iPad app reviews - Splashtop Remote and StreamToMe

If you are a dedicated iPad person I want to highly recommend two apps which significantly extend it's functionality.

First up is Splashtop Remote. This app gives you control of your PC from your iPad. It allows you to play your audio and video collection on your iPad without having to load the media to the iPad. In other words it streams your multimedia files from the PC to the iPad. The app is remarkably low priced compared with other apps which provide this type of functionality such as Logmein Ignition.

My only slight wish list issue would be the ability to zoom in and out on the remote screen especially when trying to operate small controls. I found myself occasionally teeing things up on the PC to make life easier so that all I had to do was connect and hit the play button to watch the film I had already decided I wanted to watch. In this sense I was taking advantage of the streaming function but not particularly the remote control aspect of the app. Not exactly behaviour consistent with the design principle but needs must etc etc.

The second app is StreamtoMe. This app can be used on either your iPad or iPhone. In a nutshell this app allows you to stream your multimedia collection from your PC to your TV. The first thing you need is a free app installed on your PC called ServeToMe. This permits the PC to serve up media files to the iPad or iPhone. On the iPad you connect to the PC app over your ŵireless network, connect your device to your TV using a component cable and hey presto you can serve up your iTunes library or your video files from your PC and play them on the TV. Again a remarkably low priced app for the functionality provided.

ServeToMe is a bit fiddly to setup manually, you need your PC's IP address and you have to give permissions to the folders on your PC that contain your music and video files but it's a one-off process and only takes a minute or two. StreamtoMe I found to be entirely intuitive to use, very simple and straightforward.

These are two exciting apps at a great price that give you control over your music and video libraries and the capability to play your files where you want them.

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My first attempt at iPad artwork

Sent from my iPad

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From the story of the blues to the sunshine in my life

Journal for Monday 18th October

Woke up this morning with a serious case of the blues. No real idea why it hit me this morning. Was also in bit of pain this morning so took additional morphine which causes me to keep dropping off to sleep in the chair which feels a bit demoralising because it makes me feel unable to get anything done and unable to contribute and by extension just a burden. Does that spiral of negative thinking make sense? The fact that I recognise what's going on is a step in the right direction but it's also not a solution. The sad bit in all this is that there isn't a solution to what is wrong with me.

Felt steadily better as the day wore on.

Not sure if I should continue with the journal. I won't stop writing but I'm just not sure if a daily recounting of eating cheese on toast is worth it.

Tuesday 19th October

When things aren't going well I have a saying along the lines of "I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop". It was a feeling I couldn't shake that something was about to go wrong. I've been feeling like that for a few days now. I just want some peace of mind. I can't even see what it is that would make me feel that much better or even sufficient at least to shrug off the feeling of helplessness. I need to find my happiness mojo.

My mum has been in a nursing home for several years. She had a stroke and when my Dad passed away she was found a place not far from where my brother lives. She spends most of her days sat in her room and I have to say remains more cheerful about that than I seem able to achieve at present, although I'm currently more physically capable than she is. I shall have to ask her how she keeps her spirits up, although I know in advance that part of the answer is that sometimes she gets depressed about it. Nevertheless she does seem able to shrug that off most of the time. She is always telling me to cheer up.

Had a long chat with Mum, and it seems for her the secret is watching TV and listening to the radio. Not sure that could ever be the trick for me, but glad it works for her. Mum was having one of her better days, stress free as she described it.

Had a long chat with best friend. Great to catch up with the gossip from work. There has been quite a lot of turnover at my office, I'll hardly recognise the place.

Wednesday 20th October

It's proving to be a tough week. I can't shake the sense of impending doom I'm feeling and find myself crying last thing at night and first thing In the morning. It was suggested to me today that I should think about speaking with someone, a qualified counsellor to be precise, who is experienced in talking to people with terminal illness and their families. It had never crossed my mind that there were counsellors who specialised in this field, don't know why because I'm totally aware of counsellors who work with the bereaved, and it makes sense that counselling is available both before and after.

I feel sad in part because my plan was to beat the cancer, or at least the prognosis with happiness. It feels, when I drop, that I'm failing in my goal, that somehow I'm dropping the ball. I must try to snap out of this but I need some goals, something to do with my time. Some way of feeling that I'm not spinning my wheels. Part of me wants to write a book, I feel like I could write but I don't have the plot of a novel in me and I don't have enough material to write a non-fiction book about something like personal productivity or mind mapping or PowerPoint.

An old friend was due to come round to see me today but has come back from holiday with a virus. It's the right decision because the last thing I need in my condition is to pick up an infection of any kind - with my immune system shot to pieces by the chemotherapy. We've re-scheduled for next week. I miss my friends and wish I could get out a bit more. I can't wait to get to the end of post chemo recovery and perhaps get out and about a bit. I'd like to get into Maidenhead and see the gang from work. I work with a terrific bunch of people and I miss them a lot.

Thursday 21st October

I'm finding it hard to get wound up about the cuts which are all over the news, the newspapers, the TV and my blogs. Possibly because the impact on me is going to be minimal but only because I won't be around by the time they bite. A bit selfish of me I suppose but this is one time in my life when it does make sense to put myself first. Feeling marginally less blue today than I have for a couple of days. Managed to get out into town under my own steam for an hour this morning. I guess I am coming back, finally, from the last chemotherapy session. Did a few chores and treated myself to a greasy spoon breakfast. Bought a chicken for dinner on the way back home.

Friday 22nd October

Feeling a bit better in myself. Slept well. Still have the feeling I am spinning my wheels a bit although I did get wrapped up in trying to solve an iPad issue for a couple of hours this morning which felt good when I realised the time had just ran away with me.

Out of the blue I've slept a bit more this morning than I am used to from the pattern of this week. Not sure why that would be as I slept well last night. Best friend coming round next week for a twitter lesson. Feels good to know that people still think that I have something to offer. I always enjoyed teaching at work and wonder if that could have been a profession I could have entered at some point in my life. I always loved it when people in a class suddenly "got it" and understood what you were trying to get across.

Had a really good day doing some work getting ready to do a bit of a "how to" for Twitter. I feel much better and looking forward to putting my feet up tonight and doing not much watching some TV. I have an iPad podcast (This week in iPad) downloading from iTunes that will entertain me for an hour or so as well, but it's coming in really slowly. So that might have to wait until tomorrow.

Saturday 23rd October

Woke up about 3am and could not immediately go back to sleep so went surfing on the net and found a couple of elusive ELO related albums on You Tube. Spent a pleasant hour or so listening to a blast from the past.

Woken up for 7am to sign for a Parcelforce delivery. I guess that's what you call justice, having managed the original project to implement hand held scanning (and therefore electronic signature on delivery) for Parcelforce, although they have now replaced the original scanning devices. I wonder how different my life would have been had I stayed with them.

On 30 seconds of reflection I did the right thing for me when I made the move. The mistake was the first company I went to when I left, but who knew what it would be like, and I guess the whole saga was just part of the journey to where I (happily) ended up. Just wish I'd found my "home" earlier. Anyway, that's a whole other story, perhaps for another day.

As I have an extra week in the schedule before my final chemotherapy session (which is on Thursday the 28'th) I'm feeling pretty good at the moment and can almost sense my taste buds coming back to something like normal. Things are beginning to taste almost the same as they used to prior to chemotherapy starting, which holds out the hope that once I'm over the final session then my taste might eventually get back to something like normal. Until you lose your normal sense of taste you've no idea how much you feel on the outside of what everyone else is experiencing and how much we all rely on things tasting as we expect them to. My weight is coming back a little too, although I'm still considerably lighter than when this all began. I went to get my haircut yesterday and both the hairdressers remarked that I was looking much better than I did last time they saw me... which I think was fairly early in the chemotherapy lifecycle. It was also not long after an actual session of chemotherapy because I recall wanting to fall asleep in the chair from fatigue. So all in all both mentally, having found a few things to keep my mind occupied, and physically, because I'm getting over the last chemotherapy session, I feel like I am in relatively good shape. Looking back over the week it's amazing how much my underlying mood can swing in such a short space of time. I'm not out of the woods yet because I do still have the final chemotherapy session to go and the recovery from it to soldier through but it bodes well that I should be able to finish out the year strongly and in the best shape I could be in, under the circumstances.

I'm sticking with my X Factor prediction, Matt Cardle to win. For me he is the stand out act this year. I didn't like Rebecca's styling this week, her hair was awful, but what a voice, she's still my second choice. Both of my first two have great recording voices. I'd part with money to buy their records and I don't often say that about X Factor acts. Still not impressed by Cher. She promised a lot but hasn't delivered. She doesn't have the X Factor. Mary has turned into a one trick pony with the big ballads and she is losing confidence, not good in an industry that relies on confidence to perform. One Direction are just boring. Simon looks silly when he gushes on about them. Aidan turned in a disaster of a performance. What a poser. Time for Wagner to go home. Awful song choice by / for Katie. My guess is Mary and Wagner for the bottom two but I'm generally not as good as picking the bottom two as I am at getting the top two right.

