my position with respect to A & L. They've got their whole lives ahead of them and University will provide them with adequate experiences for life. They can do what they want to do - and not what I may think is best for them and they can live the life they choose to live and I have no desire whatsoever to interfere or to get involved unless they want me to and ask me. I can give opinion and deliver experience and observation but I am a firm believer in allowing you to find out for yourself. I do however try and provide sufficient encyclopaedic knowledge where I can to allow them to come to (the right) a conclusion themselves....

I hope I'm doing the right thing, they are both a credit to us and so in that respect I cannot find anything that worries me about their current choices of course at University, their choice of boyfriends or their hard work in terms of their education. They both have jobs and they both pay their own way albeit we continue to provide a home etc whilst they are studying. If they go on holiday (as they both are) or do other activities they spend their own money doing it (I'm not saying that contributions cannot be forthcoming though).

Wait, wait wait wait wait

Can you tell I'm waiting :-) Someone is due to pick up some things we are getting rid of on Freecycle. Its now 30 minutes past when they said they'd be here. I want to go upstairs and do my exercises and I can't until they collect this as once I'm plugged in and doing my thing - I rarely hear anyone and the vibration plate is - of course - a little noisy when it is on and I have my music over the top of that :-)

I did a 5 minute stint earlier on today and tried a medium fast set of stretches - goodness it does work you over - goodness knows what it will be like at full power - it's powerful enough at 33%

My dad appears to be feeling a lot better today and is getting "his marbles" back - he can think clearly and now realises that some of the recent stuff he's been feeling is all wrapped up with whatever he has. He is in tomorrow and whilst I feel so bad for him - he's got to go through it so they can scan him and also take the needle biopsies. We will hopefully know what it is within two weeks. I have to say I find myself stopping myself short of diagnosing from what I know. I have my fears for what it is and it's no use second guessing.

The man has just turned up and taken the items - he was ever so grateful and they'll go to a good home. What a good idea Freecycle is = we have managed to give away many of the girl's discarded items and other people can make use of them. Saves them going into the skip!

First Session with Vibration Plate

I can see why you need to start slowly on this. I was impressed with it - more so because I tried to hold a couple of squats for 30 seconds and found myself tightening up quickly. I tried a few other of the recommended warm up positions and did - I guess - around 15 minutes of exercises. It isn't easy today as we have high humidity and 30 C temperatures but I finished off on that and did 5 minutes cool down on the cross trainer.

I can see how this will build up over time - I certainly can feel my legs and arms have worked out and my middle. I'm quietly optimistic that with proper regular use I can start to get some real benefit from it.

It is so hot again tonight - I ended up sitting downstairs for 3 odd hours last night and might end up doing the same tonight too the way things are going.

Horrible - Let's Be Honest

Yes it is. Reading this ARTICLE about Danny Baker and his ongoing fight with Mouth and Throat Cancer. He said that it had been "Horrible" and I have to agree with him about that. I think perhaps it's fair to say that I hardly knew I had Cancer - however the tests, the treatment and the operations probably put pay to that :-)

Sheesh - the treatments were pretty bad but - and here's the but - I am sure other people have had far worse than I have. I feel for my dad, at 80, going through these endoscopes and all the waiting and hanging around and whatever treatment he will have to have (we don't know what it is yet though).

When I read Danny's words I thought - yes that's right - it is horrible but you have to put up with it and you have to roll with the punches and do everything you can to get well. I guess that after a while you get quite complacent about it all - I'm often surprised with the way people tell me how they are amazed about how "happy" I've been all this time and how they admire me having been through what I've been through. I don't think so at all. I'm happy to show people that there is light at the end of the tunnel - here I am 5 years on and I'm so much better now.

I wonder if it is fair to say to someone how touch it is going to be? Would you still continue and think positively and go fight the good fight or would you say "no that's not for me"?

Glad Danny is back with us - he's a jolly chap and nice to hear him.

Kid with a new toy

Well almost. The Vibration Plate has arrived this morning - the delivery man looked puffed out - I said that as it was a workout machine it had done its job :-) He smiled - then puffed a lot :-)

Well 42kg plus packaging which I hailed up the stairs much to daughter's amusement. It took about 25 minutes to assemble - it would have been 20 but I switched the uprights and had to redo them :-)

First impressions are good - it's built like a brick sh*t house and is really sturdy. I've wound it up and down the speeds - it will make a fair noise at half speed and above - it just has to thinking about what it actually does and the frequency of the plate oscillations.

