Hey, thank you. Raised heaps of thoughts, issues, general miscellaneous "stuff" What resonated immediately/almost primal was the comment quote But I would also say that I have come to realise that that is the human condition anyway, when confronted with mortality. So, for me it's not a matter of being disadvantaged by illness but a matter of being advantaged by being able to see more that I could before. end quote I get flashes of that, more and more as time flows - its not bad, sorta laid back Buddhist type of thing - I grew up reading Herman Hesse , Carlos Castenada etc - so, that analogy suits me. BTW - 4 years - wow, - are congrats in order? - dont know, hows it goin for you? - (its impressive, good effort) is it tolerable, cool, bearable, fuckin awful - what? Apologies for maybe being rude/direct, no offense intended, OK? Work - how much of you was work, your hands, your strength, your hard won skills? Thats what hurts to be taken away - the rest is just medical crap. Even the Dog gives me a hard time recently on Walkies, major effort. Its not her fault, shes a young, energetic still idiot pup. I cant exercise her, socialise her - fuck, thats what hurts. Cant even walk the bloody Dog. Bad time of life to get a New Dog, gorgeous tho she is....those eyes..... she sussed me right out, putty in her hands, typical female... Interesting trip, what? Andrew aka oldhippy ... View more

Hi Jules, had chemo today, start of another round - Not Happy, are I. Did go and see a physio yesterday, was most productive, gave me some simple exercises to help fix up the muscle wastage caused by chemo - (this is greatly simplified, he drew charts and diagrams and Scientific Stuff) I got it in the legs, a real bastard. And stairs and slopes - forget it. Seems its something in the nerve connections thats gone wonky, not making relevant connections. The muscle stuff is almost secondary. Good luck on going back to work, a big effort, hope you can give it your best shot. And accept what happens, whichever way it goes, OK? - hope I dont have to do it, I been self employed the last 20 years, unemployable because of my habit of dropping Raging Socialist rants into conversations. The sorta person you dont let anywhere near customers. Still, was making a living, had lots of older clients, most of the local Retirement Villages - (theirs a doctoral thesis in there about an interesting virtually walled society, where are the bloody anthropologists when you need one. Grrr.) I had stopped advertising years ago, didn't need to. Have had to drop a lot of them, felt rotten, cant do the job anymore. Last night, went up to see one - wanted this big LCD TV mounted on the bedroom wall - nah, not up to crawling around ceilings anymore with big heavy duty power tools, dont have the physical strength, or much motivation to do it. And I had never particularly warmed to them anyway. Bad Vibes. Not good Karma. Fair enuff, just realized I was ranting irrelevantly again. Sorry. Possibly the Chemo' or just random chance, who knows. Been a worker all me life, used tons of chemicals/materials that are now banned. Who knows which one got me. Quack says its not from the smokes, so, whats goin on here? - there aren't any answers, just stagger along as best we can. Or fall in a screamin heap, whatever you like - dont really have to worry about manners much anymore, what other people think, the unconscious social shackles we have assumed all our lives - they are irrelevant now, to a degree. (should be more good looking Sheilas rippin their clothes off, running through the streets)(sorry, its my Inner Bogan) Chemo just might be doing that as well, if we let it - its a bloody powerful chemical, lets face it. Wacks lots of things besides C cells. - thinking differently about situations we had/have, deciding that most day to day stuff is just crap anyway. And the stuff we keep stored up there, the old slights, wounds - all total crap. Chemo seems to strip away layers of interference, of noise. I find it to be so, at least in bursts. You can, indeed, successfully clean out a wardrobe. I Kid You Not. And no, you just check em in the bin, the brotherhood bin if you can be so bothered, or inclined, or even physically up to it. I still have to stop automatically cutting old flannelet shirts into really nice cotton rags for the workshop...got more than enuff now to see me through I thinks. Lower your crap tolerance, take out the garbage, the stuff that doesn't really matter, anymore. Let go. And it never did matter anyway - we just thought it was. ... View more

