Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
Larvatus Prodeo was an Australian group blog which discussed politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
Watched the Port-Hawthorn replay and enjoyed Stewy Dew’s glum countenance at the final siren.
Helped me to digest the news that a very dear friend of many, many years is dying of cancer. She’s got 2 months if she’s very lucky and is in quite a bit of pain, for which she is being given morphine in increasing doses. She’s so brave and has been a real battler all her life and a wonderful and true friend who has seen me through many a crisis.
I don’t know what to wish for-for her to slip away before it gets too bad or selfishly hope she hangs on as long as possible. I guess she will know when she’s ready to let go. The tears are streaming as I write this; she knows my secrets and I know hers.
Saturday, went to Basement Discs to support Independent Record Store Day and saw JOY 94.9 broadcasting – bought four discs and they threw in 2 free! Sunday – went on a “queer” tour of Melbourne, also run by JOY
Learned to darn my own socks! And now I have warm toes.
@Jane – I’m sorry to hear about your friend and wish both her and you peace.
Went to dog club, much congrats on getting third place at MtGambier. After my lesson, got asked to help with a Grade 1 class. Hmmmm can’t have two instructors talking at once, decided to give individual help to the very new handlers as well as helping generally. Demi fretting a bit at being tied to a spike and seeing me approaching all these other dogs so I used her to demonstrate a few things. At the end of the lesson some of the handlers thanked me and one wanted to know for sure if I would be there next week!
Went for a good long walk in the afternoon and will shortly start cooking to feed the starving masses Thai pork curry and okra.
Greek Easter celebration in a backyard in Coburg. Whole lamb on a spit, kids running around, coloured eggs and egg-knocking game (where you hit your egg against someone else’s egg and see which one doesn’t crack)- the remnant of some kind of fertility ritual I suppose; plus decent homemade wine. Left in time to listen to the Bulldogs-Eagles clash on the radio; at least the Bulldogs came reasonably close in the end. I don’t think it was a disastrous loss for them.
Sorry to hear about your friend Jane.
Not a very active Sunday. Spent the best part of nine hours sitting down in a seat. Got into the seat at Coolangatta, and got out of it 80km out of Tokyo.
Now sitting in a different seat at Narita Airport, where the mere act of getting from one side of the airport terminal to the other is an experience that wouldn’t be out of place in the film “Blade Runner” or even Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”.
Of course, with a Japanese vocabulary of about 12 words, it’s going to be an *entertaining* week…
Did some belated tax returns. Hope the ATO doesn’t fine me too much.
So sorry to read your post Jane, best wishes to you and your friend.
Thanks everyone for your kind words. It helps.
Jane, sorry to hear about your friend, and hope that you can both find peace.
ObActivity: did my first road race, came second. Tidied the house. Transferred data to the new netbook computer.
Jane @ 1,
Very sorry to hear about your friend. As some-one who has incurable cancer, I guess we hope to make up our own minds about when we go. I’m a long way off having to get the dreaded morphine yet, (I hope),but if its any help, unless its a very sudden onset cancer, you do get a chance to prepare yourself to face death, and after you’ve lived with the idea for a while it doesn’t seem too bad. One sort of develops the philosophy that we’ve all got to go sometime, so why not whenever. You just hope its not going to take too long,or be painful and messy,that you won’t have too many tubes stuck in you, that you don’t leave too much unfinished business behind, and that your friends will be okay, (including on-line friends.)
Now, to the weekend.
Saturday. Well, I spent a fair bit of time on the computer. Set up a blog. Did two posts. (Click on my name when its purple. (Will be doing a new post later today, weather permitting.)Also been reading John Burrow’s A History of Histories. About three quarters of the way through it. Starts off withe the classical greeks and Romans, goes through the most significant medievals and Renaissance historians and the 18c. greats. I’m yet to get on to the 19 and 20 Cs. But its a most enjoyable book.
Sunday, pretty much the same. Watched the doco on India and the new ABC drama on mining. Thought it was great, but really, why do these ABc dramas always have this bourgeois shit on personal relationships falling apart in them all the time. You can almost predict the scenarios and the dialogue, and switth them from one drama to another without having to change them. Watched the movie about McCarthyism on SBS. Second time I saw it, but got more of it this time because I could put up captions. A friend of mine suggested I should do more posts about the history of national identity, but really after reading historians who have been going round in circles about it for nearly a century, I don’t see why I should bother.
