Friday, 24th May, 2024.
It’s the Friday of the Bank Holiday weekend. A full moon last night. Yesterday I had a meeting with two folk who might — I believe will — change my life. This morning I picked up my next batch of Bicalutamide and Rivoroxiban (is there a consultancy somewhere who dream up these words?), testosterone blockers for cancer and blood thinners for pulmonary embolisms. I had a distressing conversation with the guys who process the orders for the catheters, they are due on Tuesday (owing to the Bank Holiday) but I think I’ll run out on Tuesday. If there are any problems I am in deep trouble. Without them I literally can’t pee.
This is my life.
I’m 62, single, isolated, fat, crippled, an alcoholic (not really but some would say so) probably dysfunctional in the erectile department, at least for the next two years, and I pee through a tube, with an MS ravaged bladder. So this is likely to be my default operating frequency for the rest of my life. Good luck with the girls, son. I don’t fancy me. Four years if cancer comes back, twenty if nothing else gets in the way.
I have eight Facebook friends who are no longer with us, plenty my age are’t still breathing, I am.
No complaints.
I’ve decided to close this blog out, it’s forty-three entries, 22,000 words spanning sixteen months, and it’s run its course. I wrote it without publishing it, there’s still photographs to add, links to put in, tidying up to do, but this weekend will see it, and the attendant website if I don’t run out of time or energy, go live. If I’m lucky, if it ever gets read, if there’s one person who gets to learn one type of journey they may face with prostate cancer (or with cancer and co-morbidities, in my case Progressive MS), and thus relief from worry, then my work here is done. The thing that does occur to me, despite cancer with the complications of MS: outside of disease, life itself still sticks the boot in. The Isle of Wight council demand I pay council Tax; I didn’t have to in Hants or Glos, I don’t have the energy where-with-all or nouse to fight them. NHS IT systems are pretty shit, NHS staff are fucking brilliant. Universal Credit took £130 off my benefits when my rent had gone up £250. The Hamble Community Hub cancelled my future there, my best friend cancelled me, at some stage I need to find a new home.
So it’s time to start another new life. And start a new blog.
I can’t wait.
If you’ve read any of this, thanks for reading. Hope I didn’t whine or complain too much.
Gxxx