Me and the Big C

I have thought of closing down Joan’s blog...’Me and the Big C’ and yesterday I had a look at the stats and was surprised to see a large number of people searching for Cancer topics on her blog.   By far there were two main searches...’The Silence of the Dying’ and Xeloda.  There were other topic searches of course and the blog has changed from one where people followed a journey to one for, hopefully, helpful information.

I also felt that I should leave it for myself and our family.  Later I will have it printed.

I have been offered some 25 Mac computers from a school in Albany.  It is about two years since we drove down there and so thought I would drive down and bring back at least 10 machines in my car.  My friend Dennis decided that we should both go down for a few days in his large ute and bring them all back.  Good idea!  Albany is a most pleasant small city at the bottom of Western Australia.    I have an ex-student teaching at one of the Albany schools and will make an effort to catch up with her.

Mobile phone fine

I am probably talked about in our cul-de-sac as the looney who grows vegetables in his front yard.  My Broad Beans have flowered and already small beans are abundant.  I don’t mind if the neighbours think I am an old Italian gardener...the front of the house points north into the sun and is the best place for vegies on our block.
A couple of times I have had to search amongst the Broad Beans to find the morning newspaper. I reckon the bean patch would present a nice target.

Talking about loonies;  in this morning’s newspaper there is a report about a Senior Police Constable in the seaside town of Mandurah giving an infringement ticket to a woman using a mobile phone whilst in control of a vehicle.  The fine for this offence is $250.00. and three demerit points.

Yes, the woman was using her mobile whilst in charge of a...wait for it...pram.  She was walking her baby along a footpath/sidewalk and foolishly answered her mobile.  Fortunately senior police officers recognised a problem with the infringement and cancelled the ticket an apologised to the woman.  The looney cop had mis-interpreted the law involved and probably shouldn’t show his face around town for a while.

Embryonic Diapause

I suspect that my mailing list has been compromised.  I am receiving a few emails from people I know; their names appear on the header but the email addresses aren’t theirs. 

Not a worry at the moment, but it will spook me if others start receiving emails purporting to be me.

U.S. Congress hopeful Todd Akin, a Republican candidate, has severely embarrassed Presidential candidate Romney with a wacky statement saying that the female body can shut down conception in the case of true rape.   He is a right-to-lifer and opposes abortion even in cases of aggravated rape.  His claim is that doctors have told him that in cases of true rape, the female does not conceive.  Looney and soon to be a loser!

I imagine that many a rape victim forced to carry the child of a rapist to full term might not afford it true motherly affection.

Maybe he was thinking of what Kangaroos can do in times of extreme drought.  Kangaroos can ‘freeze’ the development of an embryo in a process called Diapause if they are still nursing a previous newborn.

A big day in

Yesterday we had a luncheon at my place which went on until around 5pm. Beef roast, lots of vegetables and salads courtesy of Helen and James. Also along were brother Graham and Helen and James' friends and house guests, Scotty and Chrissie and their lovely 14 month old daughter Sarah who provided much of the entertainment for us all. Sarah is a remarkably smart and funny kid. I have yet to hear her cry.

                                       Sarah with her beer hat on.

Scotty and Chrissie have shifted back to W.A. From Queensland and have both secured well paying jobs. They have bought a house quite close to here and will move in around about 10 days. Their two horses (Great Danes) will come out of their boarding kennels and settle in at the new house. The plan is to remove a swimming pool in the back yard and grass the whole area for the dogs.

Keel haul them!

The Australian shock jocks and even ABC and SBS TV are running with a headline story about Pirates.

A Norwegian car-carrier ship en route to Singapore from Fremantle, MV Parsifal, responded to an Australian search and rescue organisation which had received a distress call from a refugee boat supposedly sinking. The Parsifal took the 67 refugees on board, but when they were informed that they were heading for Singapore and not an Australian territory (Christmas Island) they understandably became 'agitated'. The Captain decided to change course and take them to Christmas Island.  Christmas Island is a slight diversion from the Fremantle-Singapore route.

Then came the media beat up... Pirates story. The Captain later stressed that there was no piracy, the refugees threatened self harm. There was no threat to his crew.

It is most likely that the ship's owners advised the Captain to land them on Christmas Island as there would have most certainly been costly delays in Singapore whilst that government wrangled over who was to take them.

The Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, said he would have sent in the SAS.

What a load of codswallop!

In this morning's newspaper there are letters suggesting such acts are pure piracy.
Keel haul 'em and hang 'em from the yardarm.

Bride Running Away

When our daughter Helen was about ten years old she painted this pic...

