Eulogy for Joan

Joan’s sister Dorothy wrote the following for Joan’s eulogy.

My sister Joan Lilian was born on the 2nd April 1942 in Wongan Hills District Hospital. She was the first child of Edward and Doris McHugh and was an adored first grandchild for her maternal grandparents, aunts and uncle. She was a curly haired chubby little darling adored by all and much photographed by them all.

I was born in 1943 and then my little brother Ian in 1947. Our mother died when Joan was just seven years old. Dad refused to let the family be separated and so we experienced a succession of housekeepers. Joan quickly learned to be self sufficient and could cook an excellent jaffle. Her favourite was mashed potato and egg cooked until the bread was golden and the egg was still runny. She continued to be a good and inventive cook.

Days on the farm at Wongan Hills were full of fun. Joan's and my first adventure was when we were quite young. Dad was clearing bush some miles from home and he took us to check on the scrub rolling. We were given strict orders not to leave the car. Of course we got out and when we saw a snake Joan decided that we had to head for home. We walked and walked and got home to find that dad and mum were desperately organizing search parties to look for us in the bush. Dad had driven home the usual way but Joan had led us home safely through a back way.

When she learned to read, Joan's world changed. I well remember forfeiting my threepence pocket money to add to hers so that she could buy a little booklet of fairy stories. Her love of fantasy was born. Sewing lessons were a very special occasion for the girls at Wongan Hills Primary School. Believe it or not Joan hated hand sewing and would entertain a cluster of girls, telling stories of knights, dragons and princesses. The teacher seemed happy to ignore us on those afternoons and in return for the stories Joan wove for us we secretly did her sewing for her. She became an avid reader and I well remember stinking hot holidays at the Dandaragan farm when the weekly highlight for Joan was to borrow books from the Moora library. Three nonfiction and one fiction book plus my allocation were devoured each week and sometimes the librarian snuck in a few extra for her. Joan loved to read. She read broadly but her chosen genre was fantasy and in recent months she reread all her favourites.

On the farm we roamed the bush hunting for wildflowers, making a cubby under a wattle tree until Joan discovered a trap door spider's nest. We found fairy circles of mushrooms and even flew our home made flag in a private bush Anzac service. Joan led us on adventures too. I remember our trek across the dry stubble paddocks to the red lake and how she screamed when a little snake wriggled under a seated friend's bent legs across the cracked red mud on the edge of the lake.

Joan excelled at Geraldton High School and developed a determination to succeed. She acted in her first play at high school and was an excellent English student. She went on to the University of Western Australia, playing in many productions at the Dolphin Theatre..

Perhaps her love of textiles had its origins at age thirteen. Pedal pushers were the fashion statement for teenagers at that time. Our father brought us up strictly and disliked females in shorts or trousers. I can remember a very heated exchange between Joan and Dad but Joan made her point and sewed for herself a bright red pair of pedal pushers. After that she made most of her own clothes with Dad's approval or not.

Joan was a very special sister. She will be remembered for her determination in fighting cancer. More importantly she will be remembered for the way she introduced so many students to the joys of cooking and sewing and for her leadership in textiles groups in Western Australia.

Joan had a special place in our family life. We had many a wonderful Sundays and many family parties in the back yard at Canning Highway as well as memorable outings on Kevin's boat “Vile Body”.

Katherine who lives in San Francisco remembers and says “Aunty Joan was an exotic aunt. She thought and did things differently. Her art looked different to my Mum's, her food tasted different and her book selection was full of fantasies. And it was fascinating.

My fondest memories of Aunty Joan include:
- Christmas at Joan and Kevin's house in Bicton and the deliciously different dinners she created in her beautiful old dining room and the wonderful books she gave me every Christmas,
- weekend afternoons sitting on their back patio under the grapevine, watching Mum and Aunty Joan sipping champagne, listening to Dad and Kevin tell dirty jokes while we kids played in the pool with Helen and Martin or played with Defa the dog.
- more recently it has been Aunty Joan's passion and devotion to her crafts and her family.

I am so sad I am not there to say a better goodbye and to be with you all. I will miss Aunty Joan's sense of passion for her craft and hobbies, her creativity and individuality.”

Helen’s flower arrangement for Joan’s funeral service

Adjusting to life without Joan

Joan’s sister Dorothy is by now in Hawaii. She flew out yesterday afternoon to meet her daughter Katherine’s mother-in-law to be. Katherine’s fiance is a medico recently discharged from the U.S. Military and has a house in Honolulu. He is ‘shouting’ the airfare for Dorothy and she will be there for just over a week.

Joan and I had a loose division of labour for all the tasks in running a household and our lives. I have had to learn a few tricks about paying the bills and even shopping. Something that would make Joan laugh is me paying some bills by cheque. She was the Lock Banker and I rarely paid for things online with the exception of eBay purchases and computer software. I will get there eventually.

Joan’s cat, Amber, was a gift from Dorothy soon after she was diagnosed with the BigC. Amber was supposed to provide some affection when Joan needed it, but unfortunately it attached itself to me and did not often come to Joan. I was determined to give her back to Dorothy, but since Joan left, the cat has become very friendly to me. I think she knows what I was planning. Years ago I owned a Datsun 260z and when it played up I would drive past a wrecker’s yard on the way home from work. I swear it made the Z go better for a few weeks.
Joan and Amber...

Goodbye Joan

Joan’s funeral service was simple but quite wonderful with the eulogy delivered by her sister Dorothy and Joan’s friend, Juliet. Through all the tears, it was wonderful to see so many present...family, friends, colleagues and relatives, including one ex-student from our time at Bridgetown High School in 1965.

The wake was also nice; the house crowded with guests. Helen, Martin and James along with several of Helen’s close friends kept the food served and the drinks poured and there was little left after a few hours.

This morning I am again alone.

My Joan; taken just a few months ago.

A funeral and a wake

Helen and I have been working solidly today in preparation for the wake after Joan’s funeral.

We’ve done well Joan...you would be proud of us. There is plenty of food and drink and the house has had a good clean-up.

Joan’s sister Dorothy is giving the eulogy; the initial part written by her, talks of the early years of their childhood and the part I wrote is about Joan’s later life, career and wide interests.

Yesterday Dorothy was in hospital to have a kidney stone blasted by a laser tool. She has been quite sick all day, but is getting better. Hope she is well enough to do the job as I am too fragile at the moment to be able to speak of our loss.

I have printed an A3 photograph of Joan taken when I was into B&W photography and it is framed and will be at the service. I also created a slide show of Joan from childhood to the present. It looks good. It will be running continuously at home when we have guests back.

This is Joan taken sometime in the 80s.

I am numb. I find it difficult to comprehend that just over a fortnight ago Joan was still driving her car. It is going to be hard when I start to dispose of her fabrics and equipment. Then there is the clothing and jewellery. I am hoping that friends will want most of her clothing.

She has two books by the West Australian artist, Sean Tan. It is a pity that she wasn’t here to see him get an Academy Award for the animated film of his last book, The Lost Thing. ...See here

Here is the cover.......

Till Death Us Do Part

Our dear Joan passed away at 6.30pm local time here in Western Australia.

Her last hours were peaceful. If there is a Heaven, she will be going there.