Sunday 24th October

Up fairly early and feeling good. Today I want to get out of the house and do something, and by something I mean anything really. A few options are open to me including a visit to a local craft fair, a visit to Northampton Museum in town, and a trip to Stratford-on-Avon. I don't mind much which I end up doing, the larger target is just to get out of the house. I read a short article yesterday on the concept of "living in the moment". I'm still ruminating on it but I think it might be worthy of further investigation. It's a bit of a zen concept which I already have a bit of time for, in the sense that when I "teach" my little personal productivity session called "Inbox Zero" I talk about the concept of achieveing a "mind like water", a state of mind where you are ready for anything and in which you do your best thinking and problem solving, basically because all the rubbish you are normally thinking about is either dealt with or parked on a trusted list where it will be dealt with in due course, at the appropriate time, but in the knowledge that you won't forget about it.

Had a fantastic few hours out in Stratford. Just wandered round the shops, bought some magazines, and a couple of hobby type activities I'll talk about later if they work out. Battered Sausage & Chips for lunch. It was warm in the sunshine, cold in the shade but damn it felt good to be out. Obviously overdid it because I then spent most of the afternoon fast asleep in my chair, but who cares. Not I, not one bit.

I cannot generate any enthusiasm this year for Strictly Come Dancing, certainly at this stage of the competition. Last year was spoiled by John Sergeant hanging in until about week 6 when clearly in a dance competition he should have gone earlier. This year Ann Widdecombe has taken the "spoiler" role and frankly it's just tiresome. It's not even entertainment, which is how is gets excused by some commentators. I'm gonna give it a miss for a couple of weeks and come back for the later stages, basically after la Widdecombe has gone home. By the way no one should take this as saying I have something against Ms Widdecombe, you'd be completely missing the point of my argument.

If Cheryl can get away with miming her new single on the X Factor, does she have the credibility to judge people who have to sing live every week? Wow, Wagner got through the public vote. Is this a singing competition? That's exactly the same credibility issue as Ann Widdecombe on Strictly that I was just banging on about. And what is TreyC doing in the bottom two? She's good. I hope this was about song choice. Oh dear, she picked a turkey for the sing off. Does anyone else think John's hair looked like a mushroom?

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The story of my weekend...

Journal for Friday 15th October

Awake quite early today and downstairs for a brew at 5am. Posted yesterday's journal and started one for today. I am in the home stretch for my personal target of a week's worth of daily journals to assess whether to continue in the same vein.

Really funny email from a colleague at work about a recent trip which didn't quite go to plan. Genuinely made me laugh out loud. Early decision to have Birds Eye chicken pie for dinner. There's a cunning plan involved in that choice... can I avoid another cooking disaster?

Am sat on the bed trying to work out what to get up to today. I want to dust the Wii off over the weekend and have some playtime, so I might prep that today. I have some syrup to make for my ice maker. But that's a kind of 10 minutes here and there over the course of the day job, so I will get to that anyway. Hmmm...

The day seems to have disappeared on me. Despite feeling pretty good first thing, the morning disappeared on me. I perked up a bit by lunchtime and pottered in the office this afternoon for a bit. Watched a film this evening and then a bit of reading on the iPad. What a glamorous life! Saturday 16th October

Woke up at the usual time, a bit groggy. Had a cup of tea, stomach felt really ropey for a few minutes. When it settled I took my pills, had a second cup of tea and promptly fell asleep again. Didn't wake up until almost 11:30, but felt the most refreshed I have in ages. It's like I have a bit of energy, a little bit of fuel in the tank. It feels, dare I say it, almost normal. I hope that it isn't tempting fate in any sense. I don't like to think of myself as a fatalist but sometimes in my darkest moments that's what I think I might be. There's only one way to find out. I will take on the day and see what happens!

So far, so good. NIce walk this morning, now trying to work out what to do for lunch. Feel more thirsty than hungry so I've had a Fortisips. Might risk something when we are out. Feel like a trip to Northampton, don't want to waste time on a journey as such to get anywhere - the gamble being it's looking dark and it might rain and Northampton isn't a covered shopping centre as such. Somewhere like Milton Keynes is a bit further but all under cover. Then again there is Ikea.

Had a great afternoon out in Northampton. Was a bit of a grey, rainy day but I felt good and it was just fantastic to be out and about. Bought a couple of puzzle type magazines which had a bit of an unemployed / hospital stay feel about it, if you know what I mean but I've already had a good hour or so just disappearing into a couple of logic puzzles. I'm kind of interested to see if they will keep my attention or not. Also bought a couple of technology / iPhone mags - will be interested to see if I can find any new apps for the phone, it's been a while since I've seen any recommendations on any of the blogs I read regularly. For some reason I really fancied a roast pork sandwich for lunch, you know, the kind of hog roast job you get at country fairs. For some reason I thought there was a wagon doing them in the market square at Northampton but I'm either wrong or, being kind to my memory, they were not there today. Didn't fancy anything else but we decided to go my favourite diner on the way home. And lo and behold, on the menu is something called a pulled pork sandwich. Boy, that hit the spot! Couldn't finish the whole thing, but that's just the state of my appetite. I enjoyed every mouthful of what I did manage to eat. With cheesy chips and beans to accompany it, great dinner!!!

I see that a WHSmith ebook app has been released. Have downloaded and installed the app and also downloaded a free book to have a look at the reader functionality and quality. I think this is really good news, an app to give the Amazon book store a run for it's money - for example they appear to be running a promotion on the Millennium Trilogy books which are currently cheaper than at Amazon. Some competition on price will be a great thing for readers of ebooks. The reader itself is adequate to the task, although I can't tell if it has the same ability to synchronise across installations as the Amazon app. Overall I recommend the download.

Heard nothing on the X Factor tonight to change my mind, my top two remain Rebecca and Matt. I think the show (and for show read Simon Cowell) would prefer not to turn out another black female vocalist from precisely the same genre as Leona Lewis and Alexandre Burke. So my money is on Matt.

Sunday 17th October

Had another good nights sleep. That's two in a row, long may it continue, although it makes me wonder if there's a downside payback for it somewhere - probably the return of the constipation. Food of no interest this morning so I've substituted in a meal replacement. Planning to go for a walk to in part try out my northamptonshire pub walks guidebook I bought on the cheap the other week helped by the Red Laser app for the iPhone. Not even planning a full walk as unsure if I have the stamina but we can use the map to just walk a section of a route. I've downloaded the YouTube video of Randy Pausch delivering the Last Lecture. If you haven't heard of this, Randy was a US University Professor, who died a couple of years ago from pancreatic cancer. The Last Lecture was delivered when Randy thought he had about 2 months to live. The main theme is about realising childhood dreams. The lecture is in turns funny, sad, poignant and heartwarming. Definitely worth watching.

Back from the walk and knackered. Managed about a couple of miles (or what felt like it) and turned around and came back to the car. Walking is not easy because it feels like I have lost both muscle mass (in weight) and muscle tone, so it feels like I am having to work extra just to walk normally. I'm almost having to will my right leg to pick up - and it's probably why I felt like I was falling over my own feet when I was out in town yesterday.

Of the bottom two, probably the right result in the X Factor and Strictly. Simon Cowell gets to crow that the only two groups left are the manufactured ones he put together at boot camp. I can't get particularly worked up about the result because all we're doing is arguing about who goes home first from amongst the losers. Wagner and Widdecombe should have gone by now, but let's face it they aren't going to make the finals. I suppose the gamblers and the bookies get annoyed, but who's worried about them?

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Journal for Thursday 14th October

All the Chilean miners have been successfully rescued. What a great party they are having in celebration, by the looks of it. The country has really got behind the rescue and they deserve the spotlight.

Wow! Some people are never happy! Today I seem to keep falling over complaints on blogs about the blanket nature of the coverage of the Chilean rescue on Sky and the BBC, to the exclusion of all other news. Spent the morning falling asleep in my chair, apart from a quick trip out to the supermarket. Productive though, managed to get everything I needed on the list. This afternoon I have been a bit more alive and managed to spend a couple of hours in the office which have resulted in me feeling a bit better in myself. Managed to get to that "in the zone" feeling where I was doing a few things which felt useful, including solving a fairly long standing annoyance with my Chrome web browser. Found some useful presentations which might help things along at work and some PDF files that I've parked in my Dropbox to read later on which might give me a few ideas. I'm thinking that it might be time to get my own domain and install a wordpress site or something along those lines. A technical challenge to an extent but only because it's not something I've done before. I will research it more over the next few days to see if I really want to take that on.