It's not bad at all..she hadn't perfected her human figures at that stage.

Just kiddin...it was painted by Arthur Boyd in the early 1950s and was just auctioned for the princely sum of A$1.68 Million. I am, even at the age of 72, a bit puzzled as why such art is so valuable. I guess it is investment value.

The Australian government has just caved in to the opposition about how to deal with boat people arriving at Australia's Christmas Island. Christmas Island is just a spit away from Indonesia from where most of the boats depart. Everyone (except the Greens) now agrees that offshore detention in Papua New Guinea and the small nation of Nauru will deter reffos who think they will get a quick trip into Australian residency. Not sure that will actually work.... but?

The government previously built expensive detention centres in Australia and now these will not be needed. Two of these in Western Australia; one at Leonora which is desert-side of Kalgoorlie and the other at Northam which is about 60 miles from Perth city will probably fall into disuse. The Mayor of the small town of Leonora is whinging about the fact that the town relies heavily on the detention centre for its local economy. The Mayor of Christmas Island is also saying the same thing. Both communities initially whinged about the establishment of the detention centres, but now have changed their mind.

Down and Up

Today I start my preparations for tomorrow's Gastroscopy and Colonoscopy. Low (just about everything) diet and at 6pm I commence drinking the four litres of 'Colonlyte'. I don't mind the actual procedure because I don't know it is happening. Brother Graham is delivering me into the hospital and collecting me when it is all over.

A friend Dennis, recalls having a colonoscopy in a clinic with maybe a dozen other people in line for the same procedure. He thought it unlikely that the medicos had a couple of dozen endoscopes and wondered how the autoclave would cope with a couple of instruments being used over and over in a relatively short time. I won't concern myself with that detail.

I have a colonoscopy every four years because of a family history of colon cancer. It is estimated that bowel cancers take around four years to present.

I recently had a Rotary Club sponsored blood-faecal test which came back as negative for a bowel cancer. The results cautioned that the test does not conclusively rule out a bowel cancer, as some cancers do not bleed into the bowel. My wife Joan also had a negative result with a test she did around three years ago, but sadly her bowel and metastatic liver cancer was not detected. GPs are cautious about the real benefits of this easy test.

Today I am 'Skipper' when Helen, James and I drive up to Hillary's to have lunch with Joan's sister Dorothy. I don't know what I will have to eat as I am instructed to abstain from.....'Milk or milk products, pulp. Pips or seeds, stock cubes, green, red or purple food colouring. No solid food, no chewing gum and no agar jelly. Looks like warm water for me.

For a humorous take on a Colonoscopy see here.

Postscript: Correction...it  is a Gastroscopy and Colonoscopy.    It went well and I have nothing but a small hernia in the oesophagus and some minor diverticulitis in the sigmoid colon.    The Doc told me to have another colonoscopy in eight years if I am still going.  Nice guy!

Grumpy old bugger!

So Syria's President Assad's Prime Minister and all his family have skipped the country. He says it is because the Assad regime is bad and he wants to distance himself from it. More like he can see the writing on the wall and knows what will happen to him and his family when Assad falls. Same goes for pilots and generals who have deserted. Ex-Prime Minister Hijab and 10 relatives and their families are in a 'Safe Haven and in Safe Hands'.

The West has been supporting, in words at least, the rebels. So what will happen when the rebels eventually bring down the government and it reverts to an anti-western regime of Muslim fundamentalists? Probably like other Arab Spring Middle East countries, Syria will not be so accommodating to Westeners as it has been in the past. The Christians of Syria have been pretty -well left alone by the Assad regime. A sectarian Muslim regime may not be so benign.

I am thinking of having my newspaper delivery stopped. I don't read it thoroughly enough and most of the articles are are of little interest to me. When the comics at the rear of the paper are the most interesting part, I reckon I can get the real news from radio, TV and the internet.

Grumpy old bugger aint I?

The Olympics

I am slightly underwhelmed by the Olympics. It always seems to promote a fair bit of Nationalism.

Watching a couple of events last night I was struck by the physical appearance of most of the female athletes. Are breasts a serious impediment to success? They don't seem to worry the Williams sisters. I am sure there is no hormonal treatment involved.

There are a few ads which pop up on web pages and FaceBook that deserve a bit of scorn.

There are the “Congratulations, you have won...' types.

'The Doctors Hate her' types.

The '"crazy old secret makes this so easy" ads.

And the overstocked iPads from $24.95 scams. 