I tried it out and can confirm that it does appear to work - my legs certainly noticed it. I will do a major run through later. I'm looking forward to doing some exercise - which is a bit unusual but what I can see with this is that it allows me to do quite a lot of exercise quickly and efficiently - it will certainly help to warm up and cool down too.

HERE is a video to show you how it works. Whilst exercise still sucks - I'm hoping that I'll be able to vary the routines and make exercise a bit more interesting. I also like the MP3 function on this equipment - I normally wear my MP3 player but here you plug it in and it has speakers - what will they think of next?

Health - Diet & Exercise

Tomorrow I hope to get back into exercise and to start to bring myself back to a higher level of fitness than I am now. I'm healthy I think but I really want to drop the pounds now and to get myself back into shape. I've messed around and tried this and that and not gotten back into the habit.

The thing is that having a break of about 5 weeks now really has made me notice how unfit I really am and I just need to get myself back into a routine. I'm working too hard and actually a few breaks to clear my mind may just be what I need. I should be working on a business plan and yet it looks like an academic work. That will change tomorrow.

Diet is actually reasonably on course apart from the weekend with too much barbecue food and beer :-)

Let's see how I get on.

Strange Day

A & L's boyfriends are around now and so we see a lot of them. Barbecue No 2 of the weekend but at least this time they didn't set up the Chimenea to billow smoke and ask out everywhere like they did yesterday!

F1 was good, then the Golf, the Swimming, the Athletics and the Cricket one after the other meant it was a good old day for sport. The girls have bought me some tickets to Brands Hatch to see some motor sport and I've chosen a weekend that suits me so now to see if everyone else can make it? I remember seeing my one and only F1 Grand Prix there years ago and before we had kids my mate was a Marshall so we got to see races and get a paddock pass through him and his girlfriend.

I'm trying to sort myself out for holidays and all that but mindful that I may need to go see my parents so I'll probably hold on for a while to see what is going on in the next few weeks in terms of diagnosis, prognosis etc.

It's never easy of course and Mrs. F. who has now changed jobs can get time off out of the school holidays which is great for us but we may have to consider doing late bookings if the news is not as good as everyone wants.

Dad's health

Seems to be better - losing his Jaundice and getting back to normal but has lost about a stone which is worrying even though he could "afford to lose that" and more - given what he has I'm a little more concerned about things. Mind you, no use second guessing these things and we will know soon enough what it is and what we can or can't do about it.

I guess all of this is taking my eye off of my situation and the reasons behind this blog which is about bladder cancer. Maybe I need to reconsider what goes in here - however, I'll keep it going for a while longer as I'm sure there's mileage to be had in it.

What a week

I don't feel like it has been a week - so much has happened and yet time has shot by. It's half-way through Saturday and I'm feeling a bit bored - I want to come back in here and do some work but I know that isn't going to do me any good - I need to take some breaks from this.

I have to admit to being somewhat nonplussed by Mrs. F. who is now questioning where to put my new exercise machine. I guess it is going next to my orbital trainer as far as I'm concerned and it could go in my office - it would mean losing the drawing board and all the accumulated cr@p that has arrived on it these past few years but it could be done. However, I was asking as I thought perhaps I could set it up in the garage for the benefit of everyone and as it is on wheels I suppose it could go somewhere downstairs but I'd be less thrilled with that. I think I'll just put it where I was going to put it and say "sod you" to everyone else :-)

The Deed is Done

My Vibration Plate Exerciser is ordered and as luck would have it - the distributor is 10 minutes away from me. I was going to buy another one but as they couldn't furnish me with their terms and conditions I decided to do some further investigation and then found another one that is more powerful so I thought that might be worth having a go at as it has another level of programs, more speeds and looks a lot more sturdy.

Hopefully next week I can get going on that.

Exercise - or rather the lack of it

Well - I'm going to have to change all of that later this week and into next week. I took a count of calories earlier this week and was amazed how much I eat and so in the past couple of days I've dropped the amount I eat significantly. Coupled with that I realised that my odd attempts to get back on the exercise habit have been abysmal and of course then I hurt my leg and my back and so I've only half heartedly messed around with the cross trainer.

