The week ahead

It is amazing how quickly all these things creep up on you and how your emotions ebb and flow. I was a little better than I have been at these assessments but even so - the stress was obvious in the raised heart beat and high blood pressure. I'm OK now but feel a bit strange. That is most probably to do with this detachment defence mechanism that I use. This works by saying these things aren't really happening to you.

Now in the main this worked last year because everything was traumatic and pretty horrible and (please let this be so) what I am about to have - if the same as last time isn't quite so bad. Not nice (could it ever be?) but you get used to it. Anyway, I tend to go very quiet and become very inward and yet I was putting on a very brave face and laughing and joking in the assessment clinic.

I don't know - I'm OK - I am preparing myself for next week and tomorrow I'll be all bouncy and my normal self - tonight - I'm a little subdued and a little thoughtful which is no bad thing either.

With that - to bed - goodnight.

Well that's over

Phew!

It took ages this morning as the Doctor was held up in the torrential rain and I arrived soaked.

Blood pressure was high but settled down. I must tell them to take the blood test first and then I'll calm down :-) Everything OK and due in 1st October. At least this time the time is right (checked that) and I have permission to drink so keeping myself hydrated after the awful time I had before. I was suitably impressed that I had remembered to bring a urine sample with a test kit they gave me 3 months ago - I followed the instructions to the letter and you have to make it the 2nd pee of the day. So I was somewhat amused when I got there that they wanted another one. As luck would have it - the delay allowed me to brew one up for them after all :-)

I'm getting an old hand at this - unfortunately.

I am just going to dry out a bit and then dash off to the Post Office. I think I also deserve a small bag of Wine Gums or perhaps Pontefract Cakes.

Assessment looms

Yes - so it does and I'm OK with that - a tad nervous if the truth be known but I should be OK. I won't make the mistake I made last time of almost running there and then wondering why I was in a bit of a state :-)

It is at 9 a.m. so that will give me plenty of time to walk home and take the rest of the day off quietly calming down.

I actually - again - have a lot of work to do and I have procrastinated all weekend. Mind you I was out most of Saturday and got on with a fair bit today so perhaps I'm being a little bit hard on myself with that. But I do need to hit some targets as I am out Monday night, Tuesday up in town, back here, out with some old school chums - some I haven't seen for 5 or more years and then I have some more work kicking off later in the week. Phew - so much to do before 1st October! I'm away for part of the weekend as well.

Oh well - no good rattling on here about it - I ought to be asleep and be up early to get assessed!

A Year Ago

I was not too clever of course and I was a bit of a wounded soldier and was curled up for quite a while not exactly feeling great. Wasn't to drive the car for 4 weeks and all that so I missed going to my Friend's installation meeting. Well a year later and I was able to this time and I met up with a friend who I hadn't seen for some time. He had a heart attack the time before I was meant to meet him and so it was great to meet up and catch up with our "conditions", diets and medication - see I'm getting good at this stuff now. We are like a bunch of kids although I'm not sure if having a bigger dosage of a tablet actually means that your condition is more serious than the next?

On a sadder note my cousin is in hospital with heart problems and another Friend is awaiting some tests as he isn't well either. So I wish them well.

Another old friend was telling me about his recent bladder infection (and later kidney infection) and what they had to do to him - a flexible cystoscopy - when I explained what I had done to me and quite how the treatement is instilled regularly and that I'll probably be getting a couple of them a year for the rest of my life I reckoned I'd made my point..

Finally I saw that Marcel Marceau died this morning - the web site isn't reporting his last words though.

Thoughts on just another step

You can understand when people say that they no longer want to have treatment. I can see that it can get to that point. They just want to say that is enough, I've had enough and that is it.

I feel that way now in a way - but I know that actually I need to do what it takes to get well. I'm young enough and mercifully fit enough to keep doing what needs to be done. However it is the stress for me more than anything else - and I hate Hospitals. I'm quite good in that I can now rationalise about this or be philosophical but it isn't nice and it isn't how people imagine it.

When you talk to someone who has been in Hospital all the "yuk" bits are skipped over - we talk about the food the cleanliness the nurses anything but that there was some bugger shoving a lump of plastic into my hand or worse.

Oh well that is a week and a few days away if I get through pre-assessment - just to think last time I went I had to have blood tests, pills and lord alone knows what... Fingers crossed that it doesn't happen again.

Middle Aged Rage

I am still fuming over this idiots e-mail to me. I thoroughly dislike being set up , I hate someone firing rhetoric at me. Now that it is found that it has absolutely nothing to do with me - have I got an apology? Nah!

Some people in high places - as my friend said - have no stature. Perhaps he is right. Maybe I have to hold the high ground and see how I shape up against him.

Life is too short already for this nonsense.