Coma and a chest infection

Our Joan has lapsed into a coma. It seems as though she has a chest infection and that will most certainly take her from us.

The cruelty of it is that it may take another couple of days. We all want her to go peacefully soon.

World events seem to pale into insignificance whilst our personal drama plays out.

Hanging on

Our dear Joan is still with us. She has been sleeping peacefully all day since the Silver Chain nurse added Clonazepam to the pump. Previously, each time she woke, she struggled to get out of bed and took a good deal of restraining before she calmed down with a dose of .2ml of clonazepam under her tongue administered by me with a small syringe.

These struggles were very frightening for us until one of the nurses told us that most deaths do not occur as they do in the movies. There is almost always some ‘terminal anxiety’ and the clonazepam is specifically to help stop the anxiety. Before it was added to the pump the family was on constant watch to catch the first signs of this anxiety so that we could administer the meds about every three hours day and night. I likened these episodes to someone drowning...trying to get up and out. This morning we were all exhausted having had short sleeps during the night.

At the moment she is in a deep sleep and will probably remain that way until the end.

It is hard to describe the relief we have felt to know that our beloved Joan is not raging against those who love her and that the meds I have been administering are not just to keep her quiet.

PS: Joan just had one of the anxiety attacks and we have had to gently hold her hands and administer a top-up dose. The SC nurses are here now and are giving her a sponge bath and back rub.

Last hours

We had two call outs last night and I thought I was losing my Joan at around 3am. she became very agitated and shaking uncontrollably and although without a temperature was clammy and sweating. When she asked to sit up, her eyes appeared to be glazed over and she was itchy all over....probably retention of bilirubin. The Silver chain nurse arrived about 45 minutes after my call and then the read-through of previous treatments and questioning. Joan didn’t have pain or nausea and so all she could tell the nurse was that she felt dreadful.

After a few calls back to base Joan was asked whether she would rather be home or back in hospital. One possibility is that there is an infection. I believe her time is very near and hospital in a shared room would be pure misery at this stage. She couldn’t make the decision, so a Silver Chain associate doctor will visit sometime today.

Now, at 8.55am, she is still sleeping. We have both had a harrowing night. I have had little sleep over the last two days.

Update: This morning’s Silver Chain nurses are two who have been here before. They have told me that today is the day. All the signs are indicating so. At the moment Joan is sedated and the family are here with her.

This damn disease!

What a night! Joan was unable to sleep and found it impossible to get comfortable. We were up about six times for toileting or just sitting up.

The Silver Chain nurse who visited this morning changed the brew that went into the pump and gave Joan an injection of Oxycodone. In the U.S. Oxycodone is know as 'Hillbilly Heroin' and many people are addicted to it as their drug of choice, the effects being longer-lasting than heroin and much cheaper, because it can be had by doctor-shopping. Addiction is not a consideration with Joan.

Sophie, the ex-student of mine who is working in Queensland, must have phoned her mother in Willetton and she rang me to ask if she could bring some freshly baked scones around. I must have sounded ungrateful as I declined the kind offer. The Silver Chain nurse was here and we were quite busy and somewhat stressed.

Joan has become the ‘Biggest Gainer’ by putting on an instant 8 kilograms due to fluid retention. There is no instant fix for this and I think it can only get worse.

She is getting weaker by the hour and to get her up from a chair I have to let her put her arms around my neck and we both stand up. There have been a few close calls and I am careful to have something behind her in case we both fall.

I want to go in a car crash.

My cousin Val visited this morning and Martin and Helen are visiting this afternoon.

Home with love

Joan is home again. The ambos delivered her and helped her into bed. After about two hours sleep she attempted to reach out to the side table for a bell to call me and fell out of bed doing some more damage to herself by hitting the side table. Fortunately Helen and James were closeby looking at a house and they came immediately to assist me getting her up and onto a chair for some repairs to bleeding and bruising. After a couple of glasses of coffee flavoured milk she went back to bed. Hope she is able to sleep through the night, but I doubt she will be able to.

The Silver Chain nurse is due at 9.30am tomorrow and a hospital bed with an air mattress and side bars should be here over the weekend.

Yesterday the Oncologist virtually signed off on us by acquiesing to releasing her from hospital to come home.
As a final farewell he shook both our hands.

This from the author Siri Hustvedt...

"Every sickness has an alien quality, a feeling of invasion and loss of control that is evident in the language we use about it. No one says, 'I am cancer' or even 'I am cancerous,' despite the fact that there is no intruding virus or bacteria; it's the body's own cells that have run amok. One has cancer. Neurological and psychiatric illnesses are different, however, because they often attack the very source of what one imagines is one's self. 'He's an epileptic' doesn't sound strange to us. In the psychiatric clinic, the patients often say, 'Well, you see, I'm bipolar' or 'I'm schizophrenic.' The illness and the self are fully identified in these sentences.

The Locks sometime in the the 1990s

Sophie

Joan’s pain meds were upgraded today. She has major fluid retention again and this evening was to have a scan to determine whether another drain is necessary.

She is due home on Monday and although the Silver Chain will visit daily, I will be her principal carer. The hope is that we will have some quality time together over the time that is left.

Earlier this evening I had a call from Sophie who is an ex-student of mine from Willetton Senior High. Soph is a metallurgist on a Queensland mine site. She, like me, is an emotional person. She is following our journey on our family blog and we both shed lots of tears over the phone. A wonderful young lady!

Dietitian

My Joan is still in hospital. X Rays showed no bowel blockage, so a dietitian has been planning meals which will supposedly beat the constipation. Good plan, but Joan still has not regained any of her appetite even though she is now about eight weeks out of chemotherapy. If anything, she is finding it more difficult to eat food she was capable of eating last week.

Whilst I was with her yesterday a nurse did a calorie count and surprisingly it added up to 850 for the day.

With all this happening we were also threatened with a legal writ demanding a payment of $18,000+ for vehicle damage in a car accident. Both parties were fully insured and that amount should have been paid out but wasn’t. I think (hope) it has been resolved and shall explain at length at a later date.
The stress of caring for and worrying about my Joan is getting to me and I am forgetting things. I ordered a rare book about PNG through the state library but haven’t had the time to sit down and read it. It has to be returned tomorrow. I need to make check lists before I leave the house. A couple of days ago I somehow lost Joan’s wallet with all her cards and personal details. Yesterday was card cancelling day.

I want Joan back home but also want her to regain some strength so she is able to at least walk around with her walker.

Heavy night

Joan’s condition is deteriorating rapidly. We will soon have to let the Silver Chain bring in a hospital bed. Overnight we had to get up to toilet about five times without a real result. We both realise that there is little to void because she has eaten hardly anything, but the pressure is there.

I now know what the term respite means. I cannot really leave Joan alone to dash off to the pharmacy, or have a much needed haircut or go shopping for groceries. Joan’s sister Dorothy also has some respite from caring for her husband Mike and is going to use her respite to look after Joan on Wednesday afternoon. Some respite!

Mike has advanced Parkinson’s Disease and can be a very frustrating patient as he cannot speak well enough to understand what he is saying and he has a fixation of fiddling with technical stuff like phones, computers and TVs until they need someone else to come and reset them to work again. His favorite play thing is the Garmin SatNav device.

