Hi Ruby Yes, fatigue is a major side effect of cancer and it was one of the reasons I retired early from my job as an academic. Most of the time we were dealing with mature age students doing a professional masters degree so we taught evenings and weekends in a minimum of three hour blocks. At weekends we often did eight hour stints but by the end of the time both students and lecturer were brain dead anyway. I found that I had to break it up into smaller sessions. Some of the students were not happy as they travelled a fair distance (one of them fours hours each way!) but when I was upfront and explained to them the reasons that I could only cope with smaller blocks of time, they were pretty reasonable about it. But yes the constant exhaustion did get to me in the end. I found that when I hit the wall, usually about two in the afternoon, if I could get an hours sleep then, I could keep going as normal. The final thing for me was that somehow or other all my unanticipated visits to hospital came during non-teaching times. I realised that if one of them occurred during teaching times then it would be absolute chaos. So in the end I took a package and retired early. Strategies: I found keeping fit was useful. Yes, that took time to get to the gym three times a week for an hour, but it was worth it. Afternoon nap if at all possible - even thirty minutes is helpful. Don't take on anything extra - you are still in rehabilitation, and that is a mind set you need to accept. Try to keep regular sleeping hours, even if they are longer than you used to keep. Do things that will help you relax before you go to bed - relaxation exercises, hot cocoa, whatever works for you. Cheers Sailor Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time. Joseph Conrad ... View more

Hi Ruby Yes - to quote a poem by 'Artist In Recovery' - if she will forgive me for doing so without permission. The sun still shines
 and the world still turns because
 cancer doesn’t change anything except for those unfortunate few who
 know that
 cancer changes everything. I didn't think that I had changed much, until my son, who has a lot of problems, quietly said to me "Dad, you have changed". When I read the stories of peoples cancer experience, change is a common theme. Some years ago I interviewed a number of people, and many of them didn't think they had changed, then proceeded to say, in some detail, how they had changed. Interestingly a common theme was increased tolerance, 'being prepared to put up with the turkeys' is one comment I had. Like you, I consider myself fortunate to be here, but I do not regard the cancer experience as 'being lucky'. There is a typo in your comment and I think it is wonderful. I think you meant to write 'disabled' but you have coined the term 'disbaled' and that is exactly how I feel sometimes. Instead of being all trussed up like a bale of hay, the twine has been cut and I am more free than I used to be - I am disbaled. Cheers Sailor We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now. Martin Luther King Jr ... View more

Hi Samex Just remember" All loose things seem to drift down to the sea, and so did I.". Hope the results are fine, just imagine you are wearing the T shirt - My Gastro-Enterologist Give Me The S--ts. Cheers Sailor All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full. King Solomon ... View more

Hi Jules2 Melbourne Theatre Company, 'God of Carnage', starring Hugo Weaving, Pamela Rabe, Geoff Morrell and Natasha Herbert. I can thoroughly recommend it. Cheers sailor ... View more

G’day Coke Hope the chemo and radio went OK last Thursday and hope any side effects remain at bay. It’s been a while since I climbed Kosciusko, but here is a description of walking in Northern Victoria from the Bluff to Cobbler. All the places mentioned are mountains, apparently named by a bored survey team a hundred an fifty years ago. Rumour has it that the nearby mountains called The Governors, they originally named the Governors Balls. Somehow Mt Buggery stayed on the official maps. A group of us used to call ourselves the ‘mad buggers walking club’ and left a log-book in an army ammunition box on Mt Buggery - I wonder if it is still there. All of this, was of course, a long time BC. From Sheepyard Flat to Buggery, Is just a three day walk, With packs and tracks and tents and gear And friends with whom to talk. We scale The Bluff and reach Bluff Hut Fill in the log-book there And camp the night and yarn away, Camp fire, tall tales and much hot air. Next day, pass Lovick and his hut, Hells Window, Magdala and Big Hill. Our goal tonight is Howitt and the Springs There camp and stop with time to kill. Cross Cut Saw and Buggery Around the Terrible Hollow Speculation, Viking and Despair We leave until the morrow. Then out the Wonnangatta track, To Cobbler Lake and plateau Past the Mount to waiting cars Long drive, then dinner with Bordeaux. Sailor Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books. John Lubbock ... View more

G'day Coke Yes humour is a great way of coping. Keep it up and hope the radiotherapy and chemo go well. Cheers Sailor As we sail thru life, don't avoid rough waters, sail on because calm waters won't make a skillful sailor. Anonymous ... View more

Hi Jules2 Yes, the plight of the country patient is far more difficult. However, things are changing. Go to http://www.nemics.org.au/Display.aspx?tabid=2731 and you will see there, under the heading of Consumer Participation Strategy, three documents - a selection of stories and two reports on studies of people in rural and regional areas. These drove the CanNET project that did something to address these issues. As well the Federal Government has giving a priority to Regional and Rural cancer issues and in the last budget put in $560M to establish regional cancer centres. The criteria for these is at http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/HHF/ $file/Draft%20guiding%20principles%20-%2011%20Sept%202009%20to%20MO.pdf (sorry the url is too long to set up a link - you will have to enter it manually) and these are open for comment. You can help by commenting on these. We have a long way to go, but there are some practical things that you can do. Cheers Sailor Have you stood by the ocean on a diamond hard morning And felt the horizon stir deep in your soul? Eric Bogle, Safe in the Harbour ... View more

Hi Ruby Yes, things are different. I still go through the three month jitters after eleven years. Most people would look at me and have no idea that I am in any way physically different from others. Ww have what I call the hidden disabilities. Many years ago, I think after, my first lot of treatment and before the thing recurred, my oncologist commented that I seemed to be coping - my response was that 'I was not coping but I was managing'. That is how I get along - I manage, I try to be in control, but not in a mindless way that I must be in charge, but trying to be realistic and using whatever I can to allow me to live as normal a life as I can. It is not the old normal - but it allows me to do most of the things I want to do. Cheers Sailor I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full. Arthur Ashe ... View more

G'day I have been a patient@PeterMac since 1983 and cannot talk highly enough about that institution. The combination of technical expertise, patient empathy and patient support I think is fairly unique. However, they have also had a huge impact on the way cancer is dealt with in Victoria. Until just over twenty years ago they were the only place in Victoria providing radiotherapy, so they have had a huge influence on the practice of radiotherapy - they trained all the radiotherapists and most of the radiation oncologists. However, this same ethos was also apparent in the other disciplines, in nursing, in allied health and patient support. Anyone who is influential in cancer at all levels in Victoria has had a connection to Peter Mac. It has always been a centre of innovation, of care and of hope. Cheers Sailor If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. Antoine de Saint-Exupery ... View more