Maddie - yep, no Melways this trip. Trying to make any sense of it is difficult - it has to fit in with what you were like before the C came along. And the side effects - mm, they are interesting.....not.... One step at a time - yes, can still manage that, depends on how much chemical warfare stuff is floating around in my body, going "la la la lets give that part of the brain a good shaking, see what happens.." I know there's heaps of books about all this, but cant be stuffed reading them. Haven t read anything but engineering texts for years, so a book about what MIGHT be going on could be used to prop up a table, but thats about it. Dont want to waste my time anymore. Hey, I yelled and screamed before I had C, (live in a family where on odd occasions one has to dodge flying cutlery) so yelling and screaming is just background noise. (But the cutlery does make a distinctive "Zzzzzz" sound as it flys, gives you a bit of a chance to duck...) Fresh air - I live in Melbourne - you gotta be kidding, dont want to start any more tumors! Tassie is nice - calm, serene, peaceful, quiet. Perfect. No traffic. Nice food. Checked out a lot of Scone places - the one in Coles Bay is about the best so far. Started Chemo again today, so buzzing from that a bit - I can see another "watch the sunrise" episode coming up. Got sleeping pills, but Blaah - their side effects reduce you to the level where you can stand In a corner and do lamp imitations....clashes with the flying cutlery awareness program always running in the background..mind you, was no way a morning person before, so, along with the Flying Cutlery,, fighting off Orcs, Peace in the Middle East (hah!) doing the garden, trying to finish building my aeroplane (no, thats a blatant lie, no time to even start now.) abusing people via email, falling over things, - life is always interesting. Prognosis - not good, but cool about it, just see what happens. Time lines? - hey, your talking to oncologists here - they can just about tell you what day of the week it is, but not much more. And I know its not their fault, poor things - they just dont know. Its a soup, says mine. I dont give a shit about dying, but a slow, painful death terrifies me. And lung cancer is one of the nasty ones end stage. Wish I had done the chemistry elective at school rather than physics. ... View more

Nearly heard the tinkle of temple bells, and monks chanting Ommmmm in the background then when I read your opening paragraph. Twas beautifully Cosmic! Bach isnt so much soothing as beautiful in its almost mathematical perfection.(Secret Mens Business, keep it to yourself, OK?) My P doc says that the chemo does muck with your brain chemistry - (Duh! - imagine that, it comes in containers marked bio-hazard, would make good paint stripper, of course its going to stuff with your head.The almost incidental side effect is that the SSRI receptors in your brain get whacked as well (or something like that) so the internal head noise floor goes way down and you can get to work out lots of things. Jarrahs not a bad wood, nice grain and colour - my woodworking involves what I can get and much swearing and cursing and total disregard on how to treat a circular saw....so if I had a nice piece of Jarrah, would try to give it to someone who could use it properly. Got some nice family Australian Cedar stuff furniture, been in the family for generations, the kids dont seem too interested in it. Pity - maybe its a thing that comes as you get older, dont know . Andrew. ... View more

