Ready but

Still 1 hour and 45 minutes to go. I've done my exercise, I#ve read my blood pressure which is semi amusing (well to me not a professional). The Systolic is a bit high and the Diastolic is fine - pulse is a little higher than normal at just over 100. All within acceptable limits and I hope once I've done a bit of deep breathing at the Hospital and plugged into my music that it will be as good as it can be for me.

Drinking water, answering a few emails and generally pottering about at the moment. It tends to drag waiting to go and I'm taking the opportunity to do a bit of reflecting and not too much worrying. I am also just playing with games on the PC like Tetris, Solitaire and Mah-jong - they keep my mind off things and are about all I can manage in terms of attention span.

I realised that I probably cannot do my exercises for a week after the biopsies. I did go back to it too early once and started myself bleeding. Perhaps I'll go for walks around the village to keep active and not do the strenuous stuff I've been used to doing on the cross trainer. On Saturday I actually programmed one myself on the cross trainer and nearly knackered myself doing it. On Friday I did the Mountain setting which is great except as you get towards the end the high drag on the pedals really stretches your calf muscles and you need to cool down. these days I do a series of push ups using my legs to stretch my calf muscles and also work on my upper body. I then go onto the dumbbells and do a bit more with those so my exercise routine has gone to around 40 minutes now from 30.

So here I am again - for the 11th time (if you count the time I got sent home as there we no beds). Ready to go into Hospital - I'm an old hand at this now and so I know what's coming, what's expected of me etc. I'll see if I can ask to go out today if possible but I'm prepared for an overnight stop if needed. It's a good thing that I'm tired too as I can try and get some sort of dozing done whilst waiting for the Operation itself.

Morning

All a bit rude - up at 06:30 but have had a terrible nights sleep. I thought I'd make myself tired out but appear to have stoked my head full of imagery (I watched Master and Commander and Contact on DVD last night). The dreams and nightmares were pretty bad.

I've had FOCC breakfast - it tends to fill me up nicely and just having a coffee - I have 24 minutes to finish that off and then it's water only until 11 as instructed or 11:30 as shown on the instructions. I'll defer to what I was told and stop at 11. I'll probably leave here at about 5 or 10 past and stroll up - it doesn't pay to be there early and I'm sure that just after 11:30 will be fine and I can get myself off into the zone.

After writing this I'm going to spend a short while messing around on the internet. Then I'm going to do some exercise, have a shower, pack my bag and then get myself ready to go. It's meant to be a sunny day - it's actually drizzling at the moment. Mind you, it is the start of Wimbledon so anything can happen.

Oh well - let's see how things pan out :-)

So here we are again then

It's just gone midnight - I decided to stay up late so that I'm tired and can get to sleep without giving myself a difficult time with my over active imagination. I have my alarm set early as I have to have breakfast by 7:30. I don't have to be in until 11:30. This will allow me to have breakfast and after 7:30 just to have water which I can drink right up until 11:00. I shall make sure I do that too as it helps quite a bit.

I've packing to do and I intend to do some exercises in the morning, have a shower and finish off packing so that I'm relatively busy before going in.

I feel a tiny bit apprehensive - given the last time I was in that isn't surprising but I hope they just cut out the area they saw, have a good look around and maybe take a few small biopsies and just let me get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

Of course - then there's the wait for the Out Patient appointment and the tale of the Microscope to attend to.

For now - I can already feel the back of my wrist throbbing - the cannula will no doubt do that once again. I hope that this will be the last of these but I suppose I'll have to await those results to hear what my fate will be.

I found my head wandering to some very dark places today - I perhaps shouldn't have so much time to myself sometimes. That's out of my head now and whilst it isn't going to be a day to look forward to tomorrow at least as I close this blog I know that it will all be over in less than 18 hours from now.

Sunday - Father's Day

My three strong bottled beers I got from A & L cannot be touched until after my operation so they'll just have to sit in the fridge until I'm ready for them - a day watching Wimbledon with a handful of beers sounds good. I shall force myself to take things easy for a day or two after the procedure - I really want to get on with work as it is getting to the exciting time now. However, I know the penalty for thinking you are fitter than you are and managed, a couple of times, to set myself back in the past.

