Blogger Bill

In the early 1980s my father developed Parkinson’s disease and eventually became bed-ridden, unable to speak. I was never sure of what he understood of what was happening around him, or of what was spoken to him. My own doctor tried to assure me that he was probably unable to comprehend anything, and was eventually in a world of his own. But I was never sure of that. He eventually contracted pneumonia and died of that.

In my 30s and 40s I observed his experience, and also took note of what I could see of others’ exeriences of older age, by which I meant over about 75 and later. The onset of frailty and pain appalled me when I saw it in others, and for some reason or other decided that about 75 years of age would be enough for me, and that after that I just wanted to expire, like a candle burnt down low.

In December I turn 71. The 75 deadline approaches and I’m wondering what will happen. My father died at 83, as I said earlier, and my mother died at age 101. She hated being old and in pain and wanted to die for years before she did. She railed against God for her suffering and infirmity; some times she threatened to go on a hunger strike.

Finally her intestines ruptured and she died of peritonitis. She took 4 days to die, in a hospital with reasonable levels of palliation and pain control. We were grateful for the attendance of the palliative care team, and she died in heavily sedated peace. But she suffered far too much in the latter years of her life.

I do not want to live that long if it’s going to be like that. I suffer chronic pain, and flinch at the thought of too many more years of it. I do not believe that my pain will be controlled properly as the years roll by. I believe that the doctors are more concerned with avoiding drug addiction than relieving pain. It’s a trade off, isn’t it? They don’t want to be accused of “over-prescribing” and getting patients “addicted” to analgesics. The lower level analgesics are pretty ineffective, in my experience, and the docs don’t want to use the more addictive ones.

The result for me is that I face increasing pain and the alterations in mood and thinking ability that come with that. Chronic pain strips me of my personality and my mental functioning goes to pieces. The situation will inevitably become beyond me, and then I will wish to die.

When I reach the point of too much pain I want my existence to be terminated. I suspect that that will be around 2013. I hope it happens naturally, but if not, than I will ensure that it will happen. The family will just have to cope, one way or another. It’s my life and my suffering. Why should I have to put up with years of disgusting pain and frailty to spare the feelings of others upon my demise?

Time will tell.

Because I was sick of almost unpredictable, intermittent and agonizing back and leg pain, and strange feeling in my chest and head on exertion, I recently prevailed upon my GP to get some tests done.

So I had an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) done of the lumbar spine, and a stress test echo cardiogram (treadmill and heart ultrasound). To do the MRI I needed a sedative because last time I got claustrophobia, so I did it full of prescribed Valium.

The results showed that spinal stenosis hasn’t got much worse than it was 5 years ago, but that two of my vertebra (L5-S1) now have got no disc material between them. no wonder it hurts! i elected to take it no further. I had thought that I might get to a pain clinic or something, but after talking with GP Wendy Barton, decided to stay with the pain control system of medications that I’m doing already.

The treadmill buggered me, and at 136 beats per minute I ran out of breath and lay down so they could image my heart. The results were good. I have no problems shown up by this method of examination. But I’m left wondering what causes my chest tightness and dull ache and sense of impending unconsciousness that never eventuates.

It could be psychosomatic, but I don’t think so. I’m pretty savvy in psychology, and don’t think that’s the reason. I could be a hypochondriac, but again, don’t think that’s the case. I don’t want to be sick. It annoys me to have such symptoms, and part of me wants to have an explanation. and that might never be forth-coming, so I’ll just have to live with it.

On with the puzzles of existence!

Well, this is a medical saga so far this year. Skin cancer removals for both of us, and an MRI and stress echo cardiogram to come for me next week.

Following on from the melanoma I had a basal cell carcinoma removed from my chest a month ago, and here is the requisite picture of the stitches involved:-

That has healed up very nicely since then. The next medical episode was the treatment of Glenyce solar keratoses on her face, which are precancerous lesions too numerous to excise easily. The dermatologist, Jeremy Banky, of Masada Hospital, suggested the use of an anticancer treatment called Efudix. Containing the agent 5-fluoruracil, it attacks cells depending on their rate of cell division, namely the cancer cells, but also effects normal skin.

