Howdy folks. Its been a long while since I last wrote, 5 weeks or so in fact. It hasn’t been deliberate neglect, I still like you all! More just a paucity of cancer related stuff to talk about a general busyness since summer has come along and our garden needs considerable amounts of work.

So far I have:

Built a compost bin.

Built some rhubarb forcers.

Fixed some benches.

Taken out some stumps by hand with a shovel.

Sledgehammered a patio and collected about half of it into rubble bags. (work in progress)

And build a workbench from planks of wood I had lying around.

Jo has just generally been awesome and actually done all the proper gardening work, like the plants, weeding, all maintenance, whilst I have dug holes and broken things! Both playing to our own strengths there then…

In terms of cancer related activities, well I have a bit of a secret. I’ve been running again. I am quite literately taking it slow, but Jo and I have been out about 15 times in the last six weeks, and actually if we run at her pace I don’t get any spleen pain. My theory is that the spleen pain comes from hard repeated impact. So sometimes if I walk 10 miles or so, I get a pain. With the fast running and sub 20 minutes 5k’s this causes a very similar phenomenon. Running with Jo though and doing 11 minute miles over 5k has been fine.

Its great to be running again. I missed it so much as a hobby. I just hope it stays comfortable.

In other news my next appointment is on the 24th of June. This is the one set 9 months ago when I last went in. I have had an interim blood report, from when I had to endoscopy, or as I like to think ‘Journey through my bowel’ so it will be very interesting to see how it has gone up.

The other thing is I don’t really think about having cancer that much, until the month before the hospital appointment. Then I remember I have to go out and get it checked and it becomes more Real again. I suppose its natural to be nervous. What if its spiked? What if its become more aggressive? I just have to remember that there is nothing I can do about it and just wait and see.

Anyway, all fun and games. I guess I should go and shift some more rubble bags. I’ve both put on half a stone and lost two inches in the waist since I started manual work in the garden and running. I guess that’s good on both counts, depending where the weight has gone 🙂