Preparations for tomorrow are mainly completed - all MP3 players, my Kindle and phone are charged up and ready to go. I need to pack my bag but that can wait - I'll have plenty of time in the morning to do that.

I just need to re-read the instructions I've been given and to remember to hydrate myself properly. Well tomorrow will come soon enough and it's a lovely day - it's Fathers Day and I intend to do very little if anything from this point onwards.

Family Celebration

Well that was a nice evening - met up with the family, Aunt and Uncle, Cousins and 2nd Cousins etc. Lovely to see them all. My Uncle looks (not surprisingly) like my Dad and so do I and my Cousin M so it was a bit spooky to see us all together. When the whole lot of us are in one room it can be pretty spooky :-)

Was a lovely do, 60th Anniversary - that's probably something not many people would see - many would be lucky to see 50 I suppose.

We very rarely have parties but there is one in August when A becomes 18 and she has very kindly invited my Uncle and Aunt and Cousins - which is very nice of her to do. I think the last party must have been my 50th and they kindly turned up then. It looks as if a good number can make it but as it is also another birthday that weekend some can't. It doesn't matter really - it will be nice to see some of them there and to repay hospitality and to let them have a knees up without having to do the organising themselves.

I'll speak to my Mum in the morning - she'll be mortified that she could not attend - I've taken plenty of photos - hopefully not to "rub it in" that she wasn't there :-)

Well who'd believe that? Scar Wars X

So this is the 10th time I've been in for an Operation - 10! Well I thought it might be 9 but then went and checked it out.

I suppose, if you were reading this and have not had Bladder Cancer you'd wonder at having 10 Operations. Well it isn't quite as bad as you probably may think because:

• You get used to it - by that I mean - you realise quite early on that you'll have to be in and out a fair amount even if it is just to take a biopsy like this visit is
• It comes with the territory - there is every possibility that they'll need to do a minimum of three operations - TURBT (1), Biopsy and Re-TURBT (2) and a follow up biopsy.
• After treatment of a high grade cancer with BCG - in the UK they follow that up with full biopsies after each stage including maintenance.

I very much doubt that it will be the last one and it's been almost a year since my last one whereas for the 4 years before that I'd had at least 2 operations a year :-(

It was nice to get the two visual flexible cystoscopies rather than the full operation - again quite how you can imagine (if you aren't a sufferer) that this is preferable may be difficult to understand. However, it's worth considering this in your deliberations:

If you were, unfortunately, to get bladder cancer there is something to consider which is that you will be monitored closely. It DOES or CAN come back - it's annoying that it does this but, the upside (believe me if you have this it is) is that it can be treated and treated well with surgery, Immunotheraphy treatment, Drugs and if worst comes to worst, they can cut out the bladder altogether and build a neo bladder or do something else - they can save you - they have the technology and so the downside to all of that is that they keep their eye on you all the time, you have scopes, operations and other things all designed to keep you well. You often hear of people's cancer coming back and getting them after they thought they'd been cured etc but the thing with Bladder Cancer is that they'd be onto this fast as you like.

It is a whole of life thing of course and that means that I'll probably be being checked right up until the end of my life. I guess that I should be reassured by that but at the same time it is a little daunting too. At least I'll be looked after.

Anyway - 10th Operation in less than 5 years. Add 3 Flexible Cystocopies and the X-Ray which was a pretty low point, then I've had 14 things done in 5 years. Add my BCG Treatments (I can't remember if that was 24 or 18 visits) plus around about 10 Out Patient Visits and you'll soon see how it all adds up. On three Occasions I've been in for more than 2 days, twice I got out in a day and the remaining 4 were 2 days. For 3 of these Operations I had 4 weeks off twice and 2 weeks off last time. All the others were meant to be one or two days recovery.

It's a fair amount of lost time if you think about it - each BCG is a day off and in reality it is 24 hours one day to the next - generally it meant I only worked a few hours on the day and day after treatment. So I reckon that I've probably had about 20 weeks off in 5 years.

So - standby for Scar Wars X

If you want to know where the other Scar Wars Blog Posts are they are here:

Scar Wars I
Scar Wars II Scar Wars II Recovery
Scar Wars III
Scar Wars IV Delayed
Scar Wars IV
Scar Wars V
Scar Wars VI
Scar Wars VII
Scar Wars VIII
Scar Wars IX

Hopefully Scar Wars X will be a non event - I could do without too many adventures!