The Silver Chain service is excellent and we can call them 24 hours a day for either telephone advice or a call-out. The trouble is that the nurses are always different and we have to go through the question and answers routine and the review of the last visit before anything can happen. Never-the-less it is better than seeing a GP or the Oncologist or even being in hospital because these palliative care nurses have seen it all many times over and know what drugs and doses are best suited to each situation.

Photo of Joan just a few weeks ago.

The Silver Chain

Yesterday Joan had a massage. We are not sure it did any good, quite often a massage feels great directly after but fades after an hour.

The visit to the oncologist resulted in a change of medications for pain and nausea. He also arranged for the Silver Chain to visit in the evening. Whilst there Joan asked for the PICC line to be removed as it is no longer going to be used for chemo. Dr Ransom informed us that if the hospital removed it, it would cost our health fund $450 and he removed it in approximately 2 minutes.

The Silver Chain nurse arrived around 8.30pm and was excellent and in the hour she was with us gave us much more detailed info about how the different drugs work and the precise order in which they should be taken. Palliative care is just one facet of this wonderful free service. See here.

I have taken a different approach to Joan’s food intake. Instead of asking her whether she would like something I have been offering her a taste of something I have prepared and know won’t be too difficult to swallow; beef broth, sliced fruit, electrolyte ice blocks etc. Seems to be working!

The Colostomy bag she has had attached to her belly was supposed to be for only two or three days, but the fluid from her abdomen is still flowing into the bag at a rate of around one litre a day. It seems that it will be a permanent situation. I empty the bag about four to five times a day as it is quite small. When today’s Silver Chain nurse arrives she will change the bag.

Here is a link to a blog posting from a lady who lives/lived(?) in Tasmania. It is called The Silence of the Dying.

ACTIQ

Yesterday was busy. We had a 3pm appointment with our financial adviser and headed off a bit earlier to collect some painkiller meds at St John’s. I helped Joan shower for the first time since diagnosis. Even a simple shower is enough to tire her so much that she has to return to bed. We have decided to contact the Silver Chain and discuss what services we need for Joan to remain at home.

The medication is named ACTIQ and is a controlled drug which is supposed to be one of the strongest self-administered pain killers. Each packet contains 3 units (something like a small lollipop) which is rubbed into the inside of the cheek. It takes about 15 minutes to dissolve and in the initial tryout yesterday, worked for about 45 minutes. Each package costs $186.10 and we pay only $5.60 because the Oncologist is prescribing it as palliative medication.

The pain Joan is experiencing is in her shoulders and lower back. We are hoping that it is not bone metastases from the liver and just muscle pain. I have given her quite a few massages and they give temporary relief. She is having a Bowen massage session on Friday morning.

Later in the afternoon, Joan’s friend Juliet visited with a lovely beef casserole for us. She is aware that Joan is having great difficulty eating anything and I will enjoy the meal(s) and not have to tell porkies about how much Joan liked it.

The ongoing saga

Joan was able to come home yesterday. The abdominocentesis tube out of her abdomen was removed and a large ‘waterproof’ dressing stuck over the hole in her stomach. By the time we had arrived home the fluid pressure has forced a leak in the dressing and urine-looking fluid was running like a Queensland flood. We rang the Oncologist and he suggested we go to our pharmacy and get lots of gauze pads and change the dressing regularly until the flow slowed down.

After several attempts at stemming the flow we resorted to large incontinence pads. When Joan was in bed the flow slowed and the pad almost held the spillage overnight. This morning we rang the Oncologist’s office and the nurse/receptionist told us to come in immediately. The fix was to clean up the area around the hole and attach a small bag which can be emptied easily. There is a spare bag for me to use if somehow we damage the one stuck on Joan’s belly.
When Joan was getting the infusion of Human Protein (albumin) the nurse told her that each small bottle of 100ml was produced using approximately 30 blood donations. At last Joan saw some direct value in all the years as a blood donor. It will be interesting to see what that cost.

Human Albumin

When I left Joan this evening she was having a two-unit infusion of Human Albumin. See here.

The fluid drain is still in and the total is now over 5 litres. When the flow slows down to a dribble, the tube will be removed and if the Onco thinks she is strong enough, she can come home. She still has swollen feet and legs from fluid retention.

Joan has discussed the disposal of her quilting/sewing books and numerous lengths of fabric. Her plan is to offer them to her many fellow stitchers for the price of a donation to the Cancer Council. Her sewing machines will be sold.

This morning when I visited her, I firmly believed that she was not going to be able to come home again. She was agitated, in pain and had a ghastly pallor. This evening she is feeling and looking better and we hope she can come home tomorrow. This dose of protein should help. The shift during the day to a private single room also cheered her up.

Abdominocentesis

This morning we drove into Perth to the Public Trustee office to draw up a new will. We already have a will each, but our daughter Helen was the executor and we felt that it would too much of a burden on her and so gave the job to the Public Trustee. We were lucky to have someone on the inside at the PT and we had the will ‘drawn up, signed sealed and delivered’ in about 40 minutes. Our ‘insider’ is a delightful young lady who was a student of mine at Willetton Senior High. As proof of identity we took our new passports which have not yet been used. Joan suggested a trip to Bali just so that we could have our new passports stamped. I am not sure we will be able to manage a Bali trip.

After the Will, we drove to collect some computer gear from an Aboriginal organisation also in the city. The gal who is Manager there is also a very nice and has given me lots of good Mac gear over the years. Today I received a few keyboards. a couple of late model flat screen monitors and a nice iBook. At the moment I have a shed full of Macs ready to go to needy folks.

At 11am Joan was admitted into St John’s for an ‘abdominocentesis’, procedure to drain fluid from her abdomen. Her stomach and her legs and feet were very distended with the fluid retention. I just now talked to her and so far almost 4 litres of fluid have been collected and there is still much more to go. She hopes to be out tomorrow, but the oncologist suggests it may be another day yet.

Our love will sustain us

We saw the oncologist today and received the bad news we suspected we would hear.

My dear wife Joan has had little if any benefit from 12 months of chemotherapy and radiation. He told us that the tumours had grown and although she had had the best available chemo, it has failed to stem the onslaught. He estimates that she has around three months left.

She has a lot of fluid retention in her stomach area and on Friday she goes into hospital to have it drained.

The plans we had made for a couple of trips will probably not eventuate. We have lots to do in the weeks ahead. We both hope that in ceasing all treatment she gets well enough to enjoy our time together.

We hope that our love for each other can sustain us.

Tears in the keyboard

Tomorrow Joan has a blood test prior to seeing the Oncologist on Wednesday. He will have the results of the CT scan and we hope that it shows at least a slowing of the tumour growth. The recent SIRT treatment which was aimed solely at the 30- something liver tumours may give us hope for more time together.

This morning there were tears as we both thought, without words, that The Man will be giving us bad news. I think Joan is ready to forgo further treatment if the oncologist decides that it will not help. In that case, we will ask about a time span and try and do a couple of things on Joan’s bucket list.

Tears in the keyboard.

Australia Day

Today is Australia Day when the redneck patriots fly Australian flags on their cars. It wouldn’t be so bad if they lowered the flag(s) at sunset, but many of them remain on the cars until they eventually disintegrate.

I reckon the Sydney Lebanese gang boys will be having a day at home today. No sense in showing your face and your bogan car to drunken Aussie patriots.

