I put on 50k over 4 years post-cancer treatment, linked to serious thyroid impairment caused by the radiation (thyroid regulates your metabolism).   I'm digging myself out of that hole, and what I'd say to you is:  You can do it.   Whatever "it" is exactly for you, you can pick a health goal within your reach, and strive toward it.  Walking is *WONDERFUL* for overall health.  It's low impact, sustainable, helps with your heart & circulation, mental health, weight loss, there's even science about it improving your vision !   Set a positive goal and move toward it, you've got all the heart & guts you need to achieve it.   You just need to find your inspiration.     Cancer is a kick in the guts, and it wants to take that away from you (the inspiration I mean, that sense of hope, purpose & future).  Don't allow it.  You're the boss here.   Keep up the great work, choose definitive goals and strive for them.  And if you fail, don't stop.  Losing one small battle doesn't mean you lose the war (in fact if you won all the battles, it probably wouldn't even be a war but more of a take-over).   Sorry if that's a bit ra-ra, but I think the psychological and spiritual energy needed to make change when you've suffered from cancer is pretty profound.  So my soft advice is to find hope and motivation and grab onto it and lock it down and put it to work for you.   The concrete advice is:  walk EVERY day.  Even if it's awkward, or rainy.  Get a puppy if you don't have one, they LOVE walking with you.  If you can do 30 minutes, try for 45, then set that as the daily routine.  Build on it until you're walking an hour a day (or 45 minutes per day twice).  Check your "maintenance calories" and make sure you're coming in 10% or so lower than those requirements, and the weight will melt off you.  In a year you'll be a different person, and whatever comes next you'll be happier & healthier. ... View more

You've gotta take your little joys wherever you find them, mate - and ideally share them with others, spread the joy around - so good on you.   Anybody who tells you they know THE MEANING OF LIFE is lying or crazy - but we all can have opinions.  Mine is that whether we are here for some underlying spiritual purpose or not, there are two vital pursuits in the human condition: LEARNING:  find ways to expand (not the belly), learn and grow, and share your insights if you can HAPPINESS:  actively pursue happiness, but not only that, try and foster and pursue happiness in others.  Shine, if you can.   Good luck with the PET scan, hope the result is the best possible. ... View more

G'day G'day   Listen, results may vary with this, but as your hubbie experiences active pain in the region, this might be worth exploring - some or all of the recipe - because a numbing agent is a key ingredient.   So the product would need to be mixed by a compound chemist - you approach them with the recipe and say you need it mixed up.  It might cost fifty bucks or somewhere thereabouts, as it'll be a custom mix they make up for you ... I can't speak for whether there are any commercial available alternatives (there weren't when I had awful mucositis and dysgeusia).   It's called MAGIC MOUTH WASH, and you can find the recipe and info here:  https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/magic-mouthwash   Check it out - in concept, it applies a protective layer over the mucosa - you take it before eating, or at intervals, and that protective layer prevents irritants to the already insulted mucosal lining, and there are other components to the medicine like anti-fungal and numbing agents to help foster healing and reduction in pain.   Look into that, I hope it helps, there's no guarantee, but also take heart - I think I had profoundly bad mucositis, 4 years later, I still sometimes vomit up phlegm (but that's largely as a result of dry mouth, but the docs reckon there's sensitivity to the mucosa, it never fully recovered).  Anyways, it's really bad, but as bad as it is - six months from now he'll be a different person.  Head down, distraction, try and get through it .. but you will get through it.   Hope the medicine is helpful. ... View more

I know that if there is something more, entering that state will probably trivialise our previous day-to-day secular concerns.  (Or render us forgetful of them as we transition to something new).   If it isn't just blackness - like a dreamless sleep - and if anybody reading this DOES find some kind of link remaining into the physical world, it would be a massive massive favour if you could muster the energy needed to come here and post a brief message like "I died yesterday, but I'm still .. something .. but I feel myself fading, stretching .. forgetting who I was.. it's a little like alzheimers .. I don't know if I'll be able to post again.  Goodbye"   Bring a whole new dimension to the phrase:  Ghost in the Machine     ... View more