Playing with mp3 tunes.com, which provides a 2GB free mp3 locker (to upload mp3's into) and a free app called Airband to stream those mp3's to my iPhone or iPad. I have a bunch of audiobook mp3's where this might be a better solution than the iTunes approach. Anyway, will have a bit of light relief experimenting with that. I guess the advantage is 2GB extra space on the iPhone and iPad for music as the locker takes strain, the downside is that the playback might be patchy on a poor network connection. It should be fine at home on the home network, away from home it's a gamble. I will test out further next chemo day in hospital to see how it does on a 3G connection.

Bugger. I burnt the pizza. Well, not exactly burned but it was a bit dark and crispy. That's two cooking disasters in three days. I promised yesterday to explain how to move documents into applications on the iPad. I found a simple tutorial on how to move documents from your PC or laptop (the device which has your iTunes application on it) into the Pages application (on the iPad). It will only take a minute or two to follow the richly illustrated example and the important thing is to understand the principle... It could be any App that has the capability and for document you can read "any file in the format or formats that the App can use". So for the Pages App it could be a word document (.doc) or for VLC app I talked about yesterday it could be an avi file or for GoodReader it could be a PDF file. Anyway here is the tutorial...

http://www.simplehelp.net/2010/04/03/how-to-import-documents-to-pages-on-your...

I blogged this out separately because I thought it worth it, but here is my solution to the Chrome / PDF problem I have been having... Are you a Google Chrome user? Having trouble viewing PDF files? This has been the major annoyance of my experience with what I have found to be a much quicker browser than Explorer and I finally ran into the fix today. In the browser go to: chrome://plugins/ and enable the PDF viewer. And that's all it needed. Here is the background on the Chrome blog...

http://blog.chromium.org/2010/06/bringing-improved-pdf-support-to-google.html

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Journal for Wednesday 13th October

Woke up to some really good news for a change on the BBC; with the first of the Chilean miners coming up from 69 days trapped underground. Despite the view that the cage would be a tight fit, it looked to me to be quite spacey, although I suspect that coming up the tunnel was a bit claustrophobic, even for people who spend their working lives underground. I wonder how much post traumatic stress will be involved. For the first 17 days with no contact they must have wondered at times if there was any hope left.

Watched Ed Milliband's first PMQ's. I thought he acquitted himself well. He certainly wasn't humbled by David Cameron, who of the two of them came across as the most uncomfortable in their own skin. Immediate reactions were also quietly positive. I suspect that Ed is going to have a field day adopting a fairness agenda. It's a fairly easy target in an environment of cuts to identify a raft of the cuts to label unfair, particularly when you don't have to publish an alternative to be picked apart by the government.

In my distant past I worked for almost 15 years for the Post Office. Privatisation seems to be back on the agenda although I haven't a grasp of the detail so difficult for me to comment in full. Frankly I would worry for any commercial organisation that considers buying a stake in Royal Mail to be a wise investment. Nevertheless when I see people like Billy Hayes spouting his union style claptrap it makes my blood boil. Dinosaurs like Billy are why the Post Office is in the mess it's in ( although not the only reason to be sure). I'm never quite sure why management did not sort out the organisation years ago to achieve a fair days work for a fair days pay. Today it's an organisations of contrasts with pockets of old fashioned, unproductive, union run locations and some modern, productive but unhappy sites. Almost as an aside it's worth remembering that Alan Johnson is a former CWU General Secretary.

A sleepy day. Woke up, slumped in my chair, at about 5pm. Would hope to be awake now for the evening to watch some TV and have a bit of dinner. Nope, fell asleep again and woke up when I poured the remnants of a cup of tea over myself. Damn it, feel like an idiot when I pull stunts like that. It makes me feel like I'm definitely heading backwards rather than making forward progress, particularly because stuff like that was pre-chemo behaviour. Now I know why I have gone steadily downhill over the course of the day. I went to get my evening pills to discover my morning pills were still in the cup untouched. What a plonker. Not much I can do about it now other than take my evening pills with a top up of quick release morphine. The Apprentice is underway. The girls lost tonight and the bitchiness came out in the Boardroom, big style. Karen Brady was right, the girls were so unprofessional it was funny. Road kill was my comment off the cuff. They all could have gone home for me. My advice was to calm down. Clearly Lord Sugar does not like it when the aggro levels are high and real companies don't function that way. "Gobshites" don't go far. I'm surprised at the decision but I don't think any of that final three will make it far. Wrote a couple of iPad app reviews...

Simplenote & Dropbox - would recommend these two apps to anyone as cloud based storage, note keeping, document carrying applications and probably the only two you will ever need in this area. I have them on my work pc's, home pc's, iPhone and iPad and they allow me to carry around almost anything I am going to need, including things like PDF's

VLC - allows you to load up files directly via the app section of iTunes and being VLC plays media files in almost any format (I was already a fan of the VLC app for PC's). Very handy for any videos downloaded from the web e.g. from YouTube and various webcast formats plus any avi's you might have. Certainly saves having to convert files between formats to try to get iTunes to play them. GoodReader - the Swiss army knife of document readers. Again you upload files to it via the App section of iTunes.

I know from experience that getting files into Apps is not intuitive. I'll try and find a link to a "how to" or I'll get some screenshots myself to illustrate. Something to keep me occupied for a bit tomorrow.

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Roary came home...

In my role as Chief Happiness Officer at work, Roary was a mascot for a weekly players player award for a contribution consistent with our values. He arrived in the mail this morning for a visit...

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Journal for Tuesday 12th October

I probably won't post this entry today as it's probably going to say naff all. That's because I have, once again, slept the day away whilst feeling exhausted when awake. Not my finest day. Feel less than a useful member of society on days like this.

Got up at about 5:30pm to try and have some quality time before bedtime. I've made a home made toad in the hole... but was promptly sick before preparations were complete. Hopefully that was a clear out and I can have some dinner later, but suspect it's just a sign of how fragile my stomach is right now. Anyway, will try a cup of hot, sweet tea and see how we go.

Everywhere I turn at the moment I am finding friends running into serious medical problems or those running into economic problems caused by the downturn and the coming "cuts". The mood of the country is changing from upbeat to decidedly maudlin. I want to live in a world where "it's great to be alive", but sometimes you get the feeling that the majority don't think that to be the case.
I loved the last words of Agony Aunt Claire Rayner, “Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I’ll come back and bloody haunt him.”

Cooking disaster. My toad in the hole didn't work. Had to rescue the sausages and do them with some mash. Ruddy hell, I can't get one thing right at the moment. A friend wrote to me today to say that it upset them to see my words "before I die". My friend is struggling with the idea that I will die, still believing that the chemo will pull me through this. If you have read my writing you will all realise that the whole "will I die" issue does play on my mind quite a lot. I think my friend is in the same camp as my mother, sharing the belief that there will be a miracle. I'd like to believe but it's not really a matter of belief. The chemotherapy has certainly made an impact on my tumours but it hasn't made them go away. Eventually they will come back. Happy to talk about the philosophy of this with anyone but it is a philosophy argument rather than a medical one. If there is a fight it's about how long I get after the chemotherapy and that is the battle I'm in. My prognosis is a year. But what if I can significantly beat that. That's worth fighting for, so in my pragmatism, never think that I have given up the fight because I have not.

Fell asleep in my chair reading my book. Woke up feeling toasty and warm. Off to bed. But I guess I will post this journal first. Turned out I did have a few things to say today.

Sent from my iPad

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Journal for Monday 11th October

Mentally a tough day to push through. A reasonable nights sleep but I knew before I really got going that I was not in as good a shape as yesterday. There is probably an element of having overdone things yesterday but I would not change a moment of the day for all the tea in China.

Spent most of the early part of the day drifting off to sleep. On one occasion I was sat in the office and must have drifted off just sat there. Woke up when I almost fell face forward into the laptop screen. LOL!

Finally seemed to turn the corner a bit by mid to late afternoon. And then late on an old friend came round for a visit. Was really great to see him. We talked about the cancer, about work and then got the iPads out for a good look at the Apps we both have. Quite liked the look of his Korg synthesiser app, but I'm not very musical and it was a bit pricy when I looked in the App store. It was great to spend a couple of hours outside the cancer bubble and I hope he will pop in if he gets up this way again. Back to having thoughts about "the point". Need to try harder to find something to keep myself occupied tomorrow in terms of contribution. I have an iPad podcast to watch tomorrow and I might get the Wii out for a bit, but those are time fillers rather than useful contributions. It feels like a whinge and probably sounds like one. No one should feel sorry me and ultimately no one will. If people do for some reason, they will vote with their feet and stop reading my writing and that's fine. I recalled today why I write this stuff. It's basically for my benefit and it's cathartic for me to work through my issues into the written word and compartmentalise them as a result. In other words the writing helps me to let go. It's partly just a record of the roller coaster I have been on since the diagnosis. It was partly about finding out if i could possibly write a book before I die and I think the answer to that question is probably no, although I will probably keep examining that. It was suggested to me today, twice, that I could write one. And the final reason is the more obvious cancer legacy - if just one person reads about the symptoms I was having and gets an early diagnosis then it will have been worth it - see my very first blog post about cancer.