Last Working Day

Before the operation. I'm feeling OK today and yet a little fluttery underneath. I find that the nearer I get to the event, the easier distracted I am. I'm in pretty good shape this time to go in as my blood pressure is much lower than it has ever been and I feel in good physical shape. I'm still a little heavier than I want to be but if I could work out how to drop 20 pounds by Monday - I'd be onto a good thing and wouldn't need to work again :-)

I'll see how the rest of the day goes - hopefully a little easier than yesterday. I'm now in the zone of "I just want this out of the way" until then I have my Uncle and Aunt's 60th Wedding Anniversary party to go to on Saturday. That will be a hoot :-) Shame my parents and brother and his family cannot make it - well they probably could make it - but they don't travel well. Somehow you'd have thought they would have made the effort to come along but they probably have something important to do like dusting the fireplace.

Windows 7 and Web Cam

I have a web cam and a spare one - used before and thought - I know - I'll set up the web cam to monitor my driveway and use some software I have to do motion sense and capture and record anyone coming up my drive.

Yea right. Windows 7 supports neither of them and there are no drivers for them so they will join the great landfill along with the software and CDs etc that go with them - that's progress for you :-)

So I've ordered a new web cam which at 12Mp is pretty impressive and it has night vision and lots of other widgets on it. At least that will help defend the car when I replace the covers on the wing mirrors.

I realised today that I've been beating myself up about progress and didn't really need to as I've made a lot of progress in reality and just need to remember that. My last working day tomorrow and I intend to clean up the office a bit and make sure everything is tidy.

It could be interesting tomorrow morning - my daughter was meant to get me some Cottage Cheese today - she delayed and then went out to dinner and arrived back here a few minutes ago without it so I'll have to improvise tomorrow - I have a bit of Quark left and I spied some soft cheese so I'll use that as it's nearly similar. What a nuisance though especially as she took off with £5 cash so I'd better remember that I suppose! I can always wander down to the shops and get some later in the day I guess.

L finished school today and so that's it I suppose - the end of an era - both are finished at school both will be at University after the summer and I'll have to learn to talk to Mrs. F. again I suppose :-) That'll be interesting.

Exercise continues and blood pressure remains encouragingly low. The diet seems to be working although I overdosed on soup today :-) I shall have to think up something different to have for my dinner tomorrow!

Can't be arsed

I know it sounds bad but I really can't be arsed to do anything too much at the moment. The operation is about to hove into view and I get distracted and restless. It was funny though that I was speaking to my business partner about not having achieved much and as we talked about it we both came to realise that, in fact, I'd done a lot of work this week even though I felt I hadn't. It's a bit of a guilt trip too as he is stuck into a piece of work that only he can get on with and I need that work done before I can add my piece to it.

It is Ls last day at school today - she has just left to go and do her final Maths exam and with any luck she'll be able to get the results she needs to go to Cambridge in September/October.

It's funny how my nerves are beginning to kick in now - I thought I'd be OK about it but I suppose that it's only natural to worry a bit about things. Work distracts me but I also get then distracted from work with the odd random thought. At least I made my list of things to be done before Monday so I'm happy that is started and I can add to it if I get any of these random interrupt thoughts.

Blood Pressure

Still good and very pleased with that I am too. My exercise routines are getting better and I managed over 7km tonight.

Have to say I'm beginning to feel a little apprehensive - pretty normal for me - just getting to the stage of getting a little sad and a little pensive about things. I'm certain that it will all go well on Monday - I just need to get my act together over the next few days and get myself "in the zone" to go in. I suppose I didn't have my Kindle the last time I went in so that will be useful as it has music and books and an audio book in it plus I have my MP3 players (3 of them now) so I shouldn't run out of stuff to keep me distracted.

I certainly notice that I'm feeling a bit quieter and withdrawn than I normally am and I guess that is just another way of me dealing with things too.