That's really hard to digest, mate.  The story told differently:   "I fell asleep, putting my kiddies to sleep, my wife (who is otherwise  pretty much OK, not in any medical distress) was also sleeping, getting much needed rest.  Then the police came knocking at my door and woke us all up, to ensure that we were still in compliance with the isolation order.  I'm not sure what they would have done if we didn't answer the door - MAYBE - tried to phone us (hopefully that call would wake us) .. or maybe (in my mind quite probably) force the door."   Wake me, my children and my wife while we are innocently sleeping in our own home/castle - and yet somehow that's a source of comfort ?  You call it a 'welfare check', which is really nice and probably the same language they use - BUT - it's a quarantine compliance check under another name.   Were you not in compliance, technically the maximum penalty under NSW Public Health act is $11,000 or 6 months in jail.  BUT - there's little or no court oversight, and with the creep in powers, according to the media it's now a $50,000 penalty and up to a year in jail.  Interestingly this one chick who had permission to cross the WA border and then isolate once she got home - is in prison now, because she didn't want to spend on the airfare or couldn't afford it, so rode along with a truckie mate (not sure if he's in prison).  Again, she had permission to cross the border, they just felt she did it under stealth (and probably rightfully so - but popping her in a cage with violent criminals seems a bit iffy though - to me at least).   Anyway, the knock-knock police aren't there to render first aid, and individual welfare is secondary to the wider welfare of preventing sickies from going wandering.  If there were no answer (this is just my opinion and assessment) they probably would break your door, scare the kids, but if there were a sick person they'd certainly escalate for an ambulance.   In the interesting scenario where a person's back yard abuts a public nature strip, police can technically levy serious fines for watering your back garden if you're under an isolation order).  One woman got charged and taken to jail for making facebook comments suggesting people observe their right to protest (which would have placed them in breach of a public health order, so they charged her for incitement or something like that).   They're still figuring stuff out like isolation orders applying to an entire family not an individual.  Last week I think it was, a kid went to school when his mum was under an isolation order, and the school had to be shut down (unconfirmed, just read it in the news feed).   Anyway, when the police showed up, no doubt they were wearing masks, although they certainly will have been all over town doing compliance checks on infected people.  It is worth noting that ENT specialists, folks who REALLY know the human respiratory system, wearing full PPE, have still picked up the disease while performing tracheotomies and other interventions to help COVID patients.  So I guess the take-home from that is that if you spend enough time around sickies, you're rolling the dice, regardless the circumstances.   Home visitation testing (for mobility challenged folks in Melbourne), or drive-in testing, it's the same premise.  Sure, maybe they go through a wall of disinfectant between car-to-car testing, or maybe a sickie clears their throat, expelling invisible aerosol droplets onto their face-mask and gloves, and then when they test the next person, slippage happens.  The one enduring thing about human society is:  slippage happens.  Dice get rolled.  People get lucky.  Sometimes they don't.   I'm not trying to trivialise the disease, but if we're going to ride the fear-tsunami, we might as well be fact/evidence based about it:- human contact spreads the disease, and even health professionals with a high skill profile and full PPE have picked up the disease.  So it's not altogether sound to assert that an immuno-compromised person is safe under any circumstances other than sitting alone in a room.   All that rambling rant parked to one side - if you're substantially sick - flu like symptoms, diarrhea, breathing irregulatity, any of that stuff - I reckon you should bite the bullet and get tested anyway, which might be immediately preliminary to a quarantined hospital admission.  But if you're feeling quite OK, temperature just up by a few degrees and you have a little bit of a cough.  I'd stay home and rest, and get a friend or a relative to check in on me rather than some telehealth nurse or the federal government via men & women with guns.  You're going to be ordered to isolate anyway pending the result of a COVID test, so just do it voluntarily.   If you're truly worried about the disease, it's human contact that spreads it.  Staying at home isn't just to your benefit, but anybody you come into contact with en route - example, the postman who delivers your letters when you leave sneeze droplets on the letterbox as you unthinkingly and habitually check your mail on the way out, and he comes along and opens it up 10 minutes later.   Sorry, you're all lovely people - I hate the idea that I'm coming across belligerent - but I personally think all of this stuff we as a society are doing is really, utterly barking mad.  I get it that people have died from COVID.  I don't want people to die.  But all this other stuff that we're doing, accepting and advocating ... to me there's like a massive movement away from reality for us as a species.   