Hello.  My name is Alcuin Edwards.  I am fifty three years old, still in an entry level job at the Department of Health.  On the side I'm a poet, novelist and singer but not sufficiently successful in any of those roles to quit my day job.  On the whole, I believe my life so far has been wasted.  Everybody say Aaah.

I've been lucky healthwise.  I have athetoid type Cerebral Palsy but it's a mere 20% disability and I can cope with it so that nobody notices.  I have Meniere's Disease, but just get one attack a year and little or no hearing loss so far, so that too is a blessing.

But now I have cancer.

Nothing to worry about, it's prostate cancer, men with prostate cancer tend to die with it not of it, unless one is unlucky like Frank Zappa.  Mine isn't the slow growing kind though.  When I was diagnosed earlier in the year, they said it was very aggressive, having already consumed 90% of my prostate and spread to the Seminal Vesicles.  Although there was no sign of metastasis, they told me that there was a forty percent chance of micrometastases in my bones or lymph nodes.

For the last six months, I've been on various drugs to turn off my balls because the cancer thrives on testosterone.  I've been on Goserelin, Bicalutamide, Abiraterone, Prednisolone and Vitamin D (the latter to offset the effects of the others).  As a result I've had hot flushes, some bone pain, a little confusion and a lot of tiredness although the latter reduced when I stopped going to work.

All that though, is just to shrink the cancer.  Now comes the time to kill it.  For that, I'm going to have Intensity modulated Radiation Treatment (radiotherapy).  It starts on Wednesday.  I'm a little apprehensive but I daresay it'll all be okay.

More of that tomorrow though.