Donations to Charities

Since my wife Joan died, I have made donations to organisations which support cancer sufferers. I was happy to give substantial monies to two organisations. I have also been giving a monthly donation to the another world-wide charity as a 'Humanitarian Partner' to support their various causes.

I am perfectly happy to donate to good causes, but resent the double-up they follow up with. All three organisations have mailed me; a couple, several times, seeking more donations for another of their projects. I know I am no orphan on this one...friends who have been good enough to support a good cause have also been hounded for more donations. 

There...I feel better with that off my chest.

 In yesterday's post I received a letter  from the funeral home which had done Joan's funeral service.
The letter was in collaboration with Curtin University.  It was a survey of partners of a deceased loved one assessing their physical and mental well-being.
The Study Title is: A population based approach to bereavement support: a Western Australian community survey.
There were a number of sections to the study. Most focusing on the health and bereavement process, with lots of questions on support offered by medical professionals and palliative care staff and the Funeral Director.  The questions had the usual check boxes rating all aspects of treatment and palliative care as well as postmortem follow up for the partner.
There were spaces for personal observations and I felt like writing that I was going along nicely until I had to go through all that pain again.    Still, I am glad that I was allowed to participate in the survey.   Generally I was well satisfied with the treatment and palliative care for my wife.  I wasn't happy with the outcome, but no one could have done better than the medicos who sincerely tried their best to save Joan.

Calcium batteries

Daughter Helen's car, a Ford Fiesta, is just two years old and the battery has failed. It is a sealed 'Calcium' battery. The dealer tells me that there is a 1, (that's ONE) year warranty on the battery. Gone are the days when a backyard mechanic like me could test the battery cells with a hydrometer and if necessary top up the acid levels with distilled water. A load test is required to determine if the battery is still good and that is what the RAC call out man determined....the battery is dead. This was late on Saturday and he suggested that I call the RAC battery replacement guy to fit a new battery. I didn't have much choice by then so I agreed and about 90 minutes later the van arrived and the battery was replaced. 'Just swipe your card here sir and $171 bucks will be sucked out'.

Older cars must have been less demanding on their batteries because I have had many batteries last 4 or more years.It is claimed that 'Calcium' batteries are expected to last longer than Lead Acid batteries.  BS!

The young fella who fitted the battery was a recent (4 years ago) immigrant from Afghanistan. He was pleasant, skilled and spoke good English. Not bad seeing he could not speak English when he arrived in Australia. He was not a 'boat person' and had come here through official channels. I asked him if he was Hazara, which didn't get the answer I thought and it became clear that there is a lot of religious conflict within Afghanistan and other Middle East countries and Hazaras are at the bottom of the heap. He wasn't one of 'em. I didn't ask him what shade of the Muslim faith he was.

                                                Goodbye old friends.

Colonoscopy

This morning I drove my brother to Subiaco, a suburb west of Perth city to St John of God hospital. I could have done it with my eyes closed as we drove that route some 50 times when Joan was undergoing chemotherapy there. Brother Graham was going for a colonoscopy and had fasted and drunk the 4,000 litres of PicoPrep to make sure his bowel was cleaned out for the 20 meter flexible camera which was to travel up his rear end. I'm not sure about those figures, but he probably feared they might be accurate. He usually has a large breakfast, so I decided to tell him about my sausage and potato mash fry up....not impressed!

When I was summonsed by the hospital in the afternoon to collect him, I parked in a spot near Joan's oncologist's office and through his window saw him smiling into a computer screen. I had an immediate small meltdown. Here was this pleasant man who tried his best to save my Joan. I wasn't up to going in to his office to thank him and his staff for their efforts. Maybe another time.

A fellow traveller on the cancer road, Gillian who lives in England, lost her husband to cancer. She has urged me to not look for what might or might not have been. Good advice!

Early the same morning I had an urgent phone call from my daughter Helen. Her car had a flat battery, so I raced around to their place and with Helen pushed her car up a steep driveway so that I could manoeuvre my car into close proximity to use my jumper cables. It started and I gave her my cables in case the half hour journey to work was not enough to start the car after work. It was as I thought and she had a colleague help her jump start the car to drive home. It is in my garage at the moment and I have charged the battery and will try and see what the problem is tomorrow. The battery is a sealed type and is just two years old. It may be that a light is on draining the battery and I will go into the garage when it gets dark and see if anything is actually on.

Leyland P76

Years ago I owned a Leyland P76 sedan. It was a much ridiculed car but I liked it. The Sydney Powerhouse Museum has one suspended from the ceiling in the main hallway. Whenever I drove out I would see them everywhere.   P76 story here.

