Feeling Good

I really am feeling well these days.

A combination of job, immunotherapy, lifestyle and feeling good about myself these days too. I'm amazed how well I've picked up the job and been able to run that in parallel with the treatment and the other stuff - with a bit of luck I'll be able to complete that work by the end of this week and leave myself free to do some other stuff.

I'm off to the boss's place in Kent now - more work to pick up and do for next week but better that than being quiet.

Another Blood Test

Out of the way. Indeed what they told me about getting there around 2 pm was spot on. I arrived picked up a number, took my jacket off and my number was called!

Now that is great. If I have to do the fasting one ever again (frankly I hope never to have to do one again) I shall remember that and whilst I might be hungry come 2 pm at least I won't have the waiting around.

I've got a great bruise - not where they took the blood but from where the bandage came off!

I was also quite pleased as it rained on the way back and so I had to pop into the pub and a pint was only £1.55! I queried it but no that was the right price. So I had three - well it was cheaper than two pints of normal beer at £2.70 a pint. It was like - buy one get one free almost and the more you spent the more you saved :-)

Some people save so much they fall over afterwards - remarkable.

Phew what a night

Got back home about 00:45 after waiting ages to speak to the person who will run our bar at the birthday party. Anyway that is all sorted out now. At least we have "real" beer for the evening - when you get to my age, you kind of like warm real ale not this deep frozen near absolute zero frozen urine resembling stuff they pump out these days. It is so bad that they have to put an artificial head of froth on the beer as well. Yuk.

Today is going to be interesting as I will be doing my presentation for the first time to a "live" partner.

Mind you they've just phoned and postponed for an hour! Oh well, it may be that sort of day :-)

Another Full Day

And I'm off out again this evening - I have to go and sort my party out with my co-host. We need to get the bar arranged and the food and all the logistics sorted.

I'm still juggling with the two jobs at the moment and the third one - thank goodness - has disappeared off into the distance.

Suddenly it is just one month to the party, less than 5 weeks to my holiday and time is pressing on. I have to get this project finished next Friday or I can stop worrying about what they might do to me in the Hospital as I won't have any wedding tackle left to work on anyway :-)

As usual it is the job that pays the least amount of money that is the most important, nit picking and time consuming. That's life.

But not as we know it Jim!

Another full day

I'm going to be busy as you like again today. I'm ramping up my efforts and beginning to get to see some results from all the effort I'm putting in. The pile of paper appears to be shrinking, mind you I am back to having three PCs on my desk which is a bit limiting space wise too.

The new PC is tiny and it suits me fine to have it separate from the rest as I can then keep all the new business stuff on there and just get on with the other stuff. It also means that I can actually carry it around - as the other one needed you to have been doing bench presses.

Well I'd better get back to it.

Been a funny old day

I have worked my butt off today and managed to get a lot done on all three job fronts. I had a visit which took up some of my time but I still managed to get things sorted out and done.

The trouble I do find is after you have put a bag load of effort into to something and I mean many hours, to get someone slag off what you have done is a bit rich - especially when they ain't paying for it! Anyway, enough said about that.

I had some interesting e-mail exchanges, telephone calls and other things going on as well so a full and busy day - lots done, still lots to do and it probably won't stop there either.

Must go and get some sleep so I can be ready for tomorrow.

Crikey where did the morning go to?

Good grief, I have been banging away on the keyboard all morning and I've just looked up and seen the time. I have a stack of work I need to get done and it is taking far longer than I though it would as I am finding problems with the information and am having to go back and do some research.

Despite that I am feeling rather good and I feel well. I have a feeling that the immunotherapy is making me feel this way and I guess it is doing me good all around as my immune system builds up to overdrive.

The strangest thing about it is that my skin feels warm and smooth (in a bloke sort of way!). Again, I can only attribute that to the treatment not anything else before I get the advertising agency on to me for some revitalising skin cream!

Selfish or Shellfish

Either way one can be inward looking and the other not come out of its shell.

I only say this because sitting downstairs on the kitchen counter is a note for my Wife to attend screening tomorrow and I didn't know until I saw it and suddenly I realised that perhaps I should ask whether she wants to be driven there and back and for me to sit in the waiting room whilst she gets the screening test.

She hasn't told me that she is going. No one has.

I feel bad about it but perhaps they don't want me to be bothered?

I, on the other hand, feel that I should know and at least offer (which I have done on a Post It Note) to drive there and back. It is the very least I can do.

A MUCH better experience this time around

I feel so much better than I did last week. It must be something to do with the reaction you have to this stuff as the first week you hardly notice it at all, the second week you get absolutely flattened and the third week you can cope with it. If it follows the last lot of treatment then the next three will be the same as this one. It takes a little while to sort yourself out afterwards. You just get fit again and you get the next one for six weeks and after that, it takes a week or so to get back to (and settle down to) normal.

Coming up to the 1st Anniversary

It was about this time of year last year, before Wimbledon, that I first noticed that there was something wrong. It only happened once and I saw blood when I went for a pee. That is very disturbing but it happened once and I drank plenty of water and was very careful that I didn't over exert myself. I had just carried a very heavy and quite awkward sanding machine up and down the stairs and felt certain that I had done myself an injury.

Looking back, there was also a few small clots later in the week but I'd put those down to healing and they were minute dots and could almost be put down to an overactive imagination.

The key dates though will be 2nd July - the day it started bleeding and never stopped. 7th July - when I saw the Doctor. 21st July when I was diagnosed. Interestingly it is the same day (this year) that I will be celebrating my 50th Birthday which, last 21st July I wasn't sure I'd actually see.

Other dates would be 25th July - first operation. 15th May - all clear.