But I guess that's been happening gradually over time anyway - there's this kind of neo-narcissism that started with the emergence of social media, and I think it's gradually distorted human values and politics in an unauthentic, group-think mess of a way.   Don't worry, when I begin my Rise to Power, I'll fix everything up.   Anyway, it's interesting times, I suppose.  I do think we should all be unafraid to authentically say what we think, and to respectfully disagree with one another.  That's what I'm trying to do, sorry if it comes across as something different.  These days we're pretty intolerant of competing viewpoints.   All the best and sorry for the ranty comment - I guess my basic theme is: if you're scared of getting the disease, you should stay away from people as much as possible until this storm passes and we as a society get a better handle on things.  It's a mess right now, in my opinion.   (But contrastingly, if you ARE scared of the disease, I think you're allowing it to cast a somewhat wider shadow than it merits.  I do reserve the right to change that viewpoint if the disease morphs and gets a deeper foothold).   I'm not telling anybody what they should do, clearly I'm a dysfunctional moron.  I just think my viewpoint is fairly sound (but hey, I'm kinda biased), and as it might be read by people with immuno-compromise, and I'm not seeing it put forward anywhere else, I thought I'd better try and do my best to articulate it.  Draw your own conclusions.   ... 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Hey Hey   Cancer is a shit show - there's no two ways about it.  It's an insidious disease, it doesn't just want to take away your life, it wants to rob you of your hope, connectedness, any light that's available to you.   Having a finite expiry date - that sucks, mate.  I'm really sorry.  Dealing with an uncertain expiry date and a high-ish risk of recurrence (alongside a bunch of cancer-like side effects) is it's own special type of hell too.   My advice:-   Just for a minute, put aside the cancer.  Completely park it.  Forget all about it.  It's gone.  All the ways it's impacted your life, your relationships, your feelings.  Gone.   Now slip into big picture mode, look at your life untethered by any of that stuff.  Time travel with your mind a bit, and look at yourself just the year before your cancer diagnosis.   Then - just imagine this outlandish scenario.  After a global event, human beings are going to evacuate the world.  In five years.  We're all hopping on various rickshaw-like spaceships and getting the fuck out of here.  Until then, business as usual.  Live your life.  When the time comes, you jump on the spaceship and we all fly into the unknown, hoping for the best, aiming for Alpha Centauri (avoiding some incoming asteroid or solar event or something).   OK.  So .. just for the exercise, imagine that.   You've got five years.  A finite amount of time.  What do you want to do with it ?   My answer:  nothing much.  Just hang out with my kids.  Hug them, make sure they know they're loved.  Hang on.  I always wanted to walk across China or Japan or maybe parts of Europe.  Hmm.  Maybe I can scrap together the money and take the kids with me.  Hmm.  Hold on, if I wasn't so old and fat, I might want to porn star up and bang like a champion for a few years.  No.  Too old.  Let's stay dignified.  I wouldnt mind learning to sing.  Hmm.  Get good enough at the guitar to go busking, then give the money to a homeless person ?  That sounds fun.  Hmm.   So I start to tick stuff, cross it out - not thinking so much about cancer.  Dealing with cancer.  The consequences of cancer - psychological and physical.   Thinking about what I want to do with the time that's available to me.   You know one thing I wouldn't want to do ?    Worry about some shitty disease.  Complain about it to my friends and in my other daily dealings.   Chitty chat in online forums to other people struggling with the same brand of nasty, fearful shit that I'm dealing with.  (Yes, and I get that I'm doing that right now - but I'm trying to quit 😉   You seem to have a great attitude, a clever, open-eyed person.  Get out there and live, make the utmost of the time that's available to you.   That's my advice.   Sorry if it's shit 🙂   All the best. ... View more

I reckon the world has gone crazy, and as such - I also acknowledge that it may be 'just me' (so take my remarks with a grain of salt and draw your own conclusions).  My comments and insights are just the garbage that rattles around in my mind - intelligent people need to make up their own minds, so don't kick me in the crackers if you don't like my viewpoint.   BUT, here goes:   If you're feeling sick, rushing out to get a COVID test is ridiculous.   When you're immuno-compromised or suprressed, toddling off to stand in line with a bunch of sick people is dangerously crazy advice.  I reckon you should stay home, rest, drink plenty of water, have a family member keep an eye on you if possible, and be ready to escalate (call 000) if you feel your condition slipping.  (and when you call, describe your symptoms as carefully as you can).   Ideally, if you have a thermometer or something, self monitor your temperature and use that as a guide, watching really carefully if it inches up past 38.   