My beloved and I went along for my final appointment with Dr Parente for the year. All was as if had been the other times — PSA undetectable — everything good. Of course, this is something we never get tired of hearing! Herself and I had a celebratory coffee in Hawthorn before went to my exercise class.

The week before each appointment, I have a blood test, leaving enough time for the lab work to be done and delivered to Dr P. Around then, I start getting testing anxiety; I am more irritable, although I try not to be, and my sleep is worse. On the morning of the appointment, I feel quite neutral — there is almost a relief that it is here.  On the morning of the appointment, we drive to Box Hill, hoping to get a spot in the practice’s car park. This is quite contested. To keep non-patients out, the practice has had to hand out passes each day to display on the top of their vehicle’s dashboard. If there is a spot, my beloved parks the car while I nick in to grab a pass. I bring this back to her and retrieve my backpack. Necessary things contained therein are my notebook, and a book to read. If I don’t have the notebook, I just don’t remember anything much of what is said in the appointment. I just sit and read my book until my name is called. 

We have found morning appointments are best; I am usually a bit more alert, and there is less chance of the good doctor running behind. Dr P goes through the results from the blood test. This is usually straightforward; everything is over in about five minutes.  It is strange how, after I get this news, I feel a bit scatty and distracted. I never expect the results to be the same as they were last time, even when they have been good all year, or remember how I feel from one time to the next. We have gone through this cycle eight times this year. In saying this, I am very conscious that everything is the best that it can be.

Every other time I see Dr P, all being well, I have another Zolodex. (This is the estrogen treatment that is keeping the cancer quiet. It is delivered in the form of an implant about the size of a grain of rice.) I just walk up the street from the practice to the Epworth Box Hill oncology ward. One of the nurses there checks the dose, and what side it went in on last time. Then they swab the other side of my tummy, and shove it in. This is one of the situations where being a bit rounded is actually quite a good thing! One of the nurses said that they have to hunt around on really lean patients to find enough fat into which to put the implant. Even with my moderate spare tyre, the injection still leaves a fair size bruise.

Dr P told me to keep up the exercise, which I intend to do. I am about half way through the three months of exercise classes I am doing for the university study; three classes a week for the next six weeks, with a break for Christmas. The classes are all supervised by PhD students in exercise physiology. They are lovely young folk, radiating fitness and endorphins, who implacably raise the bar on us old roosters. The aerobic session I do first has gotten longer, and now features high intensity interval training. (This is where you go flat out for a minute, then ease back to the original speed. I do this three or four times, then have a cool-down.) In the resistance training part, the weights have gotten heavier, and the number of sets has gone from two to three. I am feeling better for it all, and even putting on some muscle.  On Sunday, two days after my last class, I felt restless, and found it hard to concentrate. I think I am getting hooked on this exercise caper!

I have been pondering what to do around the end of January, after the study finishes.  I don’t think I will do three sessions a week on my own dime; two, however, is quite a possibility. Meanwhile, Christmas looms into view again. I had the end-of-year party for the Museum last week. This week there is the party for the physio practice I was going to before starting the university program. The same day there is a coffee morning for former RMIT people; everyone kindly rearranged this from its usual day to accommodate my exercise class. This week we will also be getting a visit from an air-conditioning installer, fortunately the day before a heatwave. We will have gone from fifteen to thirty-eight in the same week, an impressive range even for Melbourne.