Shaken not Stirred

Thank goodness - nowhere near as bad as last week's treatment and remembering last year the same thing happened the 2nd treatment was the worst. The side effects were there but no where near as strong, the slight fever and aches were just in the background. I'm up at a decent hour in the morning not half way through the day and I'm feeling OK. Not great but OK.

Things ran a bit late and so I was 35 minutes late for the treatment. Next week I go to the head of the queue as the two other guys I started with are on a different maintenance schedule.

I felt quite strange about going for this treatment and yet there really isn't anything to fear or be worried about. A bit like my upcoming blood test later this week. Of course it isn't pleasant but these things have to be done. I was talking with the Urology Nurse and we were saying that it isn't so bad having this treatment it is actually the thought of what they do to get the treatment into your bladder that is the thing that frightens most men particularly. I'd rather have this than a blood test! Or any injection for that matter. Once you get over any embarrassment and once you realise that it isn't so bad - it is easy enough to live with.

All unecessary

How strange, I came over all sad about going to get the treatment in a short time. I don't think I've felt like that before almost fearful and tearful at the same time.

I'm OK now but something must have crossed my mind about it - how peculiar.

Goodbye

Mortgage.

Yes after 25 (well 26 years actually) we can finally say goodbye to the mortgage and the house is ours! A huge weight off of the family and me.

I'm relieved about that but not overjoyed curiously. Perhaps how I managed to pay it off rather than how is at play.

Right now I'm on the routine for my treatments. Stopped drinking and now I'll work my way around to getting ready and getting everything in place. Bleach, old towels, toilet paper, medical wipes, anti bacterial soaps, book and reading glasses (well you need to sit there for a while!). Get my meds sorted out too and I mustn't forget to take my late night pill - I only just remembered last time!

I have my notebook to jot down the timings of everything and any reactions - always useful if there should be something happen.

I'm lining myself up for a bad one again. I know that the first lot of treatments followed roughly the same pattern as these but you cannot take anything for granted.

So pleased with the mortgage situation and reasonably so with everything else - I just hope after the recovery I can get the rest of the work I need to get done completed this week!

That wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be

I managed to get the appointment over about an hour earlier than I planned which means I can eat and have a drink before treatment - I was begining to sweat on that one!

I have to stop drinking at 12. Eating - I suppose I could do that anytime but not sure if I could eat and not have a drink afterwards!

I'm going to be half way through the treatment after today. That really is a useful marker in these things. Some have said that the treatment is horrible and yet I can say that you really do put up with a lot if your health and indeed your life depends on it.

Anyway, must go and get ready now.

Busy Busy

Phew

I worked all day today - I have so much on this coming week that I don't know quite what to do first. Treatment tomorrow and I'm preparing myself for a bad one like last week. The trouble was that it took me out for most of Tuesday and I could do with doing some work on Tuesday- I have a load of targets to meet as three jobs are all going on at the same time.

These are jobs that need to be done and the end dates are this week and next week - of course that coincides with the new job's demands too.

Should be a fun week capped off by a blood test on Friday - I don't need that - well I suppose I do - or the Doc wouldn't have asked but it just wrecks another half a day.

That was good

Friday was an interesting day - I had my first Regional Director's Meeting - Mmm. Had the launch party very nice, good food and a lovely Hotel. Went over to see some old friends on the way home and now safely back - we drove through some pretty atrocious conditions. I think it was quite a turning point in the business - it has gone from an idea to a working service and now needs to be built as a business. No one person can do everything that is needed and so we need to lean on each other a bit. It should be fun.

Lots of things to do and little time to do them (as always).

US Grand Prix tomorrow so will sit back and watch that in the evening and get myself ready for Monday again. It comes around really quickly but I am so busy that the days are flying. Anyway that will be 1/2 way through which is a blessing. I also have the week from hell as all three jobs I am working on are claiming my time.

It was great to see my chums and their little daughter - about 8 weeks old and son about 3 1/2. I haven't seen them for a number of years and certainly not since I got the diagnosis.

Well today is the big day

We launch the service or rather we launch the business I think is more the case.

Lots to do and some heavy work this afternoon at the first Regional Director's Conference.

I can see I will be having some fun as we thrash out our strategy for the next three months.

C and I are going and we will pop into some friends who don't live too far away from where we are going. Hopefully it will be a nice few days.

So what about my health?

Well I am feeling very well if slightly over weight - I'm not actually overweight it is just that I haven't lost any these past two weeks and tomorrow with the launch party I'm not likely too either! The BCG has made me think twice about exercising too soon after it and frankly I didn't feel like it at all on Tuesday or Wednesday. I think that it was quite a shock to the system this week. Even so though I am feeling remarkably well and I think the job also has a big factor in these things. You feel valued and you have something to do.

I've got the new tablet PC all sorted out - what a beauty it is as well, handwriting recognition so I can use it like a note pad. I just need to get up to speed with that of course as it recognises most of my writing but it is speed and accuracy that I want so I can use it to take notes in meetings. I can type faster than I can write into it at the moment.

That was a bit of a digression from the subject wasn't it :-)

Anyway, feeling great and despite the pummeling I took on Monday and Tuesday - I'm OK. Next Monday - half way through the treatment. That is important to me as it will mean that it is all down hill from there.

Oh No

Next week is absolutely crammed full of stuff. I have a few other projects on the go and - typical - they have now turned urgent just as I am trying to get the new job on the go. What a nuisance. Oh well I am seeing the guys tomorrow - they will have to do without seeing me face to face next week and rely on me being on the phone.

All good fun. The trouble also is I need to get my blood done so that is hours out of my schedule too. Damn and blast.

Overcame that problem

And I managed to get a good night's sleep at last. Perhaps too charged up about the job? Who knows.

At least I am ready for today - I have a shed load to do before going to the launch party tomorrow.