Rule 26

Joan's Chemotherapy treatment is ever changing. Last week she was managing well...no real nausea or diarrhea. This week she is experiencing new symptoms....teeth and jaws aching, extreme sensitivity to cold and tiredness. She had a bad day where she broke down and did a bit of yelling. I can understand that...I was just not expecting it. We have few if any arguments.

We have a friend in New York who has just completed her chemotherapy for breast cancer. She wrote to Joan suggesting she invoke rule 26. Rule 26 says that the husband must not later bring up the topic of what was said (or yelled) to/at him during chemotherapy. Seems like a good rule!

We both go to the same medical centre. My GP knew about my father's bowel and liver cancer and had me get a colonoscopy regularly every 18 months or so. Joan's GP(s) should have known about her family history of bowel cancer, but somehow it slipped through and she never had a colonoscopy until she was diagnosed. I may suggest that a red warning label be attached to the front of patient files telling of family history of such diseases. Maybe Joan could have been diagnosed at an earlier stage?

A court case just finished, has a music copyright holder winning a case against the band 'Men at Work' for the supposedly pinching of a very small riff of an old Australian kids' song Kookaburra sits in the Old Gum Tree and weaving it into their immensely succesful piece 'Down Under'. Down Under was used as the theme for Australia's successful challenge of the America's Cup. I expect that Men at Work merely wanted to make their song as Australian as possible, but the b------s who now own 'Kookaburra' which was written in the 1930s are going to sue the band for millions. Kids in schools, on scout camps all know 'Kookaburra' and they should now rally behind Men at Work and punish these litigious shites.