Always look on the bright side of life...

It's chemotherapy day once again. On the way to the hospital I got to thinking about how I was felling about the whole process. I have mixed feelings about chemo day. Obviously have to go as it's what is going to prolong my life in the long run. I know what to expect from the day and so I'm well prepared in terms of support - the iPad is pretty key to pushing away the boredom of what is a 24 hour procedure in essence. The only bit of pain comes from the needle going in. The rest of it is about boredom and the management of the boredom. If it ever happens to you make sure you are fully equipped with newspapers, magazines, work or whatever helps you cope if you are cooped up.

If you follow me on Twitter you will know I went to the Northampton Lung Cancer Support group on Tuesday evening. I'd just been to see my oncologist and we seem to be still on for the six chemo sessions rather than the four, but it remains subject to the results of my scan which is not scheduled yet but should be in the next two or three weeks. In my mind I believe we will be going for the six sessions. Whilst my trip to Ullswater a couple of weekends ago was great from a psychological point of view I think it may have taken more out of me than I would have liked. So it was only really the start of this week that I started to feel very much better. The last couple of days have been great from a feeling upbeat point of view. So I know that in the great scheme of things that the chemotherapy is working and I'm getting a lift from each session and that the extra two sessions can only be to the good and give me more time. Anyway, after the oncologist we went for nice meal at Buddies in Northampton then back to Northampton General for the support group meeting. It was a surprisingly small turnout, I was last to arrive and either the fifth or sixth cancer sufferer in the group. I'm still trying to work out in my mind if I want to go to future meetings. The best bit was just talking one to one with one of the other guys, the group interaction felt a bit stilted and I, personally, didn't get much from our of the guest who came to talk to us about relaxation. I never did get much out of things like guided meditation. Just on a silly note I felt that good yesterday I took myself into town for a greasy spoon breakfast. Thoroughly enjoyed it!! The tinned plum tomatoes were surprisingly tasty.

I've been trying to get back to doing a bit of work, particularly when I get past the fatigue part of the chemo cycle. It may sound silly, but even if I just manage a bit of work it a great psychological boost to me that I feel I have been able to contribute and I'm not just sat on my bum giving in to the cancer. It's all part of the fight. Equally important though will be about being able to get out of the house even if it's just local but hopefully I will be able to range a bit further in my pursuit of the top things I want to get done before I die. Which reminds me need to start working on that list again! I want to start planning a bit of a holiday too.

Part of getting into the swing was spending a bit of time yesterday attending two conferences on a virtual basis via the twitter backchannel. One is the latest tru conference, #trumanchester; the other was the World Leaders in Recruitment conference. I'm still thinking about what it says about the "World Leaders" but there was no official hash tag for this conference and only four people contributed to unofficial hash tag that I created - #WLinREC. The recruitment practitioners, by contrast, have been busy on Twitter and i suspect will be for days to come.

I'm beginning to see that I might be able to get back to work after chemotherapy is complete. In the way a chemotherapy cycle works for me I can't see me being able to go back fully until the chemotherapy is complete and I have come back from the fatigue but once we reach that point I might be able to work. I'll probably need to minimise the amount of travel, try and travel by train as much as I can when I need to travel but I have the style of job that may enable me to do this. I don't want to end my days just sat at home doing nothing. I'm not that type of person and there are still things I want to achieve. Then again the cancer just might yet do a number on me and I might not get to resume. It's all a great unknown really and I can only take it one day at a time. I know what I want but whether the cancer will permit me is currently a roll of the dice. I choose to look on the bright side of life. Speaking of which I know I want "Always look on the bright side of life" to be played at my funeral.

Finally I know a lot of people who read my blog like to know what I have been up to with my iPad. It remains my constant companion and it really has been a huge boost while stuck at home with not much to do. It's a great conversation starter when I'm out and about with it.

For me it's a great way of reading books. I have the iBooks application with quite a library now but it's mainly from a bunch of old lit format ebooks that I have converted to epub format. I spend most of my reading time in the Kindle application where I just finished the first volume of the Alastair Campbell diaries and I'm now reading the Journey by Tony Blair (£6.99 versus £12.50 in Tesco and £25 RRP). I'm sure that in time the iBooks store will have more books and more of the new releases and more of the top sellers but for now Amazon kind of has that market cornered. The iPad means I won't buy a Kindle.

It's a great way of watching movies and means I won't buy a portable DVD player.

I'm definitely getting into the productivity apps - basically the apple equivalents of Word, Excel and Powerpoint. I spend quite a lot of time in Pages (the Word equivalent) and use it to draft long emails or blog posts and to write notes or reports. When I want to share I can export in .doc format.

I downloaded The Times application, so get my daily newspaper that way and I like the format and the convenience and the lack of newsprint on my hands. It's great as a gaming platform... I recommend Angry Birds, Real Racing HD and Paper Toss as fairly harmless and engaging games to play. They certainly come cheaper than XBox and PSP games.

And then there are 1000's of apps covering all sorts of areas of interest... the weather, that bastion of english conversation, shopping, searching, photography to name a few areas.

Finally social media. Google Reader. Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. Foursquare. They are all available in iPad incarnations although some can just be run in the browser in full application mode - no need for mobile or bespoke apps. If you follow blogs then I recommend Google Reader. Fully functional, fast, everything you might need.

So yes, still a fanboy!!

Sent from my iPad

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