Events and disabilities seem to present to me in the same way. I had two friends and a couple of acquaintances with Parkinson's Disease and since then it would seem that I hear of and see many people so afflicted. Mention liver cancer and people have a story about a friend or relative suffering the same.

I have a friend in Queensland who is running down to the end with Parkinson's. He has led an interesting life, but it is a sad way to go. Hope I go with a sudden flick of the switch. Getting old is a bastard.

 I have been placing a notice on a nearby shopping centre notice board offering free Macs to needy folks.  Had a few takers, but some dipstick is ripping the notice down.   A PC nutter?? Number 4 notice going up today.

Settling In

Yesterday I visited my cousin Edward (Ted). After a nice lunch he showed me his 3D capable TV. It isn't new; they have had it for a couple of years, but one of the TV channels has just started broadcasting in 3D. It was very impressive. The 3D broadcast is not in the jumbled colour system which most people would have experienced, but looks like the the 19^th century stereoscopes where there were two pictures of the same scene taken with a camera viewed through the left hand and right hand eye. The current 3D films appear to be in that format. Special glasses, battery powered, certainly make the picture 'stand out'.

Later I went to my local shopping centre to buy some blank CDs. The local Yugoslav bench sitters had already taken up their positions on every bench seat in the entire centre. They are all elderly blokes (like me) and they converse loudly... it looks like argument; and gesticulate whilst little old ladies needing a sit-down shuffle by. I haven't noticed if it is a daily thing or whether it is only a few days a week. In Fremantle city the main mall used to be the meeting place for old Italian fellas. There was a recent article in the daily newspaper about how immigrants tend to settle in certain areas of the metro area. This is not peculiar to Australia, every city in the world would have ethnic areas for one reason or another. Here in Western Australia there are large areas where British migrants live. South Africans, Vietnamese and now Somalian immigrants congregate in their own areas. The British and South Africans usually assimilate with an Australian accent after the first generation, but often the non English speakers take much longer.

Not a biggy. If one believes the movie The Adventures of Barry MacKenzie, all Australians in Britain live in Earls Court in London

Win some...lose some

Brother Graham and I had a boys' day out in Perth city. I haven't been into the city for a couple of years and we found Friday afternoon to be very busy and pleasant.

We bussed it to the train station after buying a 'Day Rider' ticket each. Graham's ticket cost $11.50 and mine, being an oldie, cost $4.40. Great value, as one can ride busses, trains and ferries all day.

In the city we dined at an underground (meaning below ground level) eatery and then sampled a few beers at a variety of pubs. That's where things got expensive....beers in Perth are dearer than most Australian cities @ $10.00 a pint. 

 It was rush hour when we headed back home and the train was full. Looking around our carriage I found that Graham and I and another young couple were the only passengers not listening to, or fiddling with, an iPhone.

From Graham's house I called a taxi for the $20.00 ride home. The driver wasn't interested in looking at my 'Day Rider' ticket.

Parking in Perth City is expensive, so the plan for future visits is public transport @ $4.40 per day.

Statutory Declaration

Yesterday I returned to the Aboriginal lady's house and asked her if anyone else had used her computer to rack up the excessively large bill from her ISP. She assured me that she was the only person to use it and the computer was disconnected and moved to another room a month before the last two billing periods. She showed me a diary she keeps which told of disconnecting and moving the computer into storage.

I suggested she ring the service provider and explain that to them and if they would not come to the party she would offer to make a Statutory Declaration stating the facts. She later rang the provider and was transferred to India and talked with Optus Billing. They immediately offered to cut the bill in half. It would seem that the Statdec had worked. I would have demanded the entire bill less the contracted service fee of $14.80 be wiped, but she accepted their offer. She is relieved and I have helped as much as I could.

I felt somewhat obliged to help more than I usually do with most people I give a machine to, as Joan and I knew her late husband when we taught in Papua New Guinea.

Clinical Trial

It is around 18 months since my wife Joan died. She was in a 'trial' to test the efficacy of combining chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The trial had two groups; one where radiotherapy was given at the beginning and chemo later and the other group where chemo was first. Unfortunately Joan drew the short straw and was placed in the latter cohort where chemotherapy was the main attack on the disease and radiotherapy as a last resort. Would the other group have saved my Joan?

I recently phoned the Oncologist's office to see if there were any published results that I could look at. They have been tardy getting back to me and I think I will have to actually go to his office ask ask them face to face. It may well be that the trial is still ongoing? I think it is worth pursuing.