Watched Spooks. Probably best TV series on the box at the moment but something not quite right about it this time. There's a lack of threads running and it all seems to be about Lucas. Even the Harry / Ruth saga has gone quiet.

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Trying a journal approach to blogging about cancer...

Friday October 8th

Seemingly overwhelming support in the immediate reactions to the last post for a diary / journal format. I wonder if I am able to be that conscientious? I guess we will find out, I have banged on about how much I like the format for a while.

Shadow Cabinet seems to have caught the commentators out, at least as far as the Alan Johnson decision is concerned. Once you accept that one, the decisions on Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper make sense although I did laugh at the family implications of a married couple getting the home and foreign office briefs. Talk about home and away. My other thought was that they both get to keep their powder dry in the Shadow Cabinet on cuts, ready to take the Chancellorship in a future government. Alan Johnson taking the fire through to his retirement and taking it for "the team" is one way of looking at it, taking a slightly Machiavellian viewpoint. Alan does appear, on the face of it, underqualified. Osborne, on the other hand, is regularly referred to by City sources of commentators as a lightweight. Scary, isn't it. Worst financial crisis in memory and all we have is a lightweight being held to account by the underqualified.

Sadiq Khan is the worrying appointment, if this stuff was going to impact me in the long run. The new Shadow Justice Minister has a couple of stains in his reputation too many to be credible in that role. He comes across as a bit of a sleaze, and it's way too early for Ed Milliband to get caught out with that kind of problem. A touch of naïveté perhaps, although Ed has not shown himself so far to be susceptible to that charge. You'd be more inclined to say he's made of stronger stuff based on his track record.

The other reminder I got in response was that the constipation I have suffered from intermittently isn't caused by the chemotherapy, it's source is the morphine. Mentally I had been hoping the end of the chemotherapy would signal the end of the constipation but no such luck. Damn.

Saturday October 9th

A bunch of really nice supportive tweets, comments and emails in response to yesterday's posting. I sense that people really want to do the right thing but are not sure what the right thing is. Should they call, or let me rest? Come to see me or wait until I'm a bit better. It's really hard to advise on that too, I know I will feel bad if someone troops up to see me and all I do is fall asleep on them. Then again, that would hardly be the end of the world. It's funny how I still view certain issues through the prism of (pre-diagnosis) what would be considered normal. My life will never be "normal" again. This is all a bit deep for early on a Saturday morning. Had a real drop in energy until around late afternoon. As bad as it's been in terms of lack of energy for some time. Finally perked up a little to watch an episode of Come Dine with Me. Magic Kev was a good winner, I particularly liked his comment that we all need to show each other a little more empathy. He was the least tightly wrapped of the contestants by a mile. There were a couple of highly strung reality show wannabes on parade. It's X Factor season. The live shows started tonight. Can't believe Louis brought back Wagner as his wild card. And Diva Fever, c'mon Simon, get real. Based on the first performances my picks for top slots would be Matt Cardle and Rebecca Ferguson. Right now, if pushed, my money would be on Rebecca.

Sunday

It's 4am, I'm somewhat awake, and the meaning of life is on my mind, once again. The thought I have had is that... LOL.. fell asleep (the benefit of an app that straddles the phone and iPad, is that it's only the phone in my hand when I fall asleep like that)

Think I can just about remember, my thought was that "normal" life is just like my life with the exception that "normal" has a framework to keep my mind from thinking about the dying stuff. Normal has a bunch of distractions. I guess that's where eventually phrases like "wake up and smell the roses" come from - the self talk to ignore the distractions and focus on the important. I wonder if I need to read some beginners philosophy. Would not know where to start with that! I suppose there must be a "Philosophy for Dummies" book, I'll check that out later. [There is! Added it to my wish list, will queue it up for my reading list]

Before I forget to record it, without too much pain, overcame my post chemo constipation this morning. That's almost 9 days, although much of that time I have been on Fortisips rather than solid food. On the other hand I have shifted a fair amount of cheese on toast. My weight is fairly stable at 12st 8lbs. Would be good to get that back to 13st prior to the final round of chemo.

It's amazing how feeling a little more awake, a nice shower and a bowel movement put a whole different perspective on the day. Right now, in this moment, I feel surprisingly upbeat. It will probably be fleeting but the prospect of a good day is so tantalising.

It continues to be a good day. Took a trip to Bicester and the outlet centre, designer labels dripping up and down the road. Managed a good few hours out in the sun, a Starbucks with a ham and cheese toastie and bought a couple of shirts that were on sale. It felt really good just to do normal stuff. Came back and finished watching the first episode of Downton Abbey, which I found myself, unexpectedly, enjoying. Some intriguing sub plots.

Goldie sent home on Strictly. FYD sent home on the X Factor. No justice and the usual evidence that the public don't treat these shows as talent shows but as pure entertainment. Never know if that should bother me or not. I do feel sorry at this stage for people whose dream is ended before it would otherwise. Ann and Wagner, respectively, should have gone, but they won't win either. So, in the end, does it really matter that they hang on and entertain us a bit longer. My theory is that some viewers secretly enjoy the frustration of the wrong contestants getting through. And let's face it, I bet it's by a mile in the leading topics of conversation at work tomorrow (caveats apply depending on the office you work in). Simon Cowell knows what he's doing! A nice quiet evening, reading in front of the TV, capped a really nice day.

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An insider guide to chemotherapy...

By way of an introduction I'm not quite sure why I wrote my blog post this week in the form of a journal. Possibly because I'm reading diaries again (Chris Mullin this time), partially an experiment, partly because I want to remember how this time through immediate post chemotherapy went so I can put it into perspective when I go through it for the final time, for now, at then end of this month. Anyway, let me know what you think....

Friday - Day 1 after chemotherapy session 5

Woke up feeling pretty nauseous, which has persisted all morning. I couldn't face dinner last night in the hospital and I can't see today being any better on this front, so I'll need to stay on top of my Fortisips drinks (meal replacements) if I can face them. Constipation hasn't been an issue yet, although I guess I'm anticipating this at some point. More information than people probably need to read about but it is the single most unpleasant side effect of the whole process. And I hate it. A lot!

Time has moved on to mid-afternoon. Not been able to sleep yet and must get a kip in before tonight to see if I can put my schedule back on a partly normal cycle. Hopefully the wierd dreams won't kick in so much this time, although they too seem to be linked to the chemotherapy and are worse in the early part of the cycle, just after a chemo session.

Slept for about 2 or 3 hours from about 3pm to 6pm. Got up to watch a bit of TV and have a shower. Had another Fortisips but it didn't go down very easily. Just gone 8pm, time to take my pills and think about going to bed. 

Saturday - Day 2

Was up during the night a couple of times to go to the loo, but managed to pretty much go straight back to sleep. So slept through until about 6:30am and then got up to make a cup of tea. On the positive side I slept without the awful sweating and bad dreams I often get at this stage. Slightly less positive is that I still feel a bit nauseous and can't see solid food back on my agenda anytime soon. 

Played on the iPad for awhile and then a sleep from noon until 2pm. Due a visit from stairlift people to give a quote. Not sure how I really feel about it, but if I want to prolong my time at home then I'll need to be able to get up and down the stairs if my lungs aren't up to it.

Wow, stairlifts aren't cheap are they! And bloody typical, the design of the house means that I either have a stairlift fitted rail side that has a trip hazard and therefore needs to be hinged or I have to have a radiator moved that's at the bottom of the stairs in order to have a wall side installation which will probably be the best from a design & space point of view. Decisions, decisions. 

Coming up to 5:30 and have managed a little solid food. It was only a couple of pieces of cheese on toast but it felt good to get back in the saddle with solids. 

Waiting now to catch Lee McQueen on Sky News which he trailed in his Twitter stream. Just saw the item, it's something to do with reality TV and is it the beginning of the end with the demise of Big Brother? A nice bit of exposure for Lee, he did well. 

Oops, I left the grill on. Managed not to burn then house down. Not my finest hour, I need to be more careful.

It's 10pm and I'm still awake, alive and kicking. Managed a bit more food this evening watching the X Factor and kept it down. Food still doesn't taste quite right and I despair sometimes that it's never going to be quite right again. The only slight chink of daylight has been the occasional glimmer of enjoying food just before chemo treatments... the greasy spoon breakfast just before chemo 4 and the steak dinner just before chemo 3. Think I will take myself off to bed and try and read for a bit. Goodnight. Sleep tight.