Well - better get off to bed and see if I can get any sleep - the dreams are most bizarre at the moment - the other morning I was on a Cruise Ship that couldn't get through an area so we disembarked and folded the ship up and carried it - then unfurled it again - I have NO idea what that was all about - it seemed very realistic but even in my sleep I knew it was too ridiculous for words :-)

Quark

Well - this morning I had my first dealings with using Quark in the Budwig recipe for Flax Seed Oil and what is normally Cottage Cheese.

First, Quark costs about the same and has little or no salt or sodium in it. It looks much like any cream soft cheese and was quite difficult to get level measures and also to get it off the spoon at all as it is quite a creamy consistency. Having said that, I did struggle manfully to get it in the mixing bowl and added the flax seed oil - it mixed in pretty much as Cottage Cheese does but is much thicker. I added some milk to bring it down to a better consistency but perhaps a little too much as I made it quite runny.

It tastes really sour on its own but it was fine poured over some cereal though. It certainly doesn't have the slightly salty taste that Cottage Cheese does but it is still quite a sour taste.

I think what I might do is go between the two as I go on - there doesn't appear to be much Cottage Cheese around with reduced Sodium - although, having said that, most is pretty low by most standards, a serving providing about 10% of the daily allowance.

Quark is only sold in small tubs but is around the same price point so cost isn't an issue. I can probably do more with Cottage Cheese recipe wise but will see how I get on. For the moment, it seems to do the right things - that's the most important part.

Coffee with Flocky

A nice wander down to the local Costa Coffee and a chat with Flocky starts the day off nicely. Unfortunately, overnight, some little scroat has come up the drive way to the house and stolen the wing mirror covers off of the girl's car. It's a nuisance and it's a shame we aren't allowed to electrify our cars in the UK - I'd hate to affect the little sod's human rights! We have some bloody strange legislation from the European wet liberals that doesn't allow us to electrocute or otherwise castrate or kill trespassers and thieves. Some say I'm a little to the right of Attila the Hun when it comes to my politics :-)

So, perhaps I will set up a little webcam to sort this out in future. It's a quiet little road but occasionally we get this sort of minor irritant.

Oh well - better get on with some work I suppose :-)

Curry with friend

And we got around to talking about his Dad's death a few months ago and mortality and how it was about 5 years ago that I got the news etc. It wasn't a maudlin type of conversation, more a review of how life is and how easily it can be taken away. His Dad being a case in point. He died very suddenly and he wasn't ever ill or showed any signs. OK - now - it was a godsend that he died quickly, knowing that his widow was taken care of - he was worried about that as they took him away in the Ambulance. He thought about others before himself even at that trying moment.

He died from a stroke that affected his Brain Stem - that was it - we discussed the whole thing and the view that when he saw his father moments after he had died how it wasn't him, there was no life there. It's a sobering thought that all my close friends have lost their fathers and yet my dad is still alive. I am going to my Uncle and Aunt's 60th Wedding Party this weekend and like I've stated before - I go to these but my Mum and Dad and my Brother don't. It's a shame really. Whilst I can't say that I'm bosom buddies with my kid brother, I think I'd get my arse together and go see him for an anniversary or key moment. As you may recall, neither my brother or my parents turned up for my 50th birthday. I suppose I should be a bit more "hurt" than I am about that but, like the conversation I had tonight, I really can't be arsed to get upset about it anymore.

I feel good and bad about that all at the same time. My Mum would come at the drop of a hat and maybe I ought to offer to sort that out but Dad would just whinge and she wouldn't want to leave him on his own.

I HATE the idea of getting old and I hate the feeling that I am turning into my father too.

We, Mrs. F., A and L will go to the party this weekend - we will face the usual questions about how come my parents aren't there or my brother but we will be and that's important. They think I'm seriously ill. My cousin, their daughter, has had Breast Cancer and she and I are kindred spirits - we have the "life mantra" let's do it now before it's too late and all that :-) I keep trying to tell them I'm fine but I think - given the family history - and the experiences most have with the "Big C" that they look on the two of us as little miracles! :-)

Anyway - I am annoyed but understand why my parents and brother don't go to these things but you'd have thought, as it's family and very rare that they'd come along. After all, being very blunt about it, it may be the last chance my father and his brother actually get the chance to meet each other. I think it's sad but then again, I don't really see eye-to-eye with my brother and I suppose you could look at it in the same way. My only redeeming feature is that at least I go up and see my parents and make myself available to meet him - even if he doesn't want to meet me.

