Up early to get to the hospital and have another blood test. A nervous wait was ended at 10.40 when the doctor came out to tell me that my blood levels had stabilised and had in fact risen over the weekend. Given that the colonoscopy revealed nothing, they were happy for me to join the team and the ride.

I immediately phoned Sue who started looking up flights, and when I arrived back home we booked a morning flight to Hanover. Funnily enough, I did see a quote for a bmi flight at £324 and thought I would try to give the story to effect a discount. After some minutes, the person to whom I spoke came back on the phone and said they were able to offer me a discounted flight for £323 and… At that point I thanked them for their efforts and went to a cheaper alternative.

I immediately informed the team who were now in Germany, and it sounded very much that they were now desperate for the rest day tomorrow and relax. The only problem was that they were drawing straws to find out who would have to get up early to drop off Robin and pick me up - Jordanna and Smit lost the toss.

The afternoon saw another afternoon nap which seem to be taking a long time to snap out of, and currently the thought of doing any cycling, especially with the others having 300 miles in their legs, very daunting. Still, as the footballers say, I will have to take it each day at a time and assess what I can and can’t do.

11 hours sleep saw me wake up refreshed and hungry. After 2 breakfasts, I had a conversation with Sue Ballard of PCUK who informed me that we were starting to get quite a bit of publicity being generated. After this, I set about updating the blog so as to keep people updated on the progress of the team as they work their way across Europe - a verbal update to supplement the tracking information. Two hours of activity on the website saw me nodding off, and a 2 hour nap in the afternoon.

I was awoken by marvelous tales from Andy and Iago as they made their way back from the weekend, and both were waxing lyrical about everything - including the storm! As the afternoon wore on, I felt much better and stronger, however following reports that the team seem to be getting quicker all the time, I am getting increasingly worried that if I do manage to get meet up with the team early this week, then I will be way behind them in terms of fitness and ‘miles in the legs’ - still I will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Plan at the moment is that tomorrow morning I go to the hospital for a blood test, and depending on the result, I will make a decision on what to do from there. Flexibility is the order of the day.

The decision to now go to Harwich was the right one as I spent the day in a very lethargic state - eating, sleeping and lazing about and generally recovering from the 2 nights in hospital.

A few calls to the guys in Holland kept me in touch with events, and following progress via the live tracking was fun, but got a bit worrying towards the end as they were still cycling deep into the evening. Even a little guilt that I was ‘putting them through this’ and I was out there to share in the pain (as well as the good times).

Digestively things appear to be sorting themselves out, but still feeling a bit light headed. I need to carefully balance my desire to go out and join the team against the need not to be a liability to the team - after all, they need all of their time and energy for cycling, and not looking after someone. I will obviously be assessing the situation on a day by day basis.

I should have spent the day in the saddle on the way to Harwich. Instead, I spent the first part of the morning on the phone to my house where all were gathering for the start of the ride and listening to the nervous ramblings of most of the riders, and the second half of the morning on a hospital bed being rogered by a couple of doctors (in the guise of a colonoscopy) for 1.5hours. The good news was that the bits that they managed to see showed that there were no obvious bleeding points, the bad news was that the reason for the extended ‘rogering’ was that they could not get into the bits that had been replumbed following my surgery.

However, getting back to the ward, I was given another bit of bad news in that since yesterday, despite no further bleeding, my blood levels had dropped by another unit, which meant it was necessary to have another unit of blood. Over the day, I had gone through the scenarios of what I would do given the different levels of news given that my overriding ambition was now to join the team in whatever capacity I could (rider, passenger or driver) so as to be part of the experrience. The first scenario was that if I was given the all clear, then I would probably try to join the team in Harwich given that the timing was ok. However, I had already decided that should there be any unanswered questions or any any treatment required, then I would have not option but to wait in England to see the effects of the treatment before travelling out to see the guys. The next two obvious ’meet’ points would be in Hanover on Tuesday (the first rest day) or Berlin towards the end of next week.