Sunday - Day 3

Slept reasonably again. Up a couple of times but no trauma, bad dreams or sweating. Less good news is that then stomach feels a bit ropey again after a good evening on the food front.

Managed to get out of the house for an hour or so. Went to then garden centre near Althorp House and had a nice stroll around the shop. As I used it while there it reminds me to mention an iPhone app that has proven quite useful, called Red Laser. The principle is simple, take a photo of a bar code label, the app scans the photo and then looks up the item using a Google shopping search to find better pricing. Not something shop owners are going to think much of, but a really great simple money saving idea. The live example was a book selling for RRP of £7.50 found online for £1.50 (used) and £4.00 (new). 

 

Have managed a couple of hours sleep. Now 4pm and got up to find the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games on the box. Mind you I seem to have intercepted an interminable speech by one of the organisers. Sigh!

Caught up with both episodes of Strictly Come Dancing and the X Factor. Surprised that Cheryl took Cher in what felt like the strongest category but totally unsurprised that Simon took both the groups put together at Boot Camp. That definitely feels like it's all about his ego, that he couldn't possibly be wrong and if those two groups get anywhere it's proof of his omniscience.

Stayed up reasonably late, had a bit of soup and got psyched up to go to bed. It's only 9:30pm, but I guess the fatigue is kicking in. I'm guessing that the steroids are keeping that at bay somewhat and probably means that when I come off the steroids at then end of week 1 then week 2 will be the worst of the recovery period.

Monday - Day 4

Slept as well as could be expected. Up reasonably early with a bit of energy, so have done a few chores, email and stuff. Filed some paperwork, written some cheques, paid some bills. The high life, eh! Gonna try and up the Fortsips a bit as I've lost weigh yet again... another six pounds but I can't afford to lose much more. I calculate I've lost 4 stone since the start of chemotherapy and 5 stone since my diabetic diagnosis a couple of years ago. 

Managed four Fortisips and a couple of pieces of cheese on toast. Stayed up quite late and watched Spooks, which was quite good. Still didn't feel that tired when I went to bed at about 11pm but must have drifted off pretty quickly.

Tuesday - Day 5 

Time, unfortunately, is just flying by. In a blur. Far too quickly.

Wednesday - Day 6

Another blur, this time mainly fatigue driven. Couple of nice phone calls late on when I seemed to gather a bit of second wind. Conservative conference is the main news backdrop on the TV, sadly for Dave Cameron he's not Winston or JFK. I'm finding party political strategy harder to take an interest in, now that I won't be around to be impacted by most of it.  

Thursday - Day 7

Off to a reasonable start today, a few emails replied to, a couple of jobs jobbed. Started to prepare a modified version of my journal as a blog post. Wondering if people would like the diary format rather than a blog post format, or a mix. I know that I quite like reading the diary format. I enjoyed reading Alastair Campbell (and I'm sad that I probably won't be around when volumes 3 and 4 of the uncut diaries are published) and right now, among other things, I'm reading Chris Mullin's rather excellent account of his last days in Parliament and the demise of New Labour. Appropriate timing given that the Shadow Cabinet announcements should be imminent. Funnily enough there doesn't seem to be much strong opinion on who will get what role, at least from the writers I'm reading. Ed Balls strikes me as behaviourally inappropriate as Chancellor. His reported behaviour (by Blair, Campbell and Mandelson) isn't the standard one expects from someone aspiring to such high office (and let's face it, probably hasn't given up on the top job yet).

Friday - Day 8

Having enjoyed the more recent diary I have now started on Chris Mullin's earlier diaries from his days as a junior minister. I do find these books and this time frame (Blair, Brown, Mandelson, Campbell) fascinating for some reason. Wondering to what extent reading diaries has got me writing a journal (of sorts) without reaching much of a conclusion.

I was off to a pretty good start this morning energy wise but have come crashing down with fatigue again. Does not bode well for the weekend as I'd like to get out before I go any more stir crazy.

------ 

If you've got this far, do leave me a comment if like the format. Or leave me a question, if there's something you want to ask. Most of all, give me a ring. I'm sorry I'm not always in a position to answer but sometimes it is everything I can do just to stay awake and I just don't have the energy, even for a quick hello. Hopefully I'm not too far away from the end of the fatigue roller coaster and getting some stability back. To know when I'll be awake and when I'm likely to be asleep doesn't sound like much but will be a big change for me.

 

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No significant change

My head has been in a pretty awful place for the last week or so. Whilst I am afraid of what's going to happen to me, I'm feeling more afraid for those around me and what they might have to go through. It's an awful thing to even have to think about but pragmatically is it wrong to hope that when the time comes it's not a long drawn out thing? I'm trying hard to lift myself out of this mood now and get my head ready for the rest of this week. When it comes down to it, the fight is as much mental as it is physical. Ultimately the cancer will beat me physically but the key question is will it beat me mentally. I mustn't let it but there are days when getting there feels like an uphill struggle.

Following on from my scan last week, it was time to see the oncologist last night for mid-course review. The news is not as good as last time but my consultant's view is that it's a positive result. The radiographers view of my scan was "no significant change" but when my consultant challenged this view they seem to have come around to a slightly more positive position. The tumours in the lymph nodes in my chest are definitely smaller, there is evidence of new non cancerous tissue filling holes in my bones and my consultant believes that whilst the size of my liver tumours are unchanged this time the cancer cells are being killed and a kind of watery substance left behind (which accounts for the lack of shrinkage).

I won't say I'm not disappointed, because I am. I was definitely hoping for something significantly more positive. Perhaps I was expecting too much but following the 30% shrinkage of the tumours last time I was hoping for a 10% figure or something like that. Reflecting on the review the morning after I think my consultant was more positive about it all, certainly more than I was. I guess I sometimes forget just how far I have come since the treatment began. I was failing apart quite dramatically just prior to the treatment starting and I have reached a position where my quality of life is significantly better than it was. And that is what this is all about. There's no miracle cure for my ailments, the aim is to give me the best quality of life possible in the time I have remaining. Speaking of which, the consultant said he was not minded to change the prognosis he gave me last time i.e. 9 to 12 months.

We discussed continuing the chemotherapy and we decided to proceed with chemotherapy session 5 and to decide on round 6 when I see him in three weeks time. The decision on round 6 will take into account how bad the after effects from round 5 are; because as he's always told me the impact is cumulative and the sickness and fatigue are difficult and I'm finding it hard to get fully on my feet between chemotherapy sessions. My appetite hasn't really come back this time and I'm back into hospital for chemo 5 on Thursday. On the flip side I want to get every ounce of benefit out of the chemotherapy because once it's over, until the cancer comes back, there's nothing I will be getting from a treatment point of view.

In my last update I mentioned that I'd been to the Northampton Lung Cancer Support Group meeting. I've since found out that the original purpose of the group is to support the carers of lung cancer patients although I suspect that the line between the being for the carers and the patients is bit blurry sometimes. I've also been reminded that cancer patients can be a little shy, and despite what you might think, I can really relate to that comment. It is difficult enough to talk about cancer at the best of times and actually sometimes it's the last thing that I want to talk about. Anyway I've decided to try and attend the group when I can, although the next one might be difficult so soon after my next chemotherapy session.

On the iPad front I've actually had a sort of iPad crash in the last week which has meant that I had to restore the device from a backup which wasn't exactly recent. I guess we've all been there at some point with a PC, laptop or drive and I should know better. With an iPad there is not much that you can lose in terms of data but what there was to lose, which included the original draft of this blog post, I have indeed lost. This pushed me to look at my approach to the data that it's possible to lose on my iPad and as a result I've downloaded an app called Simple Note which allows me to create notes on the iPad but keeps a synchronised copy in the cloud and, a bonus, on my iPhone. It's free but ad supported, the ad is pretty unobtrusive so, so far, I'm pretty happy with the approach. The more I play with it, the more I like it. It's one of those apps that I would have liked even without an iPhone or iPad, a simple cloud based note taking and list keeping application, accessible from any internet connection. The only other thing I could lose is documents created in pages, numbers  or keynote. I think my strategy here, as a minimum, would be to email a copy off to my gmail account after a working session.

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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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The long and winding blog post

I had my review on Tuesday evening with my oncologist. An "interim review" it's called. Sounds like something that would happen at work. What are the objectives and how and I getting along with delivering them? I was more than ready for this meeting. From my end of the telescope all I've had in the last three months is a diagnosis of cancer that's incurable, the report of a collapsed lung and a prognosis of 6 months to live, maybe 12 months tops. Whilst I've committed to fight it and beat the prognosis I've had no feedback on whether or not the fight is paying off. So it would be an understatement to say I'm in real need of some feedback, anything at all really, but hopefully something positive.