Too much like a Nuremburg rally for me.

Joan slept for 10 hours straight and looks like she will have another nap this afternoon. Tomorrow she has her PICC line dressing; Friday is a Bowen massage and a CT scan and we visit the oncologist next Wednesday.

The PICC line dressing is done at St John’s Subiaco where we usually go for chemo. When Joan was there in hospital recently, someone said that an Occupational Therapist would drop by to see her. She did and had a bit of a chat about possible aids for the house. Joan told her that we didn’t think it was necessary at this stage and she left. Yesterday we received a bill for a consultation. In public hospitals, such services are free including the installation of grab rails, ramps etc. Private hospitals outsource such services and neglect to tell patients of the potentially heavy charges. The state government is going to outsource these services when the new Fiona Stanley hospital is commissioned in 2014.

Old Timers' Disease

This morning I was involved in a comedy of errors which was not at all funny.

Joan was very tired and went to bed to rest. I drove to a shopping centre about five kilometres away and did a ‘small shop’. When I returned to the car I opened the boot and loaded everything in and closed it. Unfortunately I also shut in my iPhone, the car keys and my wallet. Shoot!

If you have ever done something like this you will remember the solution....walk rapidly in any direction with no definite purpose; change direction several times and return to the vehicle.

I went into a computer store I am familiar with and the owner offered his phone. I rang home but.....I had previously told Joan that she should ignore the phone ringing as it would go to message and she doesn’t need to run to the phone and perhaps fall. I left a message asking her to get the spare set of keys from the safe and drive down to where I was. After some time I returned to the Good Samaritan and made a few more calls. I then had the idea to call a cab to get home, but had second thoughts about that as I didn’t have a key to get into the house and if Joan had already left on the rescue mission I would have to taxi back, still with no cash to pay the taxi. Another plan was to ring the RAC (Royal Automobile Club) to get a service man to open the car.

Just as I was about to return to my GS (Good Samaritan), Joan turned up.....whew! She just smiled.

Cuda button

We are home together again. Joan is still very weak and sometimes using a walker to get around. Last night she suggested we go to the Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour and have some seafood. It was very pleasant and a few thousand others thought that would be a good thing to do as well. The fishing boat harbour is a very popular tourist destination with a number of seafood restaurants and a very nice brewery pub overlooking the harbour.

We opted for Cicerellos because we had parked in a Disabled Bay in their parking lot. We had a single seafood platter between the two of us. It was excellent with more than enough for both of us. Joan is following the advice of the dietitian and eating as much calorie-laden food as possible and drinking full-sugar soft drinks.
She needs to get more protein down to build muscle.....me too!

Also yesterday I attempted to start the computer I exchanged for a friend’s disabled son. It presented with a glowing start button, but wouldn’t get up. Something I have known and used over the years is the MacIntosh cuda button. I opened the case, pressed the tiny button for a few seconds and it was up and running like a Buick.
I will recycle the recycled Mac to another needy person. At the moment I have 18 Mac computers fully loaded with appropriate software ready to go to needy folks. Since Joan was diagnosed with advanced cancer I have not actively sought out recipients for these machines. I must start to do so again or I will lose interest in this project. I may wait for the start of the academic year and contact a couple of university student- services people. In the past that has been a good avenue for distribution.
The wee Cuda button...a sometimes quick fix to some problems.

Cytotoxic

Joan is still in hospital....maybe Friday she can come home. The large warning label has been removed from her wall chart. It said 'Cytotoxic Precautions' because it was still under one week since her last infusion of Irinotecan. This stuff is so toxic that nurses and other staff have to be warned about possible contamination. They didn't caution me about getting poisoned over the last week!

Since her ‘fall’ (young people fall over/down, but oldies ‘have a fall’) she has been mostly in bed. Yesterday she had a visit from a dietitian who gave us some advice we already knew. She told us to ignore all the healthy diet stuff at this stage and tuck into the food which is going to give plenty of carbs and protein. Sugar laden soft drinks are now the go.

Joan’s taste has changed considerably. For most of our 45 years together we have not eaten sweets on a regular basis. Now Joan can eat sweet things and has trouble with the smell and taste of savoury foods. While she is in hospital I am cooking stuff that usually makes her gag. Last night I cooked a curry and have leftovers for a few days.

A couple of years ago I set up a Mac for a friend’s disabled son. It seems that it has died and I will give him a newer, faster machine. I will test his Hard Drive in one of the Macs I have here and if it is OK, drop it into the newer machine to save all the settings and data from the dead machine. Simple job. I don’t like going through the setup process of a new machine each time.

Another hospital transfer

Joan was not allowed home from Fremantle Hospital yesterday, instead the doctor who was looking after her talked to her Oncologist and they agreed that she should be transferred to St John’s for ‘observation’. We don’t know what they are going to observe, but while I was with her in the evening a nurse made a note about one of Joan’s eyes not reacting to light as well as the other did??

I am making another visit today with all the stuff I neglected to take in yesterday....toothpaste and brush, shampoo, face cream, medications, clothes and reading glasses. We hope that she can be discharged today or tomorrow, but the last time she got so weak, she had to spend 10 days in hospital.

Joan 'has a fall'

My dear Joan had a nasty fall this morning. Fortunately I was in the house and heard her yelling for help. She somehow lost the strength in her legs and fell backwards hitting the back of her head on the tiled bathroom floor. I was not able to get her up again and rang the St John’s Ambulance service. The two ambos did a great job of getting her onto a stretcher and checking her out thoroughly before taking her to Fremantle Hospital for scans and sutures to the large gash on her head.
When I arrived at the hospital she had had two X-Rays and was awaiting a CT Scan of her head. Then the stitching up. I took her mobile phone so that she can call me when they have finished mending her. An event like this is quite a shock and knocks the confidence around.

Yesterday we had a new gas hot water system installed by a couple of our friend Paul’s boys. The previous unit had lasted 15 years which is pretty good. Paul’s lads did a good professional job and we paid them in $50 bills. One of them pointed out that there were a few fake notes in the stash, showing me that on those ‘fake’ notes the portrait of Edith Cowan did not have her name below the image. Eeek! I told the guys that we had just got the notes from a bank ATM and they should be OK and said I would look into it with Mr Google. They were happy to keep the notes and I found no reference to the missing name as proof of fake notes. I talked to Paul about it and he did further research and found that the $50 notes printed before 2002 did not have the name and those after carried the name. The usual email about fake notes circulated and the myth was started. Glad it was only a myth though.

Willy Wonka

‘Strike that; reverse it’ as Willy Wonka would say. I reported that Joan had few side effects from her latest round of Chemo. The steroids which are part of the infusion wore off and yesterday the nasties kicked in and she was in pain with stomach cramps, severe nausea and overwhelming tiredness. As another little kick in the guts, handfuls of her hair are falling out. Just what she needs to keep her spirits up!

Our daughter and her hubby are thinking of selling their (her) unit and buying a house with a yard so that their dog can wreck the yard instead of the furniture. We are going to help with a large (for us) sum of money when they eventually decide to buy. We have been looking at adverts for housing in this area and yesterday drove past some houses in different socio-economic areas. I rang Helen to tell her that we had seen a nice house in a good area, Beeliar, at an asking price of $500,000. As you will see, housing is expensive in Western Australia.