Hi Jules, yes, I think we are trying to say the same thing, but it sorta comes out weird sometimes - at least for me, at any rate. There aint a guide book for all this. So saying that - sitting here listening to Bach, more and more drawn to Bach lately - is that a recognized chemo side effect? - I wonder.. You said... Chemo can do some wonderful things to our bodies and yet it can play havoc on our bodies at the same time. No wonder our heads have a hard time getting around that. And your quite right, things get pretty weird, wouldn't be at all be surprised to find Orcs in there somewhere..and the weird thing is, its a bit of an adventure, the whole thing. Not one you would choose, but a Genuine Adventure none the less. Interesting, at least. Horrific sometimes too, stuffit! (My head had trouble finding its way around anyway before this C crap, so, wooooo !!!!) Daughters partner came over, we climbed into the ceiling to check and modify the gas heater thingy - was ok, lowered a drain hose a bit to improve things. Hand Crafted etc etc - (twas, I machined bits of brass (from hard rubbish) for the fittings...)that wasn't all that long ago, really - took a while, last winter the bloody heater was having a good go at coming through the ceiling and rampaging through the house..got a quote to fix it, said "stuff that" so did it myself. Took a while, its amazing what you can do with big sheets of cardboard for a temporary ceiling... you aint got a ceiling...and no heating.... - Involved many adventures, remember dragging home a huge sheet of particle board laminate - had to walk down the centre of the road with it balanced on a trolley - I had waited till 2am, on the premise it would be less noticeable. That made a new floor up in the roof,nice big storage area now. Theres some great timber going to waste down the St. - we live in an area thats being dragged upwards, nice houses being bulldozed to put up a McMansion. So, if your quick and nimble enuff, you can sometimes get into the wreckage at night, grab what timber you can, big old hardwood from the 60's, 4x2, 4x4, 2x1 tiles carry battens are good for soooo much - garden stuff like decent beam poles.. comes up pretty good if you machine it a bit, makes handles, that sorta thing. - good stuff to build with, made tank stands, tables, fixed heaters, braced ceilings -lotsa things- cant remember....... Been doing this all my life, since I was kid. Finally got most of the tools to do it, took a few years to get them. Wont give you the Old Fart rave. Was green before it was spun.... If I am ever arrested for "stealing" hard rubbish, I will invoke the sacred rituals of my tribe, the Anglo-Celts, (alas,now sadly in decline). Some of our Dreaming remains amongst our elders - chief among them the tendency to say "F... Off" to idiot things that get in the way, like...Duh..!!! stealing Hard Rubbish, you Gotta Be Kidding - thats a crime! - this our ancestral custom, it deserves respect. Tread lightly on the earth, it feels your footprints, look after it. Its the only one you got...etc etc.... No idea, really. Just along for the ride. With fellow travelers, who Seem like a nice bunch. Take care, All. ... View more

Yep, stuffed if I can remember who did it. I saw the one I didnt buy(?) for $250 in a Gallery in Canterbury Rd, Box Hill, Victoria (wherever you are) There were other paintings of ducks too. Same duck but. - vague, chemo induced haze spreads out before me.......... (Its a great excuse for being vague, isnt it) re Clarification - yes, taking that long to diagnose these things would annoy you - it did me, but that was partly due to my not ringing up and getting the test results (had a good idea what they would show) eventually my lovely GP came round. Unannounced Not a Good Sign. I was up on the roof, fixing a leaky tile (still needs to be done, stuffit) and wasnt all that keen on climbing down to chat. I got no quibbles with care - been fine, oncologist smiles beautifully and as its all a primordial soup anyway, cant expect him to give me a date/time. Went through a real shit time a few weeks ago - felt totally awful, weak as a kitten, sick, totally pissed off cause I didn't know what was going on - woo woo? - whats this caused by? - am I just crook, or is it......(dramatic music here)....something.....else....... (Cant have been the cans of Bundy and Coke, they were on special, ..really, you jest.) My current Theory of Oncologists leads me to think they see you and then decide how your traveling, and try to whack the feral cells a bit. Because the little buggers can further mutate, so you have to do it a few time I think - he DID mention plans B to G Hey Jules, - you probably figured out I aint a computer person, its like something out of bloody Wagner to find out where the any key is, or where my rants should go. Analogue, fine, no worries. If I have breached etiquette - or whatever - let me know. ... View more

I remember the poster you are using for your avatar - cool. Had this ridiculous argument with a gallery owner in Canterbury Rd over one, signed, numbered etc etc. Cant even remember who did it. Rang up the National Gallery and they told me (very unofficially) that it was overpriced and the artists wasn't known about anywhere cause they looked him up. Or something. Was a long time ago anyway. But I still like that poster, a modern, cooler Daffy Duck..... ... View more

Hey - I am slowly coming to the realisation that there is no "Guide Book" to all this - its a primordial soup, so much depends on the individual. Its a bit like the Medieval theologians arguing how many Angles could dance on the head of a pin. Feral cells with their own free will, battling it out with whatever can be thrown at them... - whatever makes sense to you. Oncologists dont lie, they just dont know. Period. In the meantime, both of you, LIVE. Cram as much living into life as you can, most people dont get this chance. Do the trips, go bush, learn to skydive - review your bucket list. Stop wasting time on crap that you cant resolve anyway. Just go for it. Dance naked in the rain if you want to - (said this to my wife a few nights ago - she said "no - and close the window, there's a draft"....bugger....have to work on that one... I wish you both well, be of good heart it will all eventually be resolved. ... View more