I was still in the process of sitting down when he said there was good news. When you're dying it's amazing how a short utterance from the right person can turn your week around. The doc got straight to it... my tumours have shrunk by around an average of 30% and my lung, which had collapsed, has re-inflated. We talk for awhile about side effects issues and focus in on the feeling sick in the week or so after a chemo treatment. We're going to try a different approach to the anti-emetics this time to see if there is a better way for my stomach to settle down. The doc talks about the number of chemo sessions. Given my responsiveness to the first two chemo sessions he confirms that we will do four sessions but he says he's thinking about going for the six sessions which would be the maximum in this phase. He says we will look at this again when we review after the fourth session. I push him on the prognosis. He's cagey and cautious, as I have come to expect. If I'm honest I'm disappointed with what he says next. We started with a prognosis on 6 to 12 months. He says now that his best estimate is 9 to 12 months and he would err on the high side of that estimate. Given that we've moved three months along his original prognosis then I think I've added just 6 months to his estimate. I was hoping I'd extended it out to 2 years or at least 18 months. I plan to defy the odds of his prognosis anyway, but I'd have like to have heard something more optimistic from him. On this basis I should comfortably get to my 50th birthday. Put the date in your diary, I plan to have a celebration!

SIDENOTE - Interestingly the news today is that the Lockerbie bomber has survived 4 times the prognosis he was given when he was released. If he can do it....

I admit I punched the air as I left the doctors office. A bit childish of me, but what the hell. I was due some good news and something to go my way for a change. And that was, in the great scheme of things, very good news for me. We went to the American Diner on the way home and I had a fillet steak for dinner. I had chips and fried eggs as the sides and I polished most of it away. The biggest and probably tastiest meal I've had in several weeks. It was a nice treat.

I'm definitely in the sweet spot between chemo sessions. My two chemo sessions so far have been on a Thursday. They start at 8:30am and I get discharged at around 8:30 am on the Friday morning. Having been awake for most of the 24 hours, like anyone I'm pretty wiped out on the Friday. Saturday is generally a good day and the slide into fatigue starts sometime on the Sunday. It's then a case of seven to fourteen days recovering from the fatigue. So the next sweet spot should be sometime around the 2nd September going through to the 9th of September, which will probably be my fourth chemo session, all things being equal.

The iPad continues to be a saviour. I've discovered a bit of software called calibre - it's a book management system. It's advantage is that it can convert most e-book formats into the epub format needed for the iPad book reader. Between that and the Kindle app I'm all set with books to read for months to come.

For music discovery apps I am thoroughly convinced that Soundhound is the way to go on the iPad in the the UK. I think Pandora is the best app in this category but it's not available in the UK for licensing reasons. It is theoretically possible to get Pandora on your laptop if you fake your IP as being USA based but that's quite technical and messy. I do hope they can sort this out soon because I've definitely had the best results in discovering new artists that I like using Pandora. With Soundhound it's been more a case of finding someone I know but have forgotten about. That said I do rate it higher than Shazam. My other favourite music app is WunderRadio - which makes it easy to listen to almost any radio station in the world. Apart from the obvious - listening to breakfast radio in the UK - I have found it useful to listen to comedy stations in the US broadcasting standup comedy. The quality of the comedy ranges from good to bad to great - but in the main it's been a great pick me up when I'm feeling a bit blue.

UPDATE: It's Friday morning and I've made it through chemo session 3. It's about 5:45am and the last bag of drugs has just gone through, the cannula has been removed and I'm polishing off a nice cup of tea. I've slept the best I've slept at a chemo session, at least seven hours although it's been broken by bag changes for the chemo drugs. So today might be a good day, given that I'm on high doses of various pick me ups today and tomorrow. This won't stop the fatigue hitting me Sunday, but means there is a chance I get a reasonable weekend. Leisa will pick me up at 8:30-ish and we won't have to hang around for anything - my discharge pill bag was given to me yesterday so there's nothing to wait for. I guess we've got quite skilled at planning for the chemo sessions now that we know how they work. It also pays to be a bit assertive with the knowledge you gain from previous sessions. My personal example is that there's no reason to stay hooked up to the drip once your last bag of drugs has gone through. Sometimes the nurses can be reluctant, and want you to stay hooked up until the morning, but there doesn't seem to be a sound medical reason for it and the sooner the needle comes out, in my opinion, the better. Getting back the freedom of movement is just great - when you're hooked up even going to the toilet is a drag as you have to disconnect the stand from the mains, drag the stand with you to the loo, at the toilet you're basically one handed, and then you have to drag it all back to the bed, untangle it from the movement, and connect back to the power, finally settling yourself down in the chair or bed hoping you haven't put a kink in the line and set off the alarm which means calling for a nurse to sort it out. It's a pain at the best of times. There's also an underlying feeling of discomfort where the needle goes into the vein on the back of the hand. Whilst not painful, it's a sensation you feel like you want to get rid of as soon as possible, hence the need to assert yourself and get the needle out asap.

It was great to receive calls yesterday, although I missed a couple whilst napping that I will try and return today. I get the sense that some are worried about ringing me because they've heard how much the chemo takes out of me. Which is true, but no one should worry about that, it's great to get a call and to stay in touch with everyone. If I'm napping because of the fatigue then the phone will be off or at least silent, so leave a voicemail and I'll get back to you when I'm wake enough to hold a conversation. If I'm awake then I'll take the call. The calls are a great pick me up and I am positively glad to hear what's going on where you are. Whilst we probably can't avoid me updating you on the diagnosis, prognosis and what's been happening with my treatment I want to hear, very much, about what's going on in the outside world. Whilst I'm not up to much on the work front I still have my mind and when I'm not in the grip of the fatigue then I need some measure of mental stimulation. So I've been helping with some social media stuff and some powerpoint. I know now that had I reached retirement age I'd find giving up the mental stimulation, the involvement and the contact with a wide range of views a real challenge. If I have a comment to leave behind about work, it is that it's all about the people. The important challenge for those who lead is to create an environment where people feel willing to contribute their best. I've worked in some pretty awful environments but I've also had the privilege to spend most of my time in some really wonderful environments with good people. I've been particularly blessed to have had some great mentors in my time, sadly mentoring seems less prevalent these days than it did when I first set out into the world of work. I'm in the best environment I've ever been in, I work for a really great company and I have some really great colleagues. Sadly, from contacts outside that environment, I read about and hear stories quite regularly about poor behaviour at work, which inevitably leads to people being unsettled, it causes silos to spring up, unnecessary strife between teams, arguments, and it draws managerial time away from what should be a shared endeavour to be appropriately customer focused and concentrating on building shareholder value towards inwardly focused issues such a re-organisations which are generally attempts to re-arrange the deck chairs on a sinking ship as best as possible designing out the internal flaws and attempting to put focus back on the external, where it belongs. OK, enough, rant over... although my serious point relates back to social media and recruitment. Whilst I'm on the side of those who argue you miss the boat if you fail to get involved I also have to point out that like any technology it's an enabler and at the end of the day recruitment remains all about the people. The best and most successful recruiters will be those who embrace new technology for what it can do for them, but also have the skills which enable them to build relationships with clients and candidates, the ability to sell, and the ability to develop business from the various contacts they make on a daily basis. And that's my thought for the day.

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Chemotherapy as an endurance sport...

As of Friday morning, I'm back home after just over 24 hours in hospital which represents my first chemotherapy session (with three or five more sessions to go). I've managed to sleep, in bed, for a few hours and now, early Friday afternoon I'm catching up with my medications, potions and lotions and testing my stomach with a bit of soup. 

We arrived at the hospital by 8:30am on Thursday morning and were up and running by a little after 9:30 am having had a cannula installed into the back of my hand by the doctor. The whole scientific mechanism for holding a cannula on the back of the hand needs to be completely pulled apart and re-designed, because - and this is only my very humble opinion - the whole thing is just too insecure and not really designed to last anywhere near 24 hours when you bear in mind the patient has to go to the toilet and eat and if possible sleep. If the hand never moved then okay, but that is just not a realistic proposition. If the hand moves then the package is never really secure enough, the glue isn't strong enough and despite the ministrations of nurses well practiced in the art of securing the cannula - they all have their favourite tricks - then sooner or later there's bound to be an issue. 

Anyway, the chemotherapy day starts with two bags of saline solution and then finally, finally, finally  at 1:30pm we hit the cancer with PEMETREXED (the first of the three cancer attacking drugs). That takes about 20 minutes and is followed by a bag of Mannitol which is added in to help my kidney function during the chemotherapy. I send an email to my girlfriend asking her if she thinks it's too late for me to do a runner. Sadly, the answer is yes.

