What if scenarios

The curse of a scientific and intuitive mind is:

[this is a light hearted blog it isn't for real - well not all of it]

• To ask lots of questions and then afterwards wish you hadn't as you didn't like some of the answers
• To review all possible outcomes and weigh up the odds and how you'd react, knowing full well that you reacted differently to what you thought you would do this time
• To make lists and more lists of things to do and then to discard them as time wasters :-)
• To weigh up the pros and cons and then to not like the cons and so ignore them
• To think of the worst case scenario and then add 10 degrees more despair to it
• To immediately pick up on the big problem, work out what is wrong, come up with workable plans and yet your own life is a mess and you can't see where you are going let alone where you came from
• You can sort out other people's emotional problems and leave owning half of them your self.
• You argue in a logical way, points are presented each building on the previous and your wife and kids say "your always right aren't you!" Which of course I am :-)
• You can talk and bore people to death on your specialised subjects which (I hasten to add) do not include train numbers or tram routes.

So a few musings before I hit the sack and am up again in 5 hours or so. No wonder I gave up working in the construction business. I love the company I just hate the hours they keep. Anyway, at least this way I can get a good day's work in and deliver some value. I've been feeling slightly under valued and unwanted recently so its nice to be the expert at something again.

Another long day

I am feeling quite knackered and was almost falling asleep at one point today. Anyway I got the main piece of work done now they want me to do some more - ooeer - not sure about that, the work is OK but the journey is a bit difficult or just nose to tail traffic all the way really.

Another Blog if you feel up to it?

Life Changing Cancer it is called and the lady who wrote it kindly dropped me a line before Christmas and I pop back to her blog and empathise but I don't have anywhere near the severity of cancer that this lady is dealing with.

I find the whole blog informative and balanced and as the lady concerned goes through Chemo at the moment, let's wish her well with the treatment.

Click HERE to go to the site.

Wow what a day

I am absolutely knackered I got up at 5:30 and was on the road at 6 half way into London and then turn left and got to the place really quickly. Had a greasy breakfast (don't tell anyone!). It was a good day but by mid afternoon I was beginning to fall asleep so decided to come back here and complete the last bit of the work.

All good fun! The drive brought back memories of the 80s when I used to work near the office I am at the moment. Spooky.

Oh and they finally communicated the redundancies to the business today!

Now what's wrong?

Wide awake. I mean wide awake and I want to be up early tomorrow to start this small job and blow me, I think I might be a little nervous about this - how strange I'm normally very confident but this is the introvert side of me coming out. I wont know anyone there at all tomorrow - which will be different.

Anyway, so much for trying for the early night. I shall get to the place early tomorrow and have a wander around and see how I get on. It's only three days work (famous last words).

Short Contract Start Tomorrow

Nice, a short three or four day contract - reasonably local to go after. That will be good although I haven't done this sort of thing for a while, I'll be wrestling with Microsoft Project for a while so that will be fun.

Hopefully I'll remember how to do it!

I've had to get dispensation to wear casuals as I can't fit my suit etc. It may go quiet on here for a short while.

Is it too early to retire?

Was out lunch time today. How easily I could get into the go to the pub for a beer each lunch time habit. I like the atmosphere of a pub. I presently really dislike the smell of smoke on my clothes though. I may have smoked in the past but I really do find it really obnoxious these days.

What I like though is the social interaction - so yes - you'd have to go to a local pub not one of these themed kid's pubs. Chatting with the locals, the Landlord and your mates is a pleasant way to pass a few hours, relieve yourself of a couple of £ GB Pounds!

The trouble is how easily you could settle in to that sort of life - it would be brilliant but it has its up sides and down sides. A beer each day would keep the pounds and inches on my waistline and I'd get home in the afternoon and only want to go for a sleep for a few hours :-)

Then there is the getting into a habit problem. Well, it is Tuesday and I should be at the Two Doves, or Blacksmith's Arms or Three Horseshoes etc.

I don't think I ought to do this, I'm too easily led and I'd end up pickled I reckon.

Straining your relationships

Easy to do. Not that I am particularly difficult to get on with but I can be terribly bloody minded these days and more self centred than I ever was. I've noticed that I am a bit more outgoing than I used to be - far more extrovert and can go off on a me me me trip occasionally.

