Week 14: w/e 23rd August 2026

Hello to you all and thanks for continuing to take the time to read these updates. 

The health situations first, of course. I finally got the phone call regarding the start of my new round of chemo treatments, which will begin on Tuesday the 1st of September. It was good to finally get that call, as I am increasingly feeling the impact of the current disease growth / spread. I am not looking forward to going through this again, but it is certainly necessary and we have to try it and see if it buys me more time. That impact is certainly making me more tired and the stomach side of things is worsening. I had a couple of low days on Wednesday and Thursday, due to that. I have adjusted my diet further, to see if that helps, but too early to say if it has helped. That impact from Thursday then impacted our weekend plans, with us making the hard decision to cancel a trip to Bristol, first thing Friday. 

In advance of re-starting chemo, I had my hair cut down a lot, as I know what to expect and want to avoid having to scoop up more hair than necessary, when it falls out again soon. I had mentioned to Sandra, but she had a shock reaction when I walked through the door. It looks slightly less brutal than a week ago, but when he was done, even I thought, ‘Oh’. Another reality / practicality of living with a very impactful disease like this, but hey, the key word there is ‘living’, and I remind myself of that daily. 

On the plus side, I did fit in two bike rides, one on Monday and then one on Sunday. I would have preferred to get one in mid-week, but we had the arrival of rain for the first time in months, so that curtailed the plan mid-week. That left a longer gap in between both bike rides, more than what I wanted. At the time of writing this on Sunday evening, the impact of today’s bike ride was being felt all up and down my right hand side of my body. 

As briefly mentioned above, we had re-jigged our plans for the Vespa 80th weekend in Bristol, with us now booked in for the Friday night and Saturday, then stay over and rest, leaving first thing Sunday (the original plan was 4-days/ 3-nights). However, I felt very, very sluggish on Friday morning and the thought of travelling 3+ hours one way, was not appealing at all. That is before factoring in the high potential of getting there and feeling ill, but being hours away from home comforts. Sandra and I made the joint, very hard, but sensible decision to stay at home. In our original plan for the weekend, we had also planned to attend the funeral of Mick, a friend from the group who recently passed away. That was also curtailed, due to the decision not to travel. This reality of where I am currently and having to accept that we have to think about what we are doing and how far from home we are travelling; which is not much right now. We are very much seeing how I am each day, before I then decide on what to do. 

Non-health activities included a key (almost) final stage of the Münkemer book project focus, with some further biographies completed on the 117 project. On Tuesday, the grandkids came over to ours and we watched a movie together, which was nice. We also took a short visit to them on Saturday, just to get out for a couple of hours, following the decision not to go to Bristol, plus sitting around dealing with things. 

The ‘variable’ situation continues, whilst worsening, but with the knowledge that the chemo is imminent. 

Thanks for your time. 

Regards

Peter