Today it is exactly four calendar months since the removal of my post-prostatectomy catheter, the start of Mr. Leaky, so I thought another progress bulletin was in order.

There’s a couple of things to point out about this return to continence process, assuming I haven’t already done so. [Ed: A senior moment, eh?] The first is that the level of security can vary quite markedly from day to day. I have frequently been somewhat disappointed having suffered a less secure day following what seemed like a relatively very good day. This phenomenon is something I’ve tagged Inconsistent Incontinence, or II (eye-eye) for short. I’ve no idea why it happens, but it does. This is one of the reasons it is important to take an average view and look back a week or two to gauge progress.

A second feature is that, as progress is made, it gets quite difficult to assess further progress. In the earlier stages of recovery it is quite obvious, for example, that you can now get out to the driveway and into the car securely whereas a little while ago, down the hall to the kitchen was one’s limit. Even judging the difference between walking, say, a quarter mile compared to half a mile are quite easy to gauge. Once over a mile, though, progress gets trickier (unless you resort to a pedometer or GPS solution). During our recent two weeks sauntering around the New Forest, I felt much the same as I had for about the previous month: get about a mile, then start noticing that old I’m-about-to-leak sensation.

This week, however, has provided a couple of good milestones – another good reason for a progress update. I joined our local U3A walking group on Tuesday for a 5½ mile walk around some very pleasant woodland and countryside in our vicinity. It’s only two weeks since we were in the New Forest but I felt, really, very secure. I very nearly made it as far as the 3-mile post, actually, 2.8 miles (I admit it, I used the GPS solution), before any lack of security crept in, and then it was very slight. I was/am delighted.

I had even stressed myself a day earlier by voluntarily lifting and re-laying several heavy patio slabs to correct a slight subsidence. A couple of months ago any work of a heavy nature would certainly have caused a bit of a leak but I seemed to cope admirably.

Remembering the first feature, II, I’m resisting getting carried away. I’m certainly not ready to ditch the i-Pad Manos just yet but I am very positive about recent progress. Cycling is no problem at all, except that I sometimes think that I suffer a slightly increased weakness as an after-effect of it, and if I can indulge in 5-mile or more walks without too much concern then, in practical terms, life is not too far from normal. I can indulge in the pastimes I enjoy.

We’ve booked the ferry for France ready for our spring migration. Yeah! 🙂

Considering the fact that I was born in February, I really should be used to it being a short month by now. I’m not, though; I never seem to be prepared for March to start. Slow learning curve I guess. So, here we are at the last day of February and it’s approaching three months since my radical prostatectomy. That makes it time to begin a year of 3-monthly follow-up blood tests for PSA. It is apparently necessary to wait three months after the operation to allow all existing PSA to get flushed from the system. If, as is hoped, all those nasty prostate cells have been successfully removed, my PSA level should drop to pretty much zero. This morning at 8:10 AM, I visited our practice nurse to get the blood sample taken and sent to the hospital. I should be given the results this Friday afternoon at my second follow-up meeting with the urology nurse. Fingers firmly crossed!

I’ve also agreed to take part in a UK Genetic Prostate Cancer Study being performed by the ICR (Institute of Cancer Research). That involved a questionnaire about my relatives, already completed, and two more samples of blood which our obliging practice nurse drew at the same time as the PSA sample to save on the holes. 🙂

This weekend was definitely my most active yet. We are both getting stir-crazy as a result of our dull winter but, since Sunday morning was unusually sunny, Carol decided to walk into town, a distance of about two miles, for a little retail therapy. I rashly chose to adopt a kill-or-cure approach and joined her for the 4-mile round trip wander. Brave or foolhardy, I knew not. Though not entirely leak-free, I did make it without the damage being disturbing. Obviously I’d love to remain entirely dry but at least it seems that I’m beginning to be able to do the things I enjoy most, even if with a little remaining apprehension.

The main reason for the retail therapy trip was to purchase an SDHC memory card for the little Nikon Coolpix camera that came with the digiscoping kit purchased on Saturday. The camera had a small amount of “on-board” memory (32Mb, I think) but a card would really be needed once we started digiscoping uncooperative wildlife. As I found out with my first attempts, catching a reasonable shot, given the inherent slight delay combined with jittery targets, is largely a matter of luck. You really need to press the shutter a lot and discard the 90% of the shots that missed. For a massive £4, we snagged a 4Gb SDHC card that would enable us to press the shutter about 350 times.

We got back just before the heavens opened. [Ed: that’s 2½ days of sun this month.]

In a desperate attempt to find a saving grace for naff weather, I’ll suggest that it does tend to increase the bird activity in our garden. Today, now armed with a memory card as well as a shiny new digiscoping kit, I tried playing with my new acquisition again.

I don’t really like photographs of birds on feeders. I do occasionally take such shots to document what species visit us but I wouldn’t use them as anything approaching artistic. Today, however, I noticed that some of our feathered friends, mostly Great Tits (Parus major), were using the bare branches of one of Carol’s acers as a staging post before raiding our peanut feeder. The occasional Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus) alighted, too, but all attempts to snag one of them were in my 90% discards, unfortunately. I did, however, manage to beat the odds when a Robin (Erithacus rubecla) perched briefly allowing me to get off two shots, one of which was perfectly OK. The acer makes for a much more natural-looking setting than a feeder.

Now, I wonder how I can persuade our local Long-tailed Tits (Aegithalos caudatus) to use the acer as well?