So I would think that I would be pushing some relationships a bit too far with this sort of behaviour. I think it is a reaction to being alive. A sort of "stuff the humility lets get on and party attitude". :-)

So I just need to be careful that I don't overdo or push too hard. I might get away with it for a short time but people will soon get hacked off if I am like it all the time.

Behaviour

I don't like one of the things that I have now. I am really jumpy about anything I get that might be wrong with me, a blocked nose, a sore knee, chapped lips a cough etc.

I'd probably have not thought twice about anything like that a year ago, now I think, "What was that?", "Have I got....?" and so on. I suppose it is the opposite of the symptoms that may have gone undetected from Bladder Cancer as I could well have had it for some time but just not noticed it or the symptoms. Maybe I am over compensating for that. It does however make you prone to mile hypochondria as you just don't want to get anything else.

It is strange because you then worry about it. A small cough could be a sign of something else, like Lung Cancer and your brain doesn't help much as it takes off on wild flights of fancy about what you might have.

All my clothes have shrunk

I'm still feeling (and looking) over weight and I've lost a little bit but trying to get into my decent clothes is a laugh. We are going out to lunch today and I have almost had to shoe horn myself into my trousers. I keep looking at my suit hanging in the wardrobe and wondering quite how I'll get back into that for interviews and the like. It looks like Mission Impossible to me!

I might have to go and find some of those "old man" trousers that do up comfortably just under your arm pits :-) Nah, maybe not...

If you keep a Journal

Thanks to G who reminded me in a round about way to publish today's post.

If you keep a journal and you don't need a blog to do that, every so often go back and read it either from the start or a particular month and then compare how you felt then to how you feel now. In my case, each time, I do see a massive improvement even though it is only 6 months on. For example seeing the poor old fella after his first operation not doing very much except sitting down and being bored, not allowed to lift anything and taking things easy to how I am now is also a good boost to your morale. You can see that you have gotten better and you can take comfort from knowing that you do get over these things.

Are You Alright Now?

Ummmm!

Honestly what do you say to that question? I have given up the 60 second answer and gone for the "Yes thanks, a few more tests and they'll know."

Short of going around with a badge (or perhaps the Tee Shirt) it is pretty difficult to explain that you don't really get cured but you can become "Cancer Free" - that smacks of Political Correctness to me but there you have it.

I think there was a modicum of shock after I had spoken to the person I know who also has BC when they are 5 years in and still on maintenance therapy every 6 months. This is not a cheap disease to treat and whilst it is controllable you need to keep your eye on it as left untreated it is a tricky and aggressive little cancer.

Mundane

Apologies for the somewhat mundane and bland feel to this blog. Getting and recovering from Cancer isn't glamorous and things don't happen like on the films and in the books.

I was determined to try and get an entry a day into here and yet, sometimes I look back and think - how boring so you sat down and scratched your bum today - does everyone really want to know that? No, I suppose not. The ordinariness (is that a word? my spell checker says it is) should say to many people that recovering from this type of cancer isn't dramatic, you don't miraculously get up and its gone, you just go about your day to day life and gradually get fitter, better and feel things are "getting back to normal". Normal for me is what you see.

I promise to try and be a bit less boring on this blog.

So What Made My Day?

I got a call from someone I have known for some time who didn't know that I had Bladder Cancer, but knew there was something wrong and that I had had treatment.

The call went along the lines that they were diagnosed in 2001, had the operation and have had the BCG treatment and are in fact in part 2 of 3 of their treatment at the moment. They are on their 6 month maintenance regime and everything is going well. The odd bad reaction to the treatment but other than that everything is fine.

I cannot tell you quite how upbeat that has made me feel, there is someone out there who has the same thing as I do, is a few years in advance of me, looks well and is recovering and I can speak to them. Wow, I hope that the tests in March are good.

Good news stories are hard to come by as you always tend to hear either the miracles or you hear the awful stories. Generally the 5 year mortality on BC is 70/80% or better and so I am hoping that I have responded to the treatment.