Families are shit sometimes aren't they?

Quiet Time - Before the Storm I bet

All gone quiet here at the moment. Most of the work is done but my business partner needs to work on something that will then free me up like a cork out of a Champagne bottle! There's lots of little things to be done at the moment and the little stuff takes up a lot of time. The other problem is that each relies on something of its predecessor and so we have bottlenecks and it isn't easy to do parallel working at this stage in the business.

It's exactly one year ago since we started - we commenced with 6 (4 founders +2) and we are now at around 5 but 2 of the original founders are not with us. that really has cost us at least 6 months if not more as we have had to fill in for those missing people and replace them too.

I'm busying myself with work on the business plan and tidying up what I've already done and hopefully we will be able to bring it together in the next two months or so. Then we will see if we are barking mad or have something that someone will want to invest it.

Things are quiet at the moment - I doubt that will last very long at all.

All be over this time next week

And I'll either be languishing in Hospital or be home. I hope the Latter.

I'm getting little bursts of not being happy about going in but nothing too bad. I never have liked Hospitals and maybe I'll count up the number of times I've been in after this trip in. It's probably 8 or 9 times I think.

It is almost getting to my record of when I was a kid - I think that was 11 times in total for my Ears, Nose Throat and goodness knows what else. It's amazing there is anything left of me to cut away :-)

All good fun - not :-)

One Week To Go

Funny how I looked at my watch and thought - this time next week. In fact it will be this time next week when I'll be climbing into my operating gown and setting myself up for a series of consent forms, BP readings, talks with Consultant, Anaesthetist and Registrar plus the Nurses. I try and keep myself to myself, I am not one of these people who natter away with small inane chitter chatter. I far prefer to get myself into a zone where I am in my own world, listening to music and then a little later just waiting for the tell tale sound of clogs and trolley when they come to get you. Invariably, I've been sitting for around 2 (or more sometimes) hours by the time that comes and in a way it is a bit of a relief as you know that you're on your way to the theatre and thereafter, its one minor pain in the hand and that's you out of it for a while.

But that's a week away :-)

A little too much to drink

Yesterday - we carried on and had a few too many - not that I was particularly hung over you understand but the funny thing was that I got a call today and we met up again for a couple of beers at lunch time. Well, thank goodness I don't have too many occasions to drink or have large meals again until September when the season kicks off again. The odd meeting here and there which I can cope with but, luckily, not too much else.

That will allow me to continue dropping weight and keeping to my diet.

Mrs. F. has managed to find some Quark Cheese. I'll try it out later this week when I finish off the cottage cheese and I can report on what it is like. It certainly has next to no sodium or salt in it which is good.

My Aunt called to make sure that I'd be OK to go to her party next week - which I will. It's funny how people think you are at death's door when of course you're not. It was surprising how many people were quite seriously worried about me yesterday, you'd have thought I was going to have something amputated :-) It's very strange what I think is acceptable and what they do.

Nice Surprises

My suit, the one I use for Lodge meetings fits :-) Just three weeks ago it was almost cutting me in half and I couldn't wear either of my waistcoats because they wouldn't button up. This morning, my shirt felt loose around my neck, my trousers are a snug but not uncomfortable fit and my waistcoat and jacket actually do up. Three weeks ago I couldn't do the buttons up as they hardly met. It's nice surprises like that which are the most welcome - it just shows how much weight I've lost in the past few weeks.

Yesterday Steve Kelley dropped me a note that if I could find Low Sodium Cottage Cheese, that would be even better for me especially as I am under treatment for high blood pressure (not that you can call it high now). Despite lots of research we cannot find it at all but what we did find was that Quark is readily available and that has just traces of salt and sodium. So that will go on the list in place of Cottage Cheese. Having said that, I do eat a fair bit of Cottage Cheese anyway as part of my diet and so I might just balance that or throttle it back as I'm having 6 tablespoons every morning and probably 4 at lunchtime. I'll record what happens on this as we go.

However, the good news is that I'm obviously losing weight and feeling good, blood pressure is nicely stabilised at 130 over 90 or less than that almost all the time.

