The side effects ‘ebb and flow’ continues, especially with my fingers and hands; the right side being more notable. The tightness and pain is there and one of the evenings seen my right forearm and hand get very tight and painful (muscle based pain). That was very tiring and I went to bed early that night. The leg muscle pain continues and is pretty constant, increasing in pain after sitting down for sustained periods of time. My job is mostly desk based, so an ongoing battle, when alternating between the desk bound tasks and the other tasks that require me to move around the building.
I have been frequently asked as to why I continue to work full time. The answer is multi-faceted and the first is the obvious financial one; I am not in a position to give up work from that key perspective (the point will come where the choice is not mine, but I am not there yet). The other key aspect is remaining active, both physically and mentally; they are essential and I will continue to push myself for as long as I physically can.
I had a mid-week highlight in the shape of another meet up with former work colleagues / friends. This time it was Tracy and Donnah and we worked incredibly closely together during our shared time at Holiday Extras and both of them were key parts of my Planning team, where we focused daily on delivering exceptional results for the business. I have come across Tracy a few times, more recently, but have not seen Donnah for a number of years. Great to catch up again and get updates on where we all are, whilst enjoying some lunch; we have already planned the next meet up.
During the week, I booked some holiday to give myself a long weekend and use up some remaining holiday allocation. That rapidly turned into Sandra booking Friday off and we planned a trip to Winchester. This is our ‘Viking Quest’ part 2, which follows on from the August trip to York (Jorvik). Over 1,000 years ago, Winchester was the seat of power for the non-Viking dominated lands within the future England. King Alfred based his seat of power in Winchester and from there, began to establish England as an entity. Virtually none of the original buildings survive (various civil wars and other related situations put paid to that), but the city contains some stunning older buildings and is worth a visit. It is a lot more compacted than what we expected (compared to the likes of York), which facilitated our movements as we explored what was there. Our base was the Wykeham Arms, which is a 270+ year old Inn and added to the historic feel of our trip.
Despite the fairly close proximity of everything, I quickly felt the impact of walking around, especially when moving over the cobbles on some of the streets. The back pain flared up and slowed me down, as well as forcing us to curb some of day one’s plans. Travelling there, walking around, sleeping in a different bed and sitting on different chairs and seats, all added up to a physically challenging weekend; much, much more than anticipated and a notable difference to the York trip two months ago. On day 2, we made the sensible decision to slightly cut short some of the remaining sight seeing and make our way back home. The restorative capabilities of your own home and the comforts we all create for ourselves there, cannot be underestimated. We have already begun to discuss how we plan to conduct any future trips, their duration and how we may accomplish these. The alternative is to do nothing and sit around, which I am not planning on doing just yet, as that will be a natural impact from the disease, as it takes over more and more of my body.
In summary, nice highlights during the week, meeting friends and getting out and about, but a week that highlighted decreasing capabilities and a restriction on normalities.
Thanks for the ongoing interest in my journey through prostate cancer and everything that brings, that interest is appreciated.
Regards
Peter