‘Beeliar? We don’t want to live there. It’s miles from anywhere!’ That made me sit back and I thought about it a bit and of course they are still young and want to be near entertainment, restaurants, friends and the city. We have in fact been house hunting for 60-70 year-olds, so we will leave it to them to choose where to buy.

The financial help we will give them will come from Joan’s superannuation and will be a tax free gift if it is given before her death.

Round 2 of Irinotecan

Yesterday we met with the oncologist. He was a locum sitting in for the man who is on hols. We hit him with a few questions and got satisfactory answers...probably more than we would have received from the regular Doc.

The CEA (blood tumour marker) had increased since the last test three weeks ago. It is now 10,000; more than when Joan was first diagnosed. He assured us that that ‘was nothing to be too concerned about’ and ordered a CT scan before we next see the regular onco in three weeks. Her bloods and liver function tests were OK.

I left her in the IVY suite to get her infusion of Irinotecan. Irinotecan has many possible side effects, but fortunately Joan has, apart from extreme tiredness, lack of appetite and now major hair loss, few of the real nasties. She thinks that she will be bald within a couple of weeks. No wigs for Joan as they are extremely hot in the middle of our summer. A hat or scarf will be the fashion du jour for a few months at least.

Crazy murderer

Another crazy has murdered innocents in the U.S.

The blame has been laid at the feet of ‘shockjocks’ with their vitriolic tirades against the government of the land.

It would seem that although Americans love their country with hand on heart, many show mistrust of their own government.

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll.

Suspicions that the 9/11 attacks were "an inside job" _ the common phrase used by conspiracy theorists on the Internet _ quickly have become nearly as popular as decades-old conspiracy theories that the federal government was responsible for President John F. Kennedy's assassination,that it has covered up proof of space aliens and faked the moon landing etc etc.

Guns and the so called ‘right to bear arms’ are a worry. Australia’s population is small compared to the U.S., but any anger directed at government or individual politicians rarely results in threats of violence. Prime Minister John Howard took regular morning walks without being threatened. In the U.S. there have been four Presidents assassinated and another two dozen attempts.

Also in Arizona is the Westboro Baptist Church whose members are going to picket the funerals of the murdered. Google that mob if you want to be a little concerned about radical groups.

45 years together

Yesterday we celebrated 45 years of married life and hope we can make it to 50 years. We went out with brother Graham to a Vietnamese restaurant in East Fremantle. Great food!
Curried prawns, braised pork and seafood and vegetables....yum!

Earlier in the day I read about Fannie Farmer's book.....The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook and Googled it and there it was online, the 1918 edition containing 1,849 recipes. It is a fantastic reference book especially for the time. The first edition was published 1896, but the online edition is the last fully edited by Fannie. Well worth bookmarking and using as a reference book.

On leaving the Boston Cooking School she established her own venture which she called Miss Farmer's School of Cookery. She became an expert in the preparation of food for the ill and infirm even being invited to lecture at the Harvard Medical School on the topic.

She was also one of the pioneers of writing recipes in terms of standard measurements - a practice not well known at the time.

Here it is...The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook.

I wonder why the name Fannie is no longer in common use?

BTW if you see an advert on the right hand side giving you the chance to win something by shearing a young pop star's hair, ignore it, it's a scam.

On-line buying

The Australian Federal Government is being pressured to apply a GST to purchases of goods over the internet. Big Australian retailers are saying that they have to levy a 10% GST for the government on all goods sold and yet purchases made overseas via the internet do not attract a GST if they are valued less than $1,000.00.

We have bought quite a bit of stuff over the net and have been very satisfied with quality, delivery and especially price. Many people are saying that the big retailers are price gouging.

We will continue to buy stuff on line where it is obviously a fraction of the price in retail stores here, however, I understand why Australian retailers are a bit cranky.

I am pretty confident that the rent on a warehouse in China is just a (very small) fraction of the rent a big retailer is paying for rent in a shopping centre. Many retailers have spent millions building large shops, employing staff at award rates and paying superannuation, overtime rates, sick leave, holiday leave loading and now maternity leave. Can you imagine the daily running costs of running a Myer store with a couple of hundred staff, power bills etc?

From what I have read about factory workers in China it would seem that a lot of those costs and benefits don’t seem to apply.

A funeral

Yesterday we attended the funeral of Joan’s Uncle John. John, or ‘Boy’ as he was called was 84 and died from complications associated with prostate cancer. Having so many children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and friends it was a big funeral.
'Boy’ was for many years Deputy Principal at the West Australian Deaf School, a lovely old building overlooking Mosman Park and the Indian Ocean. At the funeral was a large group of his ex-students looking like they were in their 70s. Lots of rapid hand movement and loud voices were heard as the cortege moved up towards the crematorium. Once everyone was settled inside, a priest commenced the service in a thick Filipino accent. One of Boy’s grandsons, who is also deaf, stood near the lectern to translate the service. It was obvious that he was having trouble understanding what was being said and with a rapid hand movement let people know that he was giving up on that task.

There was an earlier Mass for Boy, but we gave that a miss because Joan was very tired even before we left for the cemetery.

Funerals often present an opportunity for people to ‘catch up’ with relatives and acquaintances with whom one would not usually do so. I saw plenty of that on Wednesday.

Some photos

Not a lot of good news here, so I thought I would 'pad out' this post with old photos....some much older than others. All pictures will enlarge if clicked on.

A 1946 publicity photo for Metro Buses, Fremantle. I guess a conductress was a pretty glam job then?
Manolas boat Builders Fremantle, 1946. No electric tools then!

WW2 salvage. Fred Evans' speed boat with a dangerous looking head chopper propulsion unit.
Here's Fred in action on the Swan River near Fremantle.
Post war Disposals Commission of wartime Fairmile air sea rescue boats. Bought as ferries and whale chasers.
Joan's uncle John (foreground) in 1945 on Borneo. Japanese gun knocked out. John passed away this last week.
My 1942 Ford Jeep, built from bits and pieces found in Papua New Guinea, some from wartime airstrips.
Our daughter Helen with a couple of her friends.

Salad Nicoise

Joan has lost almost all the appetite she had before this last round of chemo. We are worried that she will lose even more weight and become dangerously weak. How would Nigella cope with such a loss of appetite?

At lunchtime she tried a favourite recipe with the hope that she could eat it. The meal is a salad...Salad Nicoise. As with most of these meals, by the time she has prepared it she has lost all desire to eat. She did have some and I enjoyed my portion. This is a lovely snack meal.

Here is a pic of the leftovers and below the recipe.

Ingredients: 3 small potatoes, 2 eggs, parsley, 3-4 cherry tomatoes, anchovies and olives, approx. 12 green beans and a small can of Tuna in oil.

Method: Boil the potatoes and eggs; peel.
Cook the green beans.
Cut the eggs and potatoes into bite size pieces.
Cut tomatoes into halves
Combine all ingredients and chill.
Serve on lettuce leaves.

Bon Appetit!

Xmas and the New Year

Christmas was hot and without snow. We drove up north of the city to Joan’s sister’s place. Katherine, our niece, Dorothy and Mike’s daughter was over from the U.S. along with her fiance Rick. It was a most pleasant day , but we left early at around 4pm as Joan was feeling poorly. Katherine and Rick changed their itinerary to attend Helen and James’ wedding.