Jane and Paul it’s difficult for the healthy to know how to comfort the terminally ill. My youngest daughter has two young children and it’s school holidays but she is back in hosp. for yet another pleural tap. Twice now it seemed she may not make it home and yet each time she arrived home her usual cheerful, enthusiastic self. Today when I called her she was on her way out the door and abruptly said she had to go. A little later a text arrived explaining that she’d been physically sick, “just an attack of chemo belly”. I just wish I could be as calm and unemotional, but then I’m happy that she can and so I try to emulate her strength. I’m not very successful.
zorronsky @ 12,
If you’re diagnosed with a terminal disease or a disease that becomes terminal you shift into a different headspace. I’m not quite sure how to explain it. I know when I was first diagnosed I talked a lot about it, almost raved, to friends for several weeks, and felt a weird kind of elation. I saw life around me with a terrible clarity – and to some extent that has remained. I think you veer from being more compassionate than you ever thought possible while at the same time refusing to waste time with fools and you see life with a kind of black humour.I go through mild anxiety when waiting for the results of blood tests, but only then, and mistake arthritic twinges for bone cancer (which I actually have.) But since I was diagnosed I have for the most part been a lot calmer than I used to be. I think its a kind of secular spirituality thatr arises because every day you wake up and come face to face with your own mortality. Of course you can get a bit teary if you think about it too much, but its self-pity, not the teariness of despair.I just want to get my book written and published and maybe do another one if I have the time.
I don’t know if the above is of any help to you. They may be my unique feelings. But the again, because we all share a common humanity, perhaps other terminally ill people like your daughter, have similar feelings.
One another topic, vaguely related to my Lazy Sunday post, I’ve done another post on my blog. If Lp-ers click on my name and scroll down ….? Maybe somebodsy could link it for me. I’m hopeless.
Thanks Paul. I hear people say that those close to the terminally ill do it hard. Thing is we get to go on . My daughter has bone cancer as well and had a piece of hip put in her chin a couple of years ago. She is happy with the pain management therapys and is on anti-depressants which she also gives the thumbs up. Your comments strike a cord and thanks again for them. I’m sure you’ll get that book out and wish you well in doing so.
Paul, Zorronsky and Robert, thanks for your comments. You take your health for granted until you, or someone close to you, experiences a debilitating and/or terminal illness. Like you Paul, and your daughter Zorronsky, my friend was diagnosed with bone cancer about three years ago.
It was in her jaw and after a series of operations she finally had dental implants in her upper jaw and was due to have the lower implants shortly. She was ecstatic that she would finally be able to eat solid food again. I was to cook her a banquet, she told me a few days ago.
But a few weeks ago she had a bad slump and was diagnosed with liver and lung cancer, which apparently metastasized from the jaw.
She has accepted that her death is imminent and as you say Paul, she has a clarity and calmness that is strangely comforting. I, however, vacillate between comfort and grief.
Paul, I hope you finish this book and write many more. Zorronsky, I hope your daughter beats the monster. It must be the worst pain for you, because you have to be a bystander, but I feel sure that you’ll keep finding the strength you need. My thoughts are with you both.
Jane,
I’m sure I will get the book done. I better clarify my statement about having bone cancer. I have cancer in the bone arising from mestazised prostate cancer.As I understand it, this means I get cancer in the bone only in certain places, like the shoulder blades (where I have it, though its in remission because of hormone treatment) and a few other places, I gather mostly in some upper parts of the body, and around the thighs. (I can’t get it in the legs for example.) I haven’t bothered to research it overmuch,because, quite frankly, I don’t want to feed my apprehensions. I do know once the medication I’m on is no longer effective it will spread like wildfire, but exactly how, I’m not sure. (Watching Underbelly last night wasn’t that reassuring. I tend to avoid TV shows that have anything to do with cancer.) My apologies, Jane and Zorronsky, if I created a mistaken impression, especially since you are both, in different ways, dealing with cancer as real bone cancer.
No apology needed Paul, my daughters bone cancer metastasized from breast cancer and also to the lungs.
Oh, Zorronsky, that’s terrible. I’m going to set up a post on my blog, where people can discuss cancer experiences if they wish, after my experience on this thread. So, when I do, if anyone wants to post, they can. (Hope I don’t get overwhelmed.)
Jane, I’m so sorry you and your friend are having to go through this. Two of my friends and contemporaries have died of cancer and in both cases what seemed to really help them and make them smile was just sitting round reminiscing. That may be the most helpful thing you can do for her.
Paul, you are a star. Look after yourself.
Post on my blog is set up. I haven’t worked out how to operate the link on Blogger yet (or much else – I’ve only just been able to complete my profile today) so could somebody please link it for me. Or just click on my name here, I guess.
I’ll try this.
,a href=’http://beingahistoryheadandotherthings.blogspot.com/’>linkedtext<= <strong=linked text
Well, I guess not.
Paul, just highlight, beyond and including, http, click copy and then paste for an easy link. I look forward to the read.
Like so
http://beingahistoryheadandotherthings.blogspot.com/
Thanks, Joe2. Will try that next time I want to link. So, the post is on the above blog address if people want to use it. (Plus a couple of others.) Feel free to comment on all of them if you want to, LP-ers.