Anyway, I am off out tomorrow and I am looking forward to that and then I can have Sunday at home and Monday in for pre-assessment - yuk!

Oh well, that is just "another step" as someone told me. Each of these things are...

The Return of the Black Dog

My friend and I had a long chat this morning he calmed me down when the Numpty in the previous post had quite simply called my integrity into question. Probably the one thing you should never do to me is to question that.

Anyway, I was telling him that the Black Dog had a visit last night - no doubt caused by all of this and for the first time in a long while it occurred to me that I might not get the answers or result I want out of this next lot of biopsies. That was a shock moment and one that I hadn't got to thinking about recently. Last year - well it was all about survival, if I'd have had to lose my bladder well that was it but now, we have come so far, it would be a shock if things hadn't moved in the right direction.

To combat that, I thought the good thought - that it was clear and I wondered how I'd react to that news. I wasn't expecting to feel quite as emotional about that either. Of course, I can't predict the future or the outcome or indeed my reaction and so it was a bit of a waste of brain power really but that is the Black Dog for you. When you least expect it up it pops and the brain runs riot.

I like talking to my friend - we understand each other when we talk about our mood swings and our hopes and fears. It is really good to hear that it "isn't just me" going through this sort of stuff. The physical side of things is really the thing I can't quite take in. I am no where near as fit as I used to be and it transpires that the body reacts differently in the way it handles this and you handle it. I am intrigued and I will learn more about this but - basically - what used to happen before when your body was "in balance" isn't happening now and there are a number of things that need to happen to get everything functioning the same way as it used to.

More when I know more about it - it does sound intriguing though.

It isn't meant to sound like this but if you have had cancer, it is often difficult to explain some of the more subtle things that have happened to you. Having someone to talk to who has had the same - and is having the same - experiences as you is really helpful.

The Man's a blithering idiot

I have just spent 6 hours trying to respond politely to an e-mail from some blithering idiot who has near as damn it accused me of being some sort of Muppet. I'm not best pleased, I had other things planned for my time and this utter drivel and unsubstantiated accusations have not only upset me but left a very bitter taste as I have been trying to sort out a problem not of my making and suddenly it is my problem and my fault it happened in the first place.

Some people - anyway they have an offer to retract the e-mail by the morning now as I have written a War and Peace response.

Okey Cokey Internet

Has been driving me mad overnight. In, out, on, off, intermittent, mail works then doesn't, web works then doesn't.

Virgin Media are to the Internet business what Enron are to Accountancy and Audit firms!

No matter how much care you take

Some amateur can undo all your hard work. Like a barrack room lawyer some dick has trashed some work I have done and all hell broke loose when I got home this evening! Strewth

Heads will get cracked and arses kicked tomorrow. The trouble with this sort of customer is that they believe everything some raving lunatic tells them and I end up having to go and sort it out. If half (no make it more than that) if 90% of the people actually stopped and thought about things before shooting their mouths off and creating a crisis out of nothing things would be a hell of a lot better.

Planning

Started already, lining up things for the week I am going to be knocked out for.

So many things I have on at the moment and I need to make sure that I have all areas covered properly!

Close to the edge

Not only a brilliant track by Yes but also a close resemblance to the way I feel.

I could say on the brink but let's say close to the edge. Of what you may ask?

Tears - constantly I feel and have felt very emotional and perhaps for the past year or more. Things that never upset me before, wipe me out these days. So sad things, early death, parents grieving for their children, starving people and that sort of thing now tend to get me "close to the edge". I have always managed to brass out any such emotion as it is important (in the way my personality works) to be the steady hand and the emotional rock. However; since having all this happen to me, I am as likely to blub as to be able to explain what is going on, how it affects the world and all the diagnostic and analytical stuff I used to do.

Part of the territory? It must be, stuff triggers me these days that would never have upset me before. I have to walk out of rooms or hide my face even for film endings where I know what is happening and I've seen before.

Long Day

Still at my desk and I have to be out early tomorrow. I'm mindful that I mustn't overdo things, I'm also now firmly of the opinion that I need to shed even more of my voluntary workload stuff. Frankly I should have dumped some of this years ago but no one else would do it and perhaps now is as good a time to find replacements. I really can't do everything and I expect that now the job has ramped up, I won't be in a position for a year or two to do as much as I do.

I pretty surprised that I somehow managed to continue to do it through everything else really. Crikey, I hadn't really thought about that. I missed doing some things this time last year - I am reminded only because this year I am doing them. Organising things and sorting out accounts and admin stuff really are beginning to give me trouble as I don't have sufficient time to do them. I'm sure I am missing something along here :-) like an appointment or some such thing.

Probably for the first time in my life I am having to plan more than I ever did as for some reason, recently, I just appear to forget things like dates and meetings although - so far - I haven't missed any - I just keep getting this "out of control" feeling. I hope I fix that quickly I am normally extremely good at remembering what people say and keeping appointments and doing actions.