From my point of view the worst side effect so far is a dry mouth. I could murder a Frescato from Costa Coffee. I have no idea why - perhaps its the equivalent of what pregnancy does to taste buds - but I am soooo into my iced drinks at the moment - I have been going through anything up to a six pack of Walls Calippos a day . I know that Leisa is quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) laughing about it, but they do so much in terms of the taste of my mouth, keeping my tummy settled and bring a much needed general psychological wellness that I'm not going to stop anytime soon. I ordered a little snow cone maker online. I hope that this will allow me to make my own shaved ice drinks - it's been despatched but it's got a long way to get here from the USA.

By 2:30pm we are up and running with a bag of CISPLATIN (the second of the cancer attackers). The bag has four hours to run. It runs longer because we hit the trauma of the cannula coming out. There's some controlled panic from my  support team, as the CISPLATIN can burn on contact with the skin. Luckily no damage appears to have been done, there is no burning sensation and the team clear up. The doctor comes back, and a cannula is inserted in the other hand and away we go again. I think it's cost me about 30 minutes - but it's already clear I'm going to be here all night, so no real harm done to the schedule.

I come across a card that Leisa has left in my overnight bag. It takes just a moment to run through a wide range of emotions. How lucky I am to have met her and how shockingly awful for her to find out that I have cancer so early in the relationship. I need to put a lid on these emotions today, and concentrate on getting through this ordeal, but I know I will come back to them soon. I know that I could not have gotten this far without her. Since my rheumatologist first said the Big C words I realise that some of me has been on auto-pilot and I need to shake any remnants of that off and get focused on what is really important. 

After the CISPLATIN is complete it's another 2 bags (at two hours each) of saline solutions and at 4:30am this morning in goes the ZOLENDRONIC ACID (the third of the cancer attacking drugs).

Hit conversation of the stay in hospital has been the iPad. Have had a number of conversations with the nurses and the support staff.... Why would you buy one, are they any good, what do you use it for, aren't they expensive etc etc. Say what you like, but the iPad has generated an enormous buzz. It has rocked the established view of the market and inserted a form factor between the phone and laptop. They are beautifully designed. 

Leisa arrives to take me home. I'm more than ready. I feel tired and not particularly with it. I think we're all looking for signs - and not even the big ones about how the chemo has gone - we're all looking for the little ones along the lines of how my stomach feels and the levels of fatigue. All I know is that I need to lie down.

UPDATE: Fatigue has been pretty much the story of the weekend. It's now the middle of Sunday night / Monday morning and I'm a little awake, enough to make myself a cup of tea and to feel that I have a modicum of energy in the tank or might have a little in the tank when I get up on Monday morning proper. Which is good because I was beginning to feel like a total lump of uselessness. 

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The lighter side of morphine

Since the Big C diagnosis I've been moved onto morphine based pain killers. The pain is centred around my chest, specifically the front breastbone at a level of the top of my lungs and round the back at about diaphragm level it's felt like i've been rabbit punched in the kidneys, this latter pain is thought to be what is sometimes called referred pain as the actual source of the pain is my spine but the pain is felt more radially. Getting the morphine dosage right is a complicated process which involves trying to understand the background level of constant pain, which is addressed through pills and taking a liquid based medicine called Oromorph, to deal with fluctuating spot pain. It's not an exact science and it partly depends on an individual's capacity to handle the fluctuating pain level.

One of the side effects of morphine in general is sleepiness. From a mental acuity point of view my best time appears to be morning. Thereafter, my alertness level can be variable and I've found myself asleep in my chair at odd times of the afternoon, evening and night. Sometimes I experience what you might call an enhanced daydream. I have a feeling the doctors may refer to it as an hallucination and possibly a sign that I've overdone the Oromorph. The transitions though can be spectacular, moving seamlessly from reading a blog post or newpaper article to being in the middle of the live event, or having dinner with someone who was in the story. The daydreams are incredibly vivid, rich in detail and content. I certainly have a somewhat better understanding of why addiction is not uncommon for those who take high levels of painkillers.

Recently though I've been experiencing a much less glamourous outcome of the sleepiness which I thought I'd share with you for a laugh, although you must promise me not to snort too much bearing in mind the general loss of dignity implied by what I'm about to tell you. Basically the problem has become falling asleep with a drink in my hand. What happens is that I slowly become aware in my sleep that I have fluid beginning to soak my shirt or trousers, I come round enough to work out that I'm spilling the drink in my hand onto myself and experience a kind of physical knee jerk that flings most of the rest of the drink over the rest of what I'm wearing and the chair I'm sitting in. This is disconcerting the first time it happens, it becomes both funnier and more annoying the more times it happens. It's easy to say that I should just put my glass down when I'm not actively drinking from it, but as a relatively high functioning individual, I can only say that I hear where you are coming from, but you try it!

The immense lack of dignity is going to come when I finally have to accept that I can't control this any longer and need to use a children's sippy cup. How mortifying.... but I have a feeling that in the fullness of time I think I may come to see this as one of the lesser losses of dignity involved in my care.

On the news front I was not in any shape to travel any distance today (Saturday) so I had to put my trip plans on hold for now. I have a call to return on Monday morning which I think is about arrangements for me to start my chemotherapy, I remain hopeful that we can start on Thursday but it's not yet in the bag. The other thing on my mind today has been the why of blogging about my cancer. I think I have two reasons. The first aligns with the view of the Macmillan Cancer charity who remind us that cancer will affect all of us at some point in our lives and 1 in 3 of us will actually be diagnosed with the disease. I'm just doing my bit to help with that awareness campaign. I'm not sure to what extent there is still a stigma attached to being diagnosed with cancer, if I'm honest I think those diagnosed with depression and other mental illness probably have a tougher time in that respect, but if there remains a cancer stigma, this is me doing my bit to help clear that away.

I think the other reason is that if I can help one person, someway down the line, who when faced with neck muscle and shoulder blade pains which then start to move randomly around the back can push for further tests to diagnose cancer as early as possible (and therefore improve their odds or life expectancy) then I will have been able to leave that help as part of my legacy. My other score for the day was a trip to the Apple shop in Leicester to buy an AV cable for my iPad. Sine I've had the iPhone I've been building up a collection of TV programmes and movies, which I have been playing on the iPhone in the evenings when travelling away on business. More recently I've been watching them on my iPad, but now I have the cable I can play them from the iPad through the huge TV in the living room - using the iPad as as a kind of portable DVD player. Awesome! I've gone right back to the start of Life on Mars and I have every episode of "The Wire" and "House" up my sleeve.
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Let battle commence...

This is probably the hardest to put together note that I've ever written. It's taken me almost two days just to get from the input - my first meeting with my Oncologist - to sitting down in front of a computer to write. The facts are relatively straightforward.

I have adenocarcinoma, and no point beating around the bush any longer, that means lung cancer. According to Wikipedia this is the form of lung cancer that is more prevalent in non-smokers, and I probably keep quoting Wikipedia that in the forlorn hope that my cancer may not be self inflicted and nothing to do with the twenty years I did smoke. In reality I'll never know and it really doesn't matter. I have the damn thing now and, self inflicted or not, the battle lines are being drawn. I gave up smoking several years ago, I must go back and work out when I quit for posterity's sake but for the sake of argument it's 7 or 8 years ago. I vividly remember some of the circumstances. I'd coughed up some blood and was worried I had early signs of lung cancer. I saw the doctor, who ordered a chest x-ray and three days later I found out I had viral pneumonia. When he told me that I laughed in relief - he probably thought I was mad, but that was the kick start I needed to give up.

We knew that the lung cancer had spread to my bones. That aligned with the pain that I've been having but then came the first of the hammer blows. I have a second secondary cancer. They've found liver cancer. Ruddy marvellous. But hey bring it on. A fights a fight and I'm not expecting cancer to play nice. I'm expecting it to fight mean and nasty. All I can say is that mentally I'm tough and I'm ready for that fight. I've been spoiling for the fight for three weeks now. It also accounts for some of my other symptoms, so I'm glad it's come out and we can start to address those other symptoms with knowledge of where they are coming from.

We move on to talk about treatment. Some immediate radiotherapy targeting key areas of pain - my breastbone and a couple of hot spots on my spine was are causing the referred pain in my ribs. The downside is that the pain might be worse for a couple of days. The expected upside is a release from the pain for awhile. And then, chemotherapy. Four or six sessions (or cycles), 30 days apart.

And finally the prognosis. And here comes the hammer blow I least expected. As expected they want to see how the chemotherapy goes before they can put some accuracy around it, in any shape or form. He allows me to push for a ballpark. I was hoping to hear two to five years. He says it's six to 12 months. I don't swear that much in writing, but FUCK! Even though I know that it comes with a huge number of caveats, that's just not fair.