So given the news about the blood transfusion, I decided to take the latter route and abandoned any hope of getting out to Harwich. In fact the hospital following the transfusion wanted me to stay in hospital over the weekend to be monitored, however, given the fact that I was seemingly no longer bleeding, and that I only live 20 minutes from the hospital, I convinced them that I would be better off at home as long as first thing Monday morning I reported back to the hospital for further blood level tests.

In practice there was not way I would have made it to Harrow, as following cross matching etc, the blood transfusion was only finished at 9pm, and 15 minutes later I was in the car and on my way home. When I arrived at home, the sleepless 2 nights in the hospital had finally caught up with me, and despite being nil by mouth for virtually 2 days, I was finding it difficult to eat. What I needed was a good night’s sleep.

But before that, a few of the stage riders who had left from Harrow in the morning finally made their way back to collect their cars. They came in for a cup of tea, and regaled me with wonderful tales of enjoyment, camaraderie, shared suffering and teamwork. Although I was obviously gutted that I had not been part of it, the fact that so many people had so enjoyed it, made the disappointment a little bit more bearable. 

Throughout the night the blood transfused slowly into my body, and sleep was difficult as I was constantly interrupted by nurses taking observations and doctors taking blood. During ling periods of the night, I started to think about all of the things I would be missing if I was not well enough to go with the team on the ride. This was the first time I had really thought about the ride itself as prior to this, I had been consumed by arrangements as opposed to the actual ride. The conclusion was that I would really miss it, but obviously, I was clinging to the slim hope that things would turn out alright.

The morning in the hospital passed awaiting information, but it was slow in coming, and it was looking increasingly likely that the procedure that was being recommended (a colonoscopy) would only be possible the next day because of the preparation needed. This was confirmed about midday as it was confirmed that I now needed to be nil by mouth and connected to a saline drip.

Throughout the morning, I kept in touch with everyone through numerous phone calls, and busily trying to write down all of the final details (which were mostly in my head) regarding anything and everything so as to be available to the rest of the team.

At 12.30pm, from my vantage point on the 4th floor of Hammersmith Hospital, I saw the Bike to the Future 2008 support van (now resplendent in signs and logos) appear in the hospital car park ready to set up for the start of the ride. After being visited in the ward by Jordanna & Immi and Jordanna & Smit, just before 2pm, I left the ward as I had been given dispensation by the medical team to be disconnected from my drip and participate in the start events. This consisted of a Ride around the World event in which a number of Hammersmith Hospital people contributed funds and miles to the BTTF 2008 targets by doing laps of Wormwood Scrubs, and at 15.00 I lined up with the other members of the team at the start line for the start. A few words of encouragement by my oncologist, Harpreet Wasan before he airhorned us into action and the team was on its way to Krakow. The dispensation has also stretched to cycling a few hundred yards before I was forced to turn off, and watch all of the guys disappear into the distance and towards the first stage finish in Harrow. I returned to the start point, and when I got off the bike, I was in tears as not being able to ride the stage, and clearly not being able to make the second stage to Harwich. I said goodbye to the many guests who had been there at the start and disappeared back to the ward, and an appointment with a saline drip.

When I got back to the ward, it ws confirmed that the blood transfusion has had the desired effect of stabilising my blood levels which had returned to their pre-Wednesday levels, and that the colonoscopy was now confirmed for 9am on the following morning - just the time that the team and the stage riders would be starting off for Harwich. It appeared that if things worked out, that there was still a chance that I would be able to meet up with the rest of the team in Harwich and make the trip across to Holland with them all. 

The evening was an absolute nightmare as I was given the task of drinking 4 litres of what I can only describe as colonic bleach which was designed to clean me out - the main problem being that the taste was unbelievable bad. When Sue visited me in the evening, she thought I was being over dramatic about how bad it was until she tried it herself, and only just saved herself from throwing up. This together with a very hot night meant that I hardly slept, and once again I was starting to feel frazzled.