It is over one week since Joan’s infusion of Irinotecan and it has been most debilitating. Once again she has lost her appetite and is sleeping about 15 or more hours a day. We usually host a New Year’s get together with a few of our friends, but unfortunately Joan is not able to manage an evening even if everyone brings a ‘plate’*. I will call the usual guests tomorrow to let them know.

Each new year’s show seems to finish earlier...I doubt if any of our friends have actually seen in the New Year for years.

Years ago I had a local studio put some of our 1960s/70s Super8 movie film onto DVD. A few days ago I decided to try and extract some scenes of our kids when they were quite young living in Papua New Guinea. It has been a bit of a learning curve for Kev, but I think I have been able to save the bits I needed using the Demo version of a program called Screenium. The demo allows 30 second grabs which seems to be about the size of the scenes I want to extract. A couple these grabs will appear in future blogs.


* a ‘plate’ is old fashioned Australian for a plate with food on it.

The Assange mimicry

Well, that creepy guy Julian Assange certainly is well known around the world. He has been very influentual and has a big following of ‘friends’ who are defending his right to expose stuff about the U.S.. Seems like the only way we are to get leaks about other nations, including Australia, is through U.S. diplomatic cables mentioning our Pollies.

He has influenced a young football groupy who is posting compromising photos of some of the much loved sports heroes on Facebook. Just like Julian, she promises more exposes in the form of photos, regularly. She has achieved Australia-wide notoriety and has done dozens of interviews and been reported on by just about every newspaper in Aus. This gal is just 17; claims to have had a stillborn baby to a footy player, had sex with a couple of other players and now wants to punish footy blokes, especially those in the Saints Football Club. Julian is also out to punish the U.S. for its reaction to his leaks.

A Russian billionaire (aren’t there lots of them!?) publisher is cooperating with Assange to expose corruption in Russia. Watch out mate; people who blow the whistle in Russia don’t usually last too long.

Here is a link to that young 'lady’s' story.

compromised immune system

Monday afternoon we visited the oncologist and he ordered the makeup of the Irinotecan. It is a lesser dose than she will get in the future if this infusion does not have extreme side effects.

A big worry is what Irinotecan does to the white blood cells and the immune system (neutropenia). I have suggested that Joan make up a badge which tells people that her immune system is compromised. She doesn’t need any infections from well-meaning huggers.

The infusion is administered by nurses in the Ivy Suite just down the hall from his office. The ‘Ivy’ Suite is so named, not for some floral tribute, but because all the chemo is administered by IV infusion. I guess it could also get its name from Poison Ivy. It was 8pm when Joan phoned me to collect her.

The oncologist’s waiting room is seldom a place of joy. There are sometimes ‘newbies’ with the look of hope. There are others who are near their end and look resigned to their fate. We are still with hope at this stage....there is the hope of extended time if not a remission. Joan hopes for a few years yet.

Oncology must be a very stressful facet of medicine, but it must be very rewarding when there is a success story.

So far Joan has not had any side effects from ‘Angry Irene’ but most of the nasties present after a few days. She still has a reasonable appetite, but cannot eat red meat. No curries for her these days.

Helen and James- 18th December 2010

The wedding of our daughter Helen to James went off very well. Earlier in the morning it was overcast which is good for photographs, but as we arrived at Minim Cove, the sun came out in all its eye torturing brilliance.

The bridal party did the photos at a nearby park and then it was off to the Red Herring for the reception. The food, drinks and service was excellent and we fronted up to pay,it didn't break the bank.

Some Pics....

An anniversary

Today is the anniversary of Joan's diagnosis of bowel, liver and lung cancer. She went to the GP to hear what the scan had to say about a minor pain and some nausea. I was at home and had a phone call to come straight in to the surgery...no explanation...just come now. I guessed what it might be but I wasn't prepared for the number and spread of the tumours and the advanced stage of the disease. Many tears that day 12 months ago.

The treatment has been harsh...probably worse than the cancer. Joan has lost 30 kilograms and is quite weak, but still driving and enjoying the company of friends. Next Monday she recommences chemo with a new (to her) drug named, Irinotecan and it promises to be very debilitating with all the side effects of the worst of them.

It has been a bastard of a year! So no anniversary presents please.

New Zillund

New Zealand is quite close to Australia and both countries speak the same language; English....well sort of.

The New Zealanders have an accent which is a bit grating, something like the Africaans accent. We in Australia of course have perfect diction and nobody can take the micky out of us about how we speak English.

You too can learn NZ....click the image to enlarge

A few years ago we were touring in NZ and took the ferry from Wellington in the North Island to Picton in the South Island. Mid way the weather got a bit nasty and a loudspeaker announcement suggested that....’All those pissengers on the top dick should now come inside’. I couldn’t help laughing and other local passengers looked at me as though I was two steaks short of a barbie.

New Zealand does have a lot to offer the tourist and it is all within reasonable driving distance. Australia is at the moment trying to boost the tourist trade by putting Oz on the world scene by having Oprah gush about us. Trouble is that Aus is a big place and the distance between touristy sites is mostly too far to drive and too expensive to fly. One can drive North in Western Australia for a thousand kilometres before seeing anything really spectacular. Even a week at Rottnest Island , 12 miles off the coast at Fremantle, costs more than a flight to Bali including hotel accommodation.

Wedding

Helen and James should be getting excited at the prospect of their wedding this coming Saturday. We have borrowed a wheelchair for Joan in case the effort of walking down to the gardens for the ceremony will make her too tired to enjoy the reception. She is not too thrilled at giving in and being wheeled down by me, but realises that it must be so just for that part of the day.

Computers given to me are reloaded with an appropriate operating system and software; tested thoroughly before giving them to needy folks. A recent donation was from a young IT specialist at a large Australia-wide publishing company. The 11 machines are Mac G5 towers; solid workhorses beautifully made with solid aluminium cases. He told me that two of them don't work and that another top notch machine was experiencing a Kernel Panic. It is such a nice machine I made a huge effort and got it running and was pretty proud of myself. As a precaution it has been in use for a few weeks, but yesterday it fell down with the black screen and instructions in different languages.
It's not going to recycling like the other stuff in my trailer....too good for the tip!
A few pics of that G5.....
there are two sets of fans which just slide out of the box.

Big Julie

Julian Assange has been arrested and it looks like his fame has spread worldwide. I reckon he is up for Time Magazine’s ‘Man of the Year’ cover. Time’s Man of the Year cover doesn’t always show the nice guys.

Some things should be exposed to the world, but some things shouldn’t and I believe he has been a bit naughty in exposing diplomatic cables. U.S. consular staff assessments of world leaders look bad when there are no similar assessment of the U.S. leaders by foreign governments. That is most probably because those foreign governments haven’t (yet) had an insider sell the documents. Can you imagine what foreign governments would have said about George Bush? Is it just me, or does Jules look more than a bit creepy?

This week I have placed a couple of computers with needy folks. One was to an Aboriginal fellow who strangely, out of the blue, asked if I had a sickness. I told him about Joan’s fight with the BigC and he offered me an Aboriginal bush medicine which he assures me will cure her.
I took up his offer and although it doesn’t taste too good, Joan is trying it.
We both know that different cancers; prostate, liver, lung, breast cancers are treated with different chemo regimes and a single tea concoction from tree bark is not going to be a wonder drug. We also know that it can’t really hurt and is worth a try.