There's a bit of a gap in my memory from that single point in time to much later that evening. In retrospect it's caused by a combination of a re-run of the shock of when I first got the Big C diagnosis and just complete overload. I think I'm trying to find the positive way to look at this news. It takes a while but finally I find it. And it's this. There's a conversation everyone gets round to eventually. Usually, but not always, when you've had a bit much to drink. And the question is this... If you found out you had 12 months to live, what would you do! What actually happens is that most people never get to live that question out for real. So many things that people want to do get put off for retirement, or when I pay the mortgage off or when the kids leave home or whatever. And they never get round to living out their dreams. When I get through the chemotherapy I will have a fair idea of the time that I have left. I'll have a prognosis drawn from the best information available. I only hope, when the time comes, that I can come up with a plan worthy of having been given the opportunity.

Strangely enough the day after the news I then have one of the best days I've had physically in weeks. I'm able to sleep in my bed, rather than in my recliner. I get several hours of unbroken sleep. I awake in the best shape I've been in for weeks. I'm ready for the fight. Today, I've been for the radiotherapy. True to form I'm now in more pain. Hopefully it will dissipate rapidly because I'd like to be in a position to take a trip at the weekend. Knowing my luck that will go pear shaped too, but we've got time to see if I can recover.

There are a couple of things that need to happen a week in advance of chemotherapy starting and we've made them happen today. As things stand I'm in a position to start next Thursday, the question is can everything that's needed be lined up by then. I have to say I'm thoroughly impressed with my Oncologist. He's just come back from an important international conference on exactly the types of cancer we're dealing with here. Which means he's as up to date with what might be possible as anyone else I could get referred to in the UK. More than that he's a great way about him. In a very short space of time I've given him my trust. It's going to be one of the most important relationships of my life.

Everyone I've spoken with since I've gotten this new news of the third cancer and a ballpark opening prognosis, really hasn't known what to say. Well, that goes for me too. What can anyone say. It's all been pretty devastating stuff. I'm probably slightly ahead of the curve in processing the news and dealing with it; as this has really played out over about three weeks or so for me; from the original point at which I was told in the very broadest of terms that I have cancer. Whatever you now hear or read, for the sake of clarity, the request to give me a call or drop me a note still stands. I'm still the same Chief Happiness Officer I was three weeks ago. And I know you won't know what to say and neither will I, so we can have conversations about iPads and iPhones and technology and Inbox Zero and work in general, life in general, the news and the weather. See, we'll have plenty to talk about!

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D-Day came early...

The consultant rheumatologist rang me late on Monday. He's spoken with the chest specialist, them both having resumed after a couple of day's holiday the back end of last week. We dance around whether or not I can come into Northampton to see him immediately. I suggest that he can tell me the news over the phone. I can tell he's reluctant. 

The news isn't good. I have an adenocarcinoma - it's a form of lung cancer - ironically the most common form of lung cancer in non-smokers. It's an aggressive, quick growing strain - it would be wouldn't it! So the rheumatologist has referred me to an oncologist. I now await contact from the oncologist for an appointment to discuss details - prognosis and treatment plan. Ironically, more waiting...

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The problem of waiting...

Before I get started, I just had to tell you a great joke I heard this week. Things you don't want to hear in hospital:  Yes, I'm afraid it's the Big C. You were standing by the side of Curry's when the Big C fell off and hit you on the head! 

I fell about when I heard it. If you hadn't figured it out yet, I'm afraid the waiting has made some gallows humour kick in a bit. 

It's all about the waiting at the moment. I saw the GP on Friday, but only because I was running out of morphine. He signed off on so much morphine that I had to fill in the controlled substances box on the prescription form in the chemists for the first time ever. I have the feeling he was probing my psychological state before prescribing me that much of a controlled drug. I guess that's fair enough and something we'd all really think is a sensible precaution just before a large quantity of a lethal drug is handed out. 

He did ask me one question that has made been on and off my mind since he mentioned it. He asked me if I was ready for a diagnosis of lung cancer. I think the context for his question was me telling him that I've not really had that much of an emotional reaction since the day of the diagnosis, or C-day as my girlfriend calls it. Of course I was shocked on C-day. There were any number of emotions swirling around in the immediate aftermath of the announcement. But one emotion I haven't yet done is anger and I think it's kind of expected that I'm going to do anger at some stage. So I think he was checking my preparedness or readiness to hear the worst of all possible outcomes when I get the biopsy results on Tuesday. The trouble is my mind has now got me thinking he already knew the outcome - because for other reasons I believe my case was discussed at a case conference on Thursday at Northampton General Hospital. So I'm putting two and two together to make five. I'm sure it's form that the chest specialist tells me the outcome of the biopsy, so I don't get to hear what the result is until tomorrow (Tuesday) but sometimes when I turn it over in my mind I think he already knew. Then again, he asked me questions and made other comments that suggested he didn't know. 

And there lies the problem with waiting. The longer you wait, the more your mind fills in the gaps. 

Tomorrow is D-day. Diagnosis day. Well, it might be, because all I might find out is that the tests so far are inconclusive and further tests are needed. I'm going to need something to take my mind of the waiting if all I'm facing tomorrow is more waiting. 

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Starting my fight against cancer...

So there I am, sat with my consultant rheumatologist and my girlfriend to find out the results of the most recent tests that have been undertaken to find out why I've been experiencing pain which has moved around my neck, back, shoulders and rib cage. The last time I saw the rheumatologist he'd said that if the pain hadn't started to go away by this time then we'd be moving on to do some form of bone biopsy to find out what was going on. I didn't need the test results to know that the issue wasn't going away on it's own, the pain I am suffering was telling me that much. The consultant began to tell me what they'd found. I am still processing the first lines of what he said to me. He was moving on to tell me that a biopsy had been arranged for me on the Friday, two days hence. I interrupted to say that Friday was a bit difficult as I had an important workshop arranged on Friday. My consultant gave me a look that I can only describe as pity. I think my girlfriend wanted to smack me round the chops. It still took me a few more moments to process what he'd first told me.

I have cancer.

To be honest I think, seven days later, I'm still processing that line. I'm also in a bit of no mans land because I don't know what type of cancer I have yet or what the prognosis is. They did a lung biopsy last Friday, not because they necessarily think I have lung cancer, but the cancer has spread to my lungs and I have a partially collapsed lung. I think they started with the lung because it's the least invasive biopsy and may tell them everything they need to know at this stage. If it doesn't it may give them enough to point to the best place for the next biopsy. We are in diagnostic territory and I am in the hands of the professionals. To be fair the care I've had so far has been fantastic. My consultant doesn't often have to tell people they have cancer. He looked like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him when he was telling me. Yet he was a credit to his profession. To kind of sum up what I know so far...

(1) I have cancer markers in my blood
(2) The CT scan shows evidence the cancer is widespread
(3) I have a partially collapsed lung

I went on from the consultant pretty much immediately to see my GP. It's amazing how cancer opens doors, usually I'd never be able to get an appointment with my GP within 2 hours. My GP was, and is, great. We discussed pain control and I've been moved onto morphine based painkillers. He told me he'd be giving me a sick note for a couple of weeks. I said okay. He said he thought he was going to have to persuade me as apparently he has me down as a bit reluctant to be sick. He said he was ready to fight me off anyway as (a) getting used to the morphine was likely to make the drowsiness I have been suffering from worse and (b) I need to be available for the diagnostic / biopsy process as and when. This side of things is all bit unclear at the moment as well. All linked to finding out what I have and what the prognosis is.

I've stayed away from the internet so far in terms of researching cancer. I don't want to scare myself by reading horror stories of what I don't have. When they get to the end of this stage and tell me what I have then I want to know everything. I want to know how to fight this and how to beat it. I know one other thing. One of the ways I'm going to beat this is with happiness. I sometimes go by the alternate job title of "Chief Happiness Officer" at work because I believe that happiness is an important component of success. If I am dying I don't want people around me to be sad for me in an enduring way. It's okay to be a bit sad about the news - hell, you can imagine I was a bit sad about the news, but I don't want to be surrounded by perpetual glumness. I could not have gotten through the last week without the support of my girlfriend. One thing I immediately understood about this all was that all the support is focused on me, and none of it on those close to me and on whom this is going to impact dramatically. I've been on the carer side of this type of announcement, admittedly not a cancer diagnosis though, and this stuff is hard. I tell you all this now because I'm likely to talk about this stuff through my social media output - my blog, twitter, Facebook etc etc and if that's going to bore you, upset you, or just mean that I'm no longer a business development opportunity and therefore no longer a person of interest to you then get on with it an unfriend me or unfollow me now. I won't be offended.

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