Testing isn't really for your benefit, but theoretically the management of the disease, and all that contract tracing garbage.   After the test you're told to go home and isolate.  If the test returns positive, you're further told to isolate.  You don't get any special care - that happens in a medical emergency.   The simple fact of the matter is, it's abundantly recognised that asymptomatic, mildly sick, or even quite sick people are not getting tested, and may or may not have COVID.  They bandy about 'no community transmission' and 'our numbers look good' when really those numbers are representative, not concrete - and a lot of the public commentary around this is political theatre (all just my opinion - but politicians consult their PR team before deciding what they can or cannot do or say - so it's the marketeers ruling the world by proxy right now, as terrifying as that sounds - because I never met a marketing manager that I didn't want to kick in the goolies).   They're so shocked when they find cases that they can't figure out the origin of, when there is obviously, right now, a degree of community transmission, none of these cases are lurching into the public eye because they're just not that severe - people are getting sick and getting well again and missing out on the testing window).  (And yep, I actually advocate that, but again what do I know ?)   I'm not trying to be dismissive - I just think rushing out into public is poor advice, especially for more vulnerable people - be it older, immunocompromised from cancer treatment, or whatnot.   Context - (and yes, I recognise this is with measures in place) there have been 900ish aussie deaths to COVID-19.   Lamentable.  Terrible.  Nobody wants to die (although we all do).   This time last year, there were more than 800 influenza deaths for the comparable period. (yes yes, and I get it that this is with spread prevention measures in place).    There are less than 100 flu deaths this year (again thanks to the measures)   So the point is - the measures like social distancing do help you to stop from getting sick.  Yeah, there are COVID centres that will come and test you in your car (FFS dont drive if you have a fever, you might kill one of my kids), but I visited a QML testing place a month or so ago, and there was a line-up around the corner, some people standing in the line were coughing here and there.  Many wore masks.  Some didn't.  Not that masks trap all airborne particles, that's science.... reach up, adjust the mask, particles on fingers.  Touch wall to steady yourself, particles on wall.  If we really want to be paranoid, then let's at least think in those terms and be LOGICAL too.   So - the disease spreads by exposure to people.  If you're immuno-compromised, you're at higher risk of getting sick.  If you are sick with the flu, you may also pick up COVID (or some other bug, like a communicable tummy bug), all of which you'll catch by going out bravely into the wide world and breathing in the air or kissing someone.   So yeah - if you're feeling sick, don't go out, stay at home, drink and rest.   That's my two cents, but hey, what do I know - the sky is falling, right ?   I'm 48 years old, and I may already be passed my use-by.  Given 6 months back in 2016.  The median age for COVID19 deaths globally is 84 years old, and female persons are more vulnerable apparently.  Noting that's global numbers, so it's probably somewhat higher, as the average age creeps down in countries with poor healthcare systems or management protocols.   If you happen to be in that group and feel a little bit sick - I think going out to a testing place is imprudent.   Yes, there are people who die overnight unexpectedly from COVID19, even young people.  And there are people who get run over by busses (I was actually hit by a bus as a young child, random fun fact)   In Australia, we have about 150,000 deaths on an average year, and 300,000+ live births.  Similar pattern around the world, we're making more people and losing fewer.    The suicide rate is projected to spike upward by around 15% or more, and there's likely to be an unknown consequential death toll for other diseases (like cancer) where people miss out on treatment windows because they're scared to leave the house.   I'm more concerned about those secondary consequences of the management of the outbreak than the outbreak itself, personally (but hey, I'm a moron).  I reckon, as the face of human commerce changes, geopolitlcal interests and national borders change, it's possible that we might regress a little.  It was only the 80s that our biggest concern was global thermonuclear war, and we (humans I mean) have kinda put it in low gear since, engaging in motivated surgical wars (kinda).  Unemployment.  Depression.  Crime.  Scarcity.  I personally see all of the above as more of a threat than death by COVID.  But hey, I have quite young kids, and most of my thoughts centre on them.   We seem to think we're enlightened now (just my impression) what with our aGender politics, karens and whatnot.  But it was only 100 years ago that humanity was finishing up a major global war, and another one followed just 20 years ish later.      