A week and 2 days to go until I need my Rigid Cystoscopy, I really hope that they don't decide to pull me around as much as they did last time :-( I still look back at that as worse than having the original tumour cut out in the first place.

It's coming up to 5 years in July - 5 years and yet the trouble really happened around about now 5 years ago. I spotted a couple of bits of blood in my urine but thought it was to do with lifting about the heaviest thing I'd ever lifted up and down the stairs. Within weeks, all that was to change. Wow 5 years - I can hardly believe it has been that long. What a ride!

Exercise went on hold tonight

I was on an emergency errand. My friend's mother lives locally and I made sure that she has my number so that if she needs anything she can get me, or one of my other friends who lives locally. It was actually OK to give up my exercise as I decided to walk there and back which was quite good - I suppose it is 20 - 25 minutes walk and so I managed to get a good 40 to 50 minute walk in place of exercising on the cross trainer.

It was a simple thing to fix. the Freeview box wasn't responding so after checking the batteries in the remote and being an IT Bod myself, I just cycled the power to the box or as they say in the call centres "Turn it off and on again" and hey presto it worked so I was there all of 5 minutes. On the way home Mrs. F. drove straight past me :-) Not that I wanted a lift of course.

I'm out tomorrow to a Lodge meeting and it will have been a year since I gave up the Secretaries job. It will be nice tomorrow as I have a guest and he and I can sit back and enjoy the meeting and I don't have to do anything. It's quite pleasing in a way and we have a healthy lunch too - a salmon salad - which will be nice. But can I resist the temptation of the cheese and biscuits when they come around? If the Brie is beginning to run and the Stilton is ripe too I may have a problem. Perhaps I will forgo my desert and have a little bit of cheese - how I miss it :-) Anyway - I'm sure I don't have to live like a hermit and can treat myself once in a while!

Two Weeks On

And the FOCC addition to my diet appears to be working in small ways. I have lowered my blood pressure to normal levels which is pretty impressive. I was amazed that it was "normal" at the Hospital although it was a bit high at the GPs. The daily readings I do show a marked improvement and looking back to last year and before it is like falling off a cliff.

I can certainly feel better and circulation is markedly improved as is my skin. Because I'm also eating far more fibre and vegetables and fruit - there is also an improvement in digestion.

Yes - I'm pleased about doing this - Mrs. F. isn't wild about the cost of the Flax Seed Oil but at £9 for 2 weeks worth it isn't so bad. The Flax seeds and the Cottage Cheese aren't that expensive so it evens out. I've made myself a batch of lentil soup which is pretty wicked - I used red lentils, mushrooms, carrots, tomatoes, mint and a handful of other herbs and spices. It's got a fair old kick to it :-) I'm eating no bread, margarine, cheese, cakes, biscuits etc. I'm having plenty of fruit and salads, oily fish, hummus, cottage cheese, fish sticks, soups and the occasional jacket potato.

I'm exercising at least every other day - although I've done everyday this week so far. I'll probably not do Saturday as I am out. Around 30 minutes at a time and trying to get to 7.4kM or above (around 4 miles or more). I'll not try for my target 5 miles (8kM) for a while until I lose a bit more weight and strengthen my legs a bit. I tend to then do a series of stretches and exercises for 5 minutes afterwards with some small dumbells that allow me to stretch down.

I then go and cool down a bit and take one or two Blood Pressure readings and record those - hence I get a good view on blood pressure and pulse. This is really useful to keep the habit going. I must remember to also measure my weight, waist, chest for my weight loss chart. I forgot last week (I only do it weekly).

Whilst exercise sucks (A phrase I have no hesitation in stealing from fellow sufferer Steve Kelley Thanks Steve), it does make a difference and it's no use dieting without putting in some exercise as well. I've made it a habit and that's part of the trick to it. It is so easy not to do it but make it part of a routine and also understand the benefits (not always apparent as you struggle for breath and find yourself sweating like crazy, slightly red in the face and tired out at the end of a session). How anything that makes you like that is good for you I have no idea :-) Anyhow, you don't need many sessions to see what a difference it makes. I've probably lost one notch on my belt size this past 2 weeks as well as feeling much better.

Still sucks though :-)