Today I was reviewing some notes I'd made some time ago about getting a vibrating plate massage / trainer and spent some time reviewing models etc. I'd love to have the price of a small car and invest in a power plate (who wouldn't) but that would seem a bit churlish of me and so I've discussed a plan with Mrs. F. and I think - subject to discussion tomorrow - I will invest in a Vibration Plate. These machines set off vibrations - allegedly this technology was originally designed to treat bone and lean muscle mass loss in cosmonauts who had spent considerable time in a weightless environment in space, in addition to enhancing power and strength and accelerating recovery in Russian Olympic athletes.

I don't believe that you can just step on one of these and the weight drops off of you but the idea that you attempt to adjust lots of times (according to the frequency of the plate) your body and muscles it is meant to assist in toning up and I'm thinking that if I use this to warm up and cool down on then I can get onto the cross trainer in a better condition than I do now. For what it's worth - it may be a useful thing and I can do a number of short sessions a day on it as well apparently. That would be good to haul me off of the keyboard and to give myself maybe a 5 or 10 minute mini session three or four times a day. Worth a go and anything to get me back into the grove again. I find that I am working long hours and working into the evening and weekends again and I just need to reclaim some of that time back and do some exercise. It sucks, it's horrible, I don't like it but I must get my shape back and get myself fitter again.

Better

Everyone seems to be a bit better this morning - apparently no one gave Dad any advice about having the anaesthetic. So I've sent on some of my stuff about that. How can they do that?! Grrrr.

Anyway - he's better this morning - under instructions from us all to take it easy for the next few days or else :-) I think he's got the message - I've sort of dug into my experiences and told them what happened to me and so I think that might help.

Anyway - first round over and more to come. All seems to be OK for the moment and just need to wait and hear back about the next trip in a few weeks time I suppose.

Mmmmm

So Dad's home - no biopsy but a plastic stent (lasts about 3 months) not a stainless steel one. He managed to frighten the bejeebers out of everyone trying to get up to go to the toilet and staggering like a drunk around the ward as he was loaded up with General Anaesthetic! I suppose if you don't know, or no one told you, well you don't know. Then he wouldn't get into a wheelchair and frankly I'd have kept him in overnight but well they like to boot you out these days so he's at home and not listening to anyone about the General Anaesthetic but I'm guessing he'll go to bed and will sleep through and hopefully feel a bit better and not try and be a bloody superhero in the morning.

I've been there and done that, got the tee shirt and felt an arse doing it! So plastic stent - I guess because there are more MRI scans to go next week or the week after when he has to have an inside out type of scan. I imagine high magnetic field and metal don't exactly work together in harmony if my electrical engineering training is to be relied on.... Quite how my dad and my brother who are both also trained electricians didn't get that connection I don't know. Mind you I could be barking mad and have got that wrong - what do I know?

My mum sounded wiped out when I spoke to her so I'll ring tomorrow morning and see how she is coping. my brother and sister-in-law were both around today and are 5 minutes away. I thanked T for being there for them. There you go, I feel guilty and yet I didn't move away from them and - as I complained a week or two back - no one ever came down to see me when I was ill (not that there's a wrong or right about it - it's just a fact that's all and I'm not overly precious about it). I'm in two minds whether I'm needed or not at the moment. I could go up there and spend a few days but I'm wondering whether I'll be needed at the time of diagnosis to help to put things in perspective.

Dad's annoyed that he has to have more done to him but I suppose that's only natural - I was annoyed I had to go in last time but I realised the benefits of checking out the mark on my bladder whether or not it was made by them, was a scar or it may just have been a recurrence. I suppose he hasn't come to terms with all of this yet and I doubt I would have done either it's only been a few weeks and so rationalising your situation is pretty difficult and coming to terms with being that ill for the first time in your life isn't going to be easy either.

Dad's happy enough laughing and joking but I'm sure that it's defence mechanism clipping in. Underneath I can only imagine how this is churning away for him. Not a lot I can do apart from holding myself up as some sort of example and yet it took me a long time to deal with it all.

Let's see how everyone is in the morning...