Bad decisions lead to bad outcomes.   Don't be scared.  Be smart.  I think it's smart to rest when you're sick.   Just my two cents.       ... 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Thanks so much for the wise words, but I might disregard one small bit - I'm actually thinking of travelling in high summer.   For me, it's either a summer or winter thing - main logic being that autumn and spring are the worst times for snakes, but summer they're hiding from the sun & heat, and winter they're sleeping.   When I walked down as a kid, I slept under a bridge and woke up with a large carpet snake (at least I think it was, I got out of there quick-smart?!) lying right next to me.   This go-round, I'd still plan to sleep rough, but I'g do snake-smart, bug-smart and sun-smart.    My approach will look something like this:   - light pack, few clothes - good pair of shoes, replace on the road as needed - 2 days worth of food / 2 days worth of water - a light hammock, maybe even weather resistant if I can find one - a good book (thinking of taking the guitar, but I think it's too much of a hassle, maybe pick a lighter instrument like a flute or something to keep me chill and occupied while resting in the shade   I had less than that the first time I went down, from memory I think I had about $30 when I left Brisbane, and a budget of about a dollar a day for tinned homebrand baked beans (x3 - it was the 80s things were cheaper)   I'm going to resist the call and stage it though, I've decided to go the day after my 50th birthday (so December 2021), because my wife is studying nursing at the moment and won't finish until then, if I hit the road now it would be really selfish and cruel, she and the kids need my support.   I'm going to reach out to a kids cancer charity and see what I can do about using it as a fundraising vehicle as well, but regardless that, I want the freedom to just gather my kit, hug and kiss the people I love .. and then walk.   Blows my mind that I probably won't be able to get out of Brisbane on the first day, it'd probably be 2 days before I'm clear of the Gold Coast. ... View more

Thank you, mate, that was an excellent response and it's been really helpful to me.   The urge yesterday afternoon to just hug and kiss the people I love and GO was really strong.  The inspiration came on me hard and all of a sudden yesterday afternoon, and it hasn't left me since then.   I think what I'm going to do is plan it out very carefully, and see if I can also use it as a way to help a cancer charity.  I think as I reach inside (by going outside) to revive my hope, it might help other people, or at least raise a few dollars to help with research.   Right now, my wife (an accountant by trade) is doing a nursing diploma, which will finish up at the end of next year.  That coincides with my 5 year diagnosis/treatment anniversary, so I'm thinking I'll actually defer the Quest until then.  I may escalate in the interim if I can't deny the call - but I think I'll hold off until then so I can support her and not leave my fam (adored with all my heart) in any kind of bind.   The idea that others might want to join in is a fine one.  When I did it as a child, I started out averaging 10-20km per day, but toward the end I was doing 15k in the morning, 15k in the afternoon, and sometimes a bit more in the evening.  It kinda snowballs, I think as your body vibes onto the fresh air, filthy living, and constant exercise.  I don't want to undermine the raw freedom of it, that sense of new beginning, adventure - but also being older and wiser, I think recording it I could plan my travels a bit in such a way that people in an area could join in if they wanted to (if nothing else, by doing a daily diary and uploading it, I can talk to my children, leave them thoughts and musings from a very loving (missing them) spiritual (tired) place)   I think I will contact one of the cancer charities and see if they want to use it as a fund-raising vehicle.  It's probably a crazy enough thing to do that it could be used to get a bit of media attention and therefore promote donations into research (or help for families affected by paediatric cancer, maybe).   You know what, mate - regardless future comments and replies, I think your remarks were really enough to nudge me over on this.  I'll do it.  Currently undecided on waiting until next year - but I'll do it.  And I'll look to share the experience, in the hopes that it might:   a) show someone in the same boat I was (stage 4 cancer, grim prognosis) that you can survive, and even find ways to push through, give them a little hope b) raise some money for cancer research c) allow me to plug into the infinite, have some kind of spiritual outcome d) get me physically and mentally healthy again e) maybe get so dog-tired that I'll actually get to sleep for more than a few hours at a time   Thanks SCH, I appreciate the comments, and don't worry about getting in trouble.  I completely indemnify you from any present or future action or remedy with regard to any negative outcome.  I waive for all time any future right to legal remedy if your bad advice results in my injury or death  😉     ... View more