Another Mac was installed for a woman who is going through a tough time with a mental condition. She brightened up considerably when she fired the machine up and talked about the world that would be opening up to her when she connects to the WWW.

I loaned another Mac to a young Indian man, who has been employed in Australia for 6 years. He is an IT person who works for the Education Department in Perth. In recent times schools are going back to Mac computers in classrooms and the Education Department doesn’t have any Mac savvy IT people to support them. He hopes to get up to speed on the borrowed Mac and will give it back when he thinks he is familiar with the operating system. He is very bright and shouldn’t take too long to get the hang of it.

Angry Irene

Our plasma TV has started to die. It has a vertical red stripe about three inches wide on the RH side. It is about 5 years old and cost around $2,600 when we bought it. It isn’t one of the major brands. In fact, when I mention the name, people smile.

Yesterday we bought a Panasonic 50” Plasma HD TV and thrown in the deal was a Panasonic Blue Ray 3D player priced at $399. Along with a 5 year extended warranty the package cost around $1800.

The TV will be delivered tomorrow and I will have to dispose of the old one. In some suburbs it would go on the verge and be snapped up in minutes, but this suburb with dozens of cul-de-sacs, doesn’t lend itself to ‘GutterMart’ curb-crawlers. Off to landfill?

The technological advances in the new TV over the old one are significant.
It has all sorts of tricks that need to be setup by a 10 year old child. Where will I find one?

Not long until Helen and James wed. Two days later Joan starts the chemotherapy, Irinotecan....colloquially called ‘Angry Irene’. Something to look forward to for Christmas?

A delayed chemotherapy session

Today we went to see the oncologist. We talked about the chemotherapy regime Joan was about to embark on and he told us that, yes indeed, Joan would lose her hair, feel nauseous and suffer badly from diarrhea. Joan was upset with that news as she wanted to be as good as possible for Helen's wedding on December 18th.

He told us he could delay the chemo if she so decided. He reminded us that the radiotherapy is not terribly effective without chemo follow up and gave us the chance to consider her options. Personally, I wanted Joan to have every chance and do the chemo, but she opted for the delay which is her right. The Oncologist did say that he could have started her on a light dose before the wedding and increase the dose after the ceremony. I guess she will be straight into the full hit when she starts Irinotecan on the 20th of December.

I finally got my iPhone working. One of the problems was the $40 hard case we bought which was holding down some of the buttons on the side. It is now working like a charm, but as yet nobody has called me. Tomorrow morning I am going to put my name (Sharon) along with my mobile number at bus stops suggesting people 'ring me for a good time'.

Three Score and Ten+

Today I 'celebrate' a birthday....my 71st. A friend emailed me to inform me that.... 'You have now gone over your biblically allotted three score years and ten'. We had a small gathering here for our daughter Helen's birthday yesterday and combined it with mine of today. I specifically asked for no pressies, but got lots of nice ones including a wonderful recliner lounge from Helen and her man James. Joan held up for most of the afternoon, but had to go to bed and rest before our guests departed.
And today, Joan bought me an iPhone. We decided to buy it from one of the myriad of phone shops at Garden City shopping centre. We scored a new salesperson and it took around 40 minutes to get the signup done. He asked why I was buying an iPhone. 'Do you have an Apple Mac Computer?' Strange!

During the final stages of setting up the contract, the store manager also asked why I was buying an iPhone, explaining...'because most people don't know the poor things about the iPhone and don't want to be told'.

As I remember, he listed several problems.....miniature SIM card; the battery cannot be removed, when transferring songs from a PC it wipes previous loaded tunes. He also informed us that there are other better phones.

Probably not the best salesperson and strangely working for a phone company that recently merged with a large Apple retailer here in Perth.

Running Hot and Cold

Over the last two days Joan’s body thermometer has been playing up. One minute she is hot and the next she is freezing cold with extreme shakes. Her temperature jumped to 38c so we rang the Oncologist. He told her to come into his rooms today. She had some bloods done and her white cells are good. He then ordered a urine sample and a PICC line blood culture. He suspects an infection and has prescribed a heavy anti-biotic. We will hear from him on Saturday with the results.

These setbacks are frightening and with the BigC in the picture, one thinks the worst when something like this happens. Somewhat of a relief when The Man suggests an infection is probably the cause. The Onco was of two minds as to whether to hospitalise Joan and we are thankful that he decided not to.

Our son Martin has sorted out the problem with the ambulance service and because he had missed a meeting at CentreLink whilst in hospital, had to do a lot of explaining to get back on welfare. I drove down to his unit this afternoon and waved a magic screwdriver over his washing machine and it decided to do the right thing and start working again.

Calm has returned to the Lock household.

No good news here

Nothing good to write about today. Joan is very tired and 'washed out' with severe diarrhea. Our son Martin is still with antibiotic pump and catheter. Yesterday we drove him to Rockingham hospital to get dressings done, more antibiotics for the pump and get the results of a blood test. Bad news is, he now has Kidney problems bordering on failure.

He is a little offside with me at the moment and that makes it difficult to help him. I need to investigate a malfunction in his washing machine, because the retailer tells me that the symptoms seem like the water pump is blocked, and if that is so it wouldn't be covered by the warranty. I need to take the rear panel off and see if something like a sock has lodged in the pump before calling on a warranty repair. I am expecting the cold shoulder when I turn up at his place. Even after all we have done for him a couple of words can sour the relationship.

Some time ago I thought about my relationship with my late father, Arthur Lock.

I miss him when I am working alone

His skills were of a yesteryear.

He’d be interested in today’s

gadgets I know. We were closer

In the latter years and

I yearn for the same for my son and I .

but I fear it is not to be.

I am unsure we will ever be friends

Like I was with my father.

Hospital costs

Martin is still in hospital and looks like he will be for some days yet. He is waiting on the result of a blood culture before being allowed home. He had the catheter removed a few days ago, but was unable to urinate, so it was replaced. He has been moved out of the single ward and into a four bed ward because the bed was needed for a post operative patient, Yesterday I did some more work at his unit and in the mailbox was a bill from the St John’s Ambulance Service for $418.

On the evening that Martin was admitted to Rockingham Hospital he called an ambulance. The dispatch person asked him to describe his situation to another person, presumably a nurse, and was told that his case was not an emergency. He then rang us and we drove down to his place and took him to Rockingham Hospital. Whilst waiting outside his unit for us, an ambulance arrived. He told the ambos the story and they drove off. They told Martin that they were returning from another job and would not do any paperwork on his call.

I will give Martin the bill today and he can explain it to the ambulance service. If they are not nice about this, I guess we will help with the payment. Small bickies really when one considers the total cost of his two+ weeks in three hospitals.

The dispatcher’s initial assessment of Martin’s situation was wrong and he is still in hospital in a semi-serious condition.


As Martin is a Public Patient, we will probably not see the total cost of his hospitalisation, scans etc and treatment.

