Today's appointment with the radiology oncologist was at 9.15 am. Judging from the previous time, I expected to be leaving the hospital within an hour of that, but that isn't how it panned out at all. When I checked in, the receptionist told me there were seven people ahead of me, that it would be about an hour before I'd be seen, and that we should perhaps go to the hospital restaurant and have something to eat. We did that (Carl had taken the day off work to be with me), took our time over the pretty basic food, and made out way back to the clinic. The numbers before me had only reduced to five by then, and we were told to go away again for another hour. Rather than just wander around aimlessly, I took a notion to walk to the nearby Beaumont Drive-In to stock up with some vegetables (all the easier to do with Carl's extra pair of hands available to help carry the bags). What with walking to the hospital to begin with and this walk to and back from the vegetable shop and then home from the hospital eventually, it felt as if several days worth of exercise had been piled into one short morning.

When we got back to the clinic we still had a bit of a wait while the consultant dealt with two patients before I was called. The meeting was supposed to be the one at which, with the results of all the scans in, there'd be a clear indication of whether or not the prostate problem had spread elsewhere, which would then determine what treatment option would be followed. But no, that wasn't what happened. The bone scan and the CT scan were both fine, but the MRI showed up an 'abnormality' with the bowel, as a result of which I have yet another test to undergo. The consultant described it as a 'camera' test, but received opinion is that it will actually be a colonoscopy. All that was said at the time was that an urgent appointment would be made, and that I should make an appointment to see the consultant again in three weeks' time. What actually happened was that I got a follow-up phone call from the man himself not long afterwards, telling me the next test had been arranged for 8.00 am on Wednesday. The outcome of that test will determine whether or not I undergo radiation treatment, but in the mean time I'm to begin a course of hormone injections immediately, beginning tomorrow and continuing every four weeks for the next three years.

So, not the best of news, really, and I still feel as if I'm in limbo. After walking home with the vegetables, Carl and I went off on what we'd already planned would either be a period of celebration or of drowning my sorrows. What it amounted to was a bit of a pub crawl, beginning with lunch in the Goblet and continuing in the Roundabout, the Ardlea and my Kitty Kiernan local. We had a terrific day despite the less than satisfactory outcome of the hospital encounter. The blip dates from upstairs in the Goblet pub where we had lunch. I took a shine to the way the light was falling on the rather plush curtains. There are all sorts of other blips from the course of the day, which at one stage I thought I might mark with a collage of different images. When it came to blip-choice time, though, the moodiness of this image seemed best to sum up the happenings of the day.

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p.s. After Carl made his way home I got a rather frantic phone call from my next-door neighbour Susan. I was worried that she'd maybe had another fall, so I rushed in to see her. I knew, but couldn't stop myself, as I pulled the door shut behind me that I'd locked myself out. So after a long, long heart-to-heart chat with Susan (who was fine, but was concerned about me and the outcome of my hospital appointment) I ended up staying the night in her place.