Yesterday I collected a computer from an Aboriginal lady which I had given her some three years ago. She rang me suggesting that I take it back because she was not getting any use out of it and thought that I could pass it on to some other needy person. When I drove out to collect the machine she asked me to look at the ISP bill, which had suddenly gone from $14.00 to $86.00 in one month. I took her pile of bills to the Optus shop at a nearby shopping centre and a nice man rang up head office and found that loads of data over her allowance had caused the big bill. I know that she never did anything but email and play a couple of games loaded on the computer. I will talk with her this morning and most probably find that her niece who is staying with her has been looking at YouTube or similar.

On Monday my brother Graham had eye surgery in a day clinic. We went back to the hospital yesterday for a checkup and it seems to have been OK. He has three different eye drops to be administered four times a day for four weeks. He was warned that if he had a cold he would not be able to have the operation. As it happened he had a 'sniffle' when I drove him to the hospital, but he was confident that he could cover up the watery eyes and runny nose with 'death in the family' if the symptoms were noticed. It worked, but he modified the death in the family to 'just lost my girlfriend'......or that's his story.

Astro-nomical

Yesterday evening I was invited around to Helen and James' house for a BBQ, ostensibly to meet their house guests, Scotty and Krissie and Scotty's father Dennis. Scotty and Krissie have moved to Western Australia from Queensland and are staying with Helen and James until they find the right house to buy. Krissie already has a job to start on Monday and Scotty is a go-getter and should get employment very soon. The evening was cold, so the barbecue was moved into James' workshop and as well as cooking some huge steaks, warmed the workshop with a nice roast beef smell.

They brought their two dogs with them. The larger one, named Astro, is like a small horse. Picture of Astro with me in the workshop. He is sitting down!

During the week I received a letter from the W.A. Water Corporation advising me that I was selected to have a plumber visit to replace up to two shower heads for water saving ones, fix all the dripping taps and toilets in and around the house and supply aerators to taps, all for free. At first I was very impressed and pleased by my windfall, but since then I have wondered why/how I was selected. Talking to friends I find that none of them have received a letter with any offers. I am quite capable of maintenance on taps and toilets and I already have one waterwise shower head. Also I am not short of cash, so on Monday I will ring the Water Corp and suggest that they seek out a more needy person to help.

Another piece of mail was from the U.S. advising us that we had hired a car in California between January 1, 2007 and November 14, 2007 and a class action was in progress against some 7 car hire firms. If the card is to be believed it looks as though we would be in for a major award of $2 per day over the hire period of 15 days. Yaaaay!! I think I'll buy a Boeing 747. Can't be bothered.

                         Click to enlarge should you wish to read the details

QWERTY

There is a move to abandon the QWERTY keyboard on phones and computers. The QWERTY layout of the alphabet has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I confess that I have never bothered to find out why the letters were so arranged.

The QWERTY arrangement has been around since 1878 and was designed mainly to stop typewriter 'arms' sticking together when typists were typing too fast or using letters alongside each other on the keyboard. When you take a good look at the QWERTY keyboard, so called for the arrangement of the upper left hand row of letters, one can see that it would appear that some perverse designer has arranged the keys to frustrate two-finger pickers like me. Not so.

This attack on the QWERTY keyboard is aimed at simplifying two-thumbed texting on mobile devices. It won't help me speed up when I get around to texting.

                  The non-QWERTY keyboard designed by a Queenslander

Northam W.A.

Yesterday I drove with my cousin Val to Northam about 97 kilometres from Perth. We visited Val's daughter Anne and Neil her husband and their two kids. Anne is a police officer in the town and Neil is a long distance truck driver doing 5,000 kilometres a week delivering diesel fuel to an isolated mine site past Kalgoorlie.

Northam is a pleasant, colonial era town which has the Avon River running through it.  The Avon Descent is an annual white water race of all sorts of water craft over a grueling 133 kilometre race from Northam to Perth waters.  It attracts Australia wide and international competitors to this two day event.

We had a very nice lunch and later a coffee at a smart local venue. Before we left for home we visited a wonderful house on top of hill overlooking the town. Joan and I inspected this house maybe 25 years ago, when it was for sale for $85,000. It needed quite a bit of work to bring it up to standard and a number of other factors made us give it a miss. We did not know how we would go both gaining employment as teachers in the town; we had just bought a boat moored on the Swan River and our kids didn't want to move to a different school away from their friends...all good reasons not to shift from our own colonial house near Fremantle.

It was a nice drive and a most pleasant 'catch up' with family.

Here is that Northam house yesterday. Sitting pretty on about an acre of land I expect that it would be worth about $1M+ now.