Of hospital and house maintenance

The last few days have been busy ones. Our son Martin is still in ‘Charlies’ receiving treatment for infections in his spine. Today he will get the catheter removed and a Physio is taking him to the Gym to do some exercises to strengthen his legs. He has improved considerably over the last week and may be discharged soon.

Joan is very tired and weak from her SIRT treatment and today, as predicted, the diarrhea has started. She is quite nauseous and this morning, even though I cooked breakfast outside on the BBQ, the smell of cooking almost made her vomit.

Whilst Martin is in hospital I am using the time to do some repairs and maintenance on his (our) unit. At first he was most reluctant to hand over the keys, but when his phone went flat he had to give them to me to get his phone charger. The block of units was probably built in the ‘60s for the State Housing Commission, then later sold to private owners like us. As with most flats like these, the neighbors are a mixed bag. Say no more!

The shower recess has previously had the tiles painted over and it is time for a repaint. Almost finished that job and I found a light switch plate badly cracked. OK, thought Kev, I will go to Bunnings and buy a new one. Easy! I could find one the same size but the holes for the screws were in different places. I went to an electrical wholesaler, but they only had the switch that Bunnings had. This switch is probably 40 years old.
The price at Bunnings was $5.38 and at the electrical warehouse the exact same switch was $17.80. I mentioned the difference in price to the guy behind the counter and he explained that Bunnings sell some things at a loss to get people in the store where all their appliances are much dearer...bulldust!
I have managed to repair the cracked switch and given it a nice coat of auto lacquer. Next is a chlorine mould treatment as Martin doesn’t open windows and steams up the place. He also wants me to investigate what he thinks is a problem with the washing machine we recently purchased for him. Oh, and then, all the tap washers need replacing. Busy, busy!

I am gradually configuring around 18 computers for distribution to needy folks. They are of several levels and I try and give the advanced machines to students doing serious studies. Machines which are a little long in the tooth go to families loaded with educational games as well as open source word processing packages. Rewarding stuff!

SIRT and Irinotecan

We have just arrived home from the Ivy suite where Joan received her 'Push' of Flourocillin after yesterday's SIRT therapy. Earlier this morning she had a Gama Ray Camera investigation to see if any of the SIRT irradiated spheres went where they should not have. The Man told her that they all reached their target(s), the 30 something tumours in her liver. He was pretty satisfied with the procedure. From that hospital we went to see Joans oncologist at St John's at Subiaco. He wasn't terrible demonstrative about SIRT and pointed out that the tumours had progressed. The next CT scan is in two months, but next week's blood test and visit should, we hope, show a significant lowering of the CEA, the tumour blood marker. He has her scheduled to restart a new form of chemo in three weeks to keep the lung tumours at bay. They have grown since Joan finished chemo almost two months ago. The new one is Irinotecan. Hope the side effects don't hit too hard as Helen's wedding is on the 18th of December. The Onco thinks it should be OK.

The Oncologist told us that the SIRT radiation only penetrates about 1.5 millimetres into the tumours. We don't understand what that means as the tumours are not spherical. Where does does the blood vessel enter the tumour...at it's widest point or the thinnest part?
We have a lot to learn before we start our own medical practice!

Another hospital transfer

Overnight our son Martin was transferred from Fremantle Hospital to the Sir Charles Gardiner (Charlies) Hospital. Firstly, Rockingham Hospital thought Fremantle was more able to cope with his problem and Fremantle transferred him to 'Charlies' because of resident specialists there.
Martin rang this morning to tell us that whilst antibiotics are preferred, surgery may be necessary. As we were talking a nurse advised Martin that he could not eat because of a procedure. Not sure if that means surgery.

The pressure of the abscesses on his spinal column has left his right leg almost useless. There are other problems as well. He is a public patient and all the costs involved with hospitals, transfers, scans and any operations is covered by Australia's Medicare system.

It doesn't just rain here

It feels like we neglected to pass on to eight friends one of those chain letters which promises bad luck to non believers like me.

As well as the continuing fight Joan is having with her cancer, last night we had an urgent call from our son who was in extreme pain and needed to go to hospital. We collected him outside his unit and went to Rockingham Hospital where he was admitted. Some time during the night he was transferred by ambulance to Fremantle Hospital where he had a scan, a catheter inserted where it hurts and a saline drip. The diagnosis is that he had a number of infections on his lower spine and he will be in for at least a week whilst they try and kill off the infections. The Doc believes that the infection was introduced through fleshy cracks on his feet.

Martin doesn't like hospitals and last time he was in for a similar complaint, as soon as he felt a bit better he discharged himself. This time the doctor has told him that if he discharges himself before the treatment is complete, there is a chance of permanent paralysis. That should keep him there.

Enough about our 'sick' family.

Denmark

Our road trip to Denmark was successful and most pleasant. Going down, we took the Albany Highway, ‘down the middle’ to Mt Barker, then across to Denmark. In all about 4.5 hours.

I left Joan to rest at the motel whilst I delivered the laptop and printer to the High School. The young lady to whom I was giving the gear had decided to ‘chuck a sickie’ from school, but when we rang her she immediately raced in to get a run down on the operating system and the niceties of the Mac . She was thrilled with it all and I could see that it was a worthwhile project.

We have been to Denmark a few times before and visited our friends, James and Marilyn, but had not seen their 38 acre farmlet. It is about 5 kilometres out of town in a beautiful valley surrounded by picturesque hills. They have about 5 acres of various berries which is a good sideline for Marilyn. She is/was employed by the Commonwealth Government as a census taker but last year had a major road accident and has permanent damage and acute pain due to her injuries. Even so she tends the thousands of berry plants and has plastic chairs placed at strategic points amongst the rows so that she can rest. Kangaroos share the paddocks with cattle. We are envious of their lifestyle and were we younger and fitter,would seriously consider a country lifestyle change
The farmhouse is of Rammed Earth construction and has great views across several properties.

Denmark town is very pretty with the river right in the middle of town. It is a bit backward in as much as the local kids don’t even know how to do graffiti. We saw none in the town or surrounds. Yesterday morning I got up at about 5.30am and went for a walk. Council workers were already watering garden beds and tidying up. Most civilised!

In the middle of town is a war memorial which looks like it was built by a 'busy bee' group. It has a very chintzy 'eternal flame' which is actually red fabric fluttering in a blast of air. I think that beats the statue of Our Lady of Fatima we saw in Noumea which had a circular fluorescent light tube as a Halo.
The 'eternal flame' is at the left and below is a closeup shot of it.


Denmark is about 60 kilometres from Albany which has much more history than Denmark. We like both places, but Albany is a small city, very much like other cities or large towns. Denmark, with its farming and forest very close to the town limits, has a genuine country feel to it.

Tuesday evening we joined Jim and Marilyn for dinner at the Tavern. Nice sounding meals, but rated just a 4 from me.

Before we left Denmark to drive home we returned to Berry Farm to collect three tubs of their selected berries. At home last night we had some with ice cream. Lovely!

We drove back using a different route taking 6 hours through magnificent state forests. The long drive cured us of any urge to drive interstate or anywhere more that 500 kilometres. Plane and hire car for us.

Today we have a meeting with the radiotherapy specialist. We assume that he is going to go over all the side effects and expectations of the SIRT treatment before Joan has it next Thursday. Joan held up well over the two days away. Six weeks without chemo makes a huge difference.