The trouble I am having

Getting stuff done is just crazy. I have a pile of things to do here and I did reasonably well today getting most of them done but there are just so many distractions to cope with. I've noticed that I can get things done when I really put pressure on myself to do them but I cannot do what I used to do prior to all of this - which is just blitz through work and give myself thinking time and space.

Everything just seems to drag and take longer than it should and I think it because I haven't worked properly in an office environment for a while and also that this job has some many facets.

Anyway, I made a good start today and I hope that I can give a bit better tomorrow but I have a meeting screwing that up first thing in town.

Tension rises

I'm very conscious that it is just one week to my assessment and two weeks to my "procedure" as these things are called - it is still an operation as far as I am concerned - if they knock you out and cut lumps out of you what else can it be? No don't tell me, it is if they have to cut you open you can call it that I suppose.

Anyway, a year ago I was getting ready for biopsies when they redid the resection. Since then I've had the BCG treatment and another operation and some more treatment and so this is the next 6 monthly one. I really hope that this is the last one though. It is just one of those things but I don't fancy having this every 6 months from now onwards. Of course if results are good then it does mean a change in the way things will happen. Again, not sure if the alternative is any nicer, just quicker and I have had it before and whilst the after effects aren't particularly nice - I think I know how I could deal with them. The other thing is that the treatments gradually take longer and longer between them meaning that you don't have to screw up your short term plans.

So 1 year and it is interesting to reflect back on how stressed out I was then to how I am now. Don't get me wrong I still have a lot of respect for what I have/or had - it can kill you let's not forget that. The difference now is that things are under control, I am being monitored and if we find that it is licked now - then we can really go and celebrate. I'm still not convinced that everything is exactly as it should be and perhaps this time I can get the answer that I want and that means I can get on with things.

Hope I can stay awake

Off to my Friend's 50th party tonight - luckily I am not driving or I think I'd have pulled out - I am absolutely knackered after last week's training sessions up in Scotland. Just more proof to me (if no one else) quite how much all this has taken out of me. Tuesday is the anniversary of the 2nd operation which could be called by some to be a re-bore of my bladder they scrapped so much of it away.

In fact that was some period during my life when I think about it, I really did take a battering then. Anyway - it isn't happening in a few weeks - I will have to look back to my blog and see what I was thinking might be happening to me in a year.

The Journey Continues

Entering the countdown for the next milestone in my journey and it is just coming up to two weeks to go.

The "nag" at the back of your mind says this will carry on - treatment, biopsies - until a decision is made, the hope part which is much larger reckons that this will be the proof that we can move on to the next stage of the treatment.

I don't mind saying that I really hate going into Hospital and all that stuff - it has to be done but I'm always amazed how some people treat it so matter of fact and work wise, sat there reading their newspaper and just getting on with it. I hate every minute of it but then I've had my fair share of Hospitals when I was a kid and in those days the stuff they did to you was enough to put anyone off.

Right - back to work - I'm not getting paid to talk to you lot :-) Oh of course, I'm not actually getting paid anyway!

So Who Won?

Traveling in my own country I need a passport, I have to be fully x-rayed, my laptop checked, my shoes scanned, my belt has to go through separately. Check in needs to be a long time before the flight as it takes an age to get through.

Of course I don't get this on the overground or underground (despite the attacks a few years back) and yet the airline industry must be losing passengers to this extra security and their inability to check you in and out fast enough. The train (which is now so over priced you cannot believe it) takes almost as long to get where I went and you can plug in your laptop and actually work on that.

So 9/11 - who won - everyone flying and there are millions of journeys give a constant reminder of the day where we said we would fight these acts by carrying on life as normal.

Yeah - right!

Other than this I had a great time.

Marking the beginning of the venture (proper)

It has been three months since I started the job and this week the whole thing has started to gain some momentum as we all head up to Scotland and get the partners trained in rolling out the service. We have a gala awards dinner in November which we are sponsoring part of so that we can start to get national exposure, more partners are signing up and customers are wanting us to get going as soon as possible.

There are still a few things to be put in place so that we can get going full steam ahead. It is getting very exciting now with the prospect of getting the service out there, some national exposure and a controlled ramp up of the business.

So I'm off to Scotland a little later today so that we can start the training and get everyone using the systems.

I doubt I will have internet access up in Scotland so it could all go quiet here for a while.

Surrounded by Lovies

You know - marketing types this morning. Trying to organise sponsorship and awards ceremonies etc. It was quite interesting.

Not sure I'd like to be in that market myself as it was all a bit artificial.

Mind you the Bucks Fizz was pretty good and the food was exceptional so it does have its upside - I imagine the diet is blown but it will be anyway this week as I will be at a Hotel. Who can resist a cooked breakfast?