It really is good to have someone to talk to who has gone through all of this. Some people may look strangely and say "What, you have to carry that on for all those years?" The answer is easy really, the alternatives to not having treatment and the speed at which this could get you if left unchecked and untreated are not worth thinking about; 3 or 6 treatments of BCG a year may sound unpleasant but I'd rather have those than just let the Cancer loose in my body.

What kept me at my desk this week?

Until about 5.30 each day? Habit I reckon. I have been given 3 months notice and as it has never happened before I am sort of wondering what I should do. I spent quite a bit of time this week cleaning up my files and tidying up the files and folders on my laptop and making everything presentable. I finished off some reports and had the one meeting which I have now backed out of and finally I handed over a number of web resources that I had "reserved" for the business - well I couldn't keep domains with the company name in them now could I?

I had an interesting meeting tonight and it was amazing how many people thought that I was cured - as I look so well. How peculiar!

I should have spent my time on doing some other paperwork down the week so I will have to do that Saturday (today already) and my office is beginning to see space and desktops and clear areas in it.

Who knows I might actually get organised soon...

To add to that

I haven't yet worked out if all this directed anger is to do with being angry at getting cancer, feeling a lot better these days, something else. It is who I am directing my anger at that is interesting, those close to me probably notice that I am probably quite different these days and not at all angry with them or anyone else but things like rubbish service and/or stupidity (which both rank high on my list alongside Estate Agents and Double Glazing phone calls) really do get the Victor Meldrew in me surfacing.

If you hear cries of "I don't believe it!" emanating from me - run for the hills......

The Devil in me

No one gets off the hook these days. Try and have me over or upset me at your peril. A couple of people are trying to play silly buggers at the moment. One is an on-line shop who have been pretty dreadful for over a month so far and the other is someone who is trying to use me to get to someone else. I wonder how far I can take that one :-)

So what am I saying? Well, I don't think I play by the same rules anymore and I'm quite happy now to take the route that is in your face, or that is my route and no one else's. I'm not explaining this very well. How about I am going to give the first problem absolute hell and woe betide anyone who gets in my way - these guys are a bunch of misfits in charge of a business and I am going to tell them so and I may not stop even once I have got my credit back from them. Super aggressive for me but I think I will feel good after I have balled them out again.

On the second one, perhaps a different tack and not so aggressive but I will turn the tables on that as well. See what I mean? I'm just not in the mood to take prisoners at all and my anger with these people is not the explosive anger of old, it is controlled and assertive and used to do what secretly I've always wanted to do but been too reserved to do it. Have a go at these jumped up idiots and stick them in their place.

I am far more up for a fight these days (metaphorically that it) than I ever was before.

Bring it on :-)

Clearing out the mess and accumulated debris

My Office is beginning to look empty, clean and tidy again. You can see the surfaces of the desks and the drawing board. If I can alter the office around sufficiently I will put the cross trainer in here. A bit more filing tomorrow and a tidy up and it will almost look professional again. Almost!

At least I found some of the papers I had been searching for these past four weeks and it occurred to me that I might change the filing systems completely to gain some more space. Roll on the paperless office.

A bit scary

I had quite a bad night last night - I was awake for a fair while and I don't think it had anything to do with the anniversary as I didn't realise that until this morning. I think it was the film last night where Hugh Grant was a Doctor in the ER and someone got a Foley (a catheter to you and me) shoved in them. The actor did a good job as it looked like his eyes were out on stalks. However, I just had a bad dream and recalled the operation with all the usual nonsense that your mind throws in to over dramatise what actually went on. I'm certain the catheters and needles weren't really that big. Thank goodness for the alarm clock.

Checking back among the posts

I noticed that I hadn't mentioned that when you have the flexible cystoscopy that you also get checked for Prostate Cancer as well. Now - despite what you hear and what you think, it isn't that bad at all. They did mine after the cystoscopy and a few seconds and it wasn't uncomfortable at all. The Prostate can give you similar symptoms but that is a bit rarer. Because of where the Prostate is situated (right under the bladder) there can be complications I suppose. The other one is that under BCG treatment your PSA can go through the roof so you are advised not to have a PSA test whilst you are under treatment.