It's a physically active weekend, with orienteering on Saturday and a training run on Sunday...
I'm looking forward to orienteering. Despite the weather -- a stinking hot day. By the time the event starts it's cooler though still muggy.
Deb & I start together then, after a first control, go our separate ways. I find a second control -- with difficulty. Then a third -- by accident, it was not the one I was looking for. I scrunch up the map in disgust and return to the assembly area.
Thinking about it later: my mind is not on what I'm doing. I think that I'm looking for control #28 -- but that's the one that I've already found. I finally -- accidentally -- find #8, think it must be a mis-numbered #28 but... I really wanted #2. Time to give up.
No, it's not a cancer-riddled brain... though that thought crosses what's left of my mind. Heck, one cancer scare and every headache or loss of mental capacity has me worried.
I actually do worry, enough to spend some time working out what I did, where I went wrong. And I realise it is just a complete lack of concentration. Ah well, not a problem but not as active a Saturday as intended.
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Sunday is 90 minutes of jogging. As I start, my mind starts to close down... You know that feeling in, for example, a boring meeting: your eyes start to close, you know that if you let them close, you will be fast asleep? It's that sort of feeling. I don't close my eyes, I do slow down.
This actually worries me. The first symptom of brain cancer -- for me -- was gaps in my perception of reality. ie I ran but was unconscious. Or, possibly, amnesiac. Is this sleepiness dangerously similar?
I begin my "VSE"-- visual surveillance of my environment. I think, What should I see up ahead? What have I just passed? ... I'm checking that my consciousness is continuous.
No worries. I eventually -- after 20 minutes jogging -- feel fully awake. I still go slowly -- just in case -- with quite a lot of walking. Mind you, I cover about as much distance as my usual distance for ninety minutes... which shows how slowly I jog :-)
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It's funny what does worry me.
I still have the occasional flash of, I'm gonna die! Perhaps once every two or three weeks, I'm hit by remembrance of my shorter-than-expected expected life-span. I have 5 or 10 seconds of worry, even fear. Then I put it aside and carry on. No worries.
After quite a few months of "all clear", I have a flash of a different worry: I am *not* expecting to die. I am quite close to "normal" thinking, where death is a remote thing which could, possibly, happen to other people. And this worries me:
I try to tread the straight-and-narrow path of acceptance. I take the essential treatments. Accept that my cancer is terminal. Don't let it rule my life. When I lose that acceptance of *terminal* cancer -- I slip off that narrow path. So?
So if/when I get a fresh diagnosis of, It's back -- I don't want to be horribly surprised. I'm worried that I am slipping from acceptance to denial... that I will be shocked when the cancer returns.
While I'm still all clear, Deb & I are having a good time. Glad to be alive lol. I want a smooth transition to the next stage of my adventure, the timing is indeterminate but the fact is predetermined. So I worry when I find that I am slipping into disbelief: the transition will be (I guess) less smooth.
Good grief! I'm worried that I am not worried :-)
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In other activity: my phone app is (a) complete and (b) so limited that it's not worth continuing...
I'm using a coding language which is simple to use but I have (I believe) reached the limits of what it can do. So I'm learning another language and -- good grief again.
It's a whole new world. Took me a week or more to get the Android emulator to work -- so I can see what the code is doing. But I have had the code tell me, Hello World! That was by following a very detailed tutorial -- which I only half understood. Then I managed -- all by myself -- to get my Android app to say, Hello Nick :-)
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In between languages, I suffered boredom. With its attendant depression. There's nothing worth doing I want to do, I think. It's essential that I keep my mind entertained. Either switched off -- with PC gaming or reading a book. Or busy -- with programming.
I now have a goal, to recode my existing app into this new language. I tried to transfer the old program directly into the new, there were incomprehensible errors. Libraries missing. I have no idea...
So coding my phone app in this new language is my new -- mental -- goal. And it's slightly less feasible than my physical goal, to run over Cradle Mountain. Both goals keep me entertained. Challenged. And happy.
Physical challenge. Mental challenge. Emotional straight-and-narrow path of acceptance. Not to forget family & friends :-)
All good, no worries.
Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
... Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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"Choice, not chance, determines your destiny" … Aristotle
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Continue to have a good time.
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