After 3 weeks nightly application it leaves the face reddened, blotchy, burning and sore, after which there is a 3-week period of recovery. Glenyce has almost recovered by now, but at its peak it looked like this:-

We hope that’s all the end of the skin cancers. But I’m following up the extensive back and leg pain that’s making my life hell. To this end I’m having a Magnetic Resonance Imagery (MRI) scan next Tuesday to see exactly what’s going on with my lower back and sciatic nerves so I can get into the hands of a pain specialist. Because the last time I suffered a claustrophibic anxiety attack when I was in the close confines of the device, I need sedation and will take double Valium beforehand next Tuesday.

The next day I do an echo-cardiogram while undergoing a stress test on a treadmill, to find out what’s causing chest pain and faintness upon exertion. I find it worrying to have these free-floating disorders making my life unpleasant, and see no reason why I can’t use my expensive private health insurance to address the problems.

I’ll keep this blog posted!

Saudi Arabian authorities have beheaded and crucified a man convicted of killing an 11-year-old boy and his father.

The Saudis claim to stick to the letter of the Koran for the administration of their pure Islamic state. This is what Islamic jihadis all around the world are fighting to attain. It is a tenet of Islam to try and dominate any society (including ours if they can manage it.) In Islam there is no distinction between religious matters and socio-political matters. Muslims claim that the Koran offers a complete blueprint for any society, including the criminal justice code.

I must say that the prospect disgusts me. Such a process must be fought against tooth and nail.

What an repulsive society is Saudi Arabia! What a religion!

On the other hand it must be said that, for example, the USA has many people still on death row, and many states will have capital punishment on the books. There are some parts of the Bible that are pretty vindictive and bloody

What about the doctrine that the biblical God is a God of love, but also requires the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins? Hence the crucifixion of Jesus. Something not quite right about this distasteful idea, methinks.

But beheading followed by crucifixion sounds so primitive and vindictive, doesn’t it? It kind of doesn’t figure - if you really wanted someone to suffer, why not crucify them first, for maximum agony, followed by beheading if you must.

Uuuurrgh!

Well, I can’t say that it doesn’t feel quite nice thank you very much to have a new twenty-two inch flat-screen LCD monitor sitting in front of me as I type, but it wasn’t planned. Last week, my old CRT monitor, which was a hand-me-down from the Alfred Hospital via a good friend, developed a strange colour, which I figured out was due to the red gun carking it. (Cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors have a red electron gun plus a blue and a green one to create all the colours.) As my very life and sanity probably depends upon this computer, it (the CRT monitor) had to go. And so it did, into the garage until the next hard rubbish collection in nine month’s time.

But the nice new flat-screen LCD from Officeworks cost us $399, just when we’re trying to be a bit frugal as the bank account recovers from our lovely holiday. I don’t regret one dollar of our trip to the Red Centre, but we now really are trying to cool it money-wise, so it’s a bit sad, especially considering a similar slug of money begin hoisted out of said bank account yesterday!

Well, two days ago the shared electric blanket on our queen-size double bed failed, leaving Glenyce with no heat on her side. Now, you might wonder why this is necessary, what with summer coming on and so on. I remind you that this is Melbourne, Victoria, where on numerous occasions we have had snow in the hills around Xmas Day. The weather this time of the year can change in a flash.

But, mainly because we both have similar serious back disorders which cause referred pain in our legs, and this is partly relieved by the heat of an electric blanket in cool weather. The pain can be accompanied by pins and needles, heat and itching, burning sensations, or just a frozen feeing. What’s more, in milder weather or even in quite warm weather our feet and legs often feel like blocks of ice as we go to bed. And so the necessity of said electrical device to mollify the agony of our seventy-year old bodies! This has been going on for decades.

The blanket came from the highly esteemed David Jones store nearby, was purchased for $144 last July, and it’s their own name brand. We’ve struggled with peculiarities of the computerized controls thereupon ever since we bought it. But several days ago Glenyce’s side conked out completely, with blank controls and no heating. We rolled it up and took it back, holus-bolus. After considerable dithering on the part of their flummoxed staff we offered to have our money back, especially because their being no electric blankets in their store at the moment. All these stores seem to operate upon some idealized concept of what the weather is supposed to be - not like it actually is.

Cash in hand, we choofed off to the mega-shopping centre of Chadstone. There we looked at the Myer store. They had just one queen-size electric blanket, Sunbeam brand, and we took it. but the thing cost us $399. Yikes! Anyway, it’s now on the bed, it works properly (unlike the defunct David Jones one), and we’re happy. But we’re not one hundred percent happy, because these two $399 devices really have made a dent in the cash at hand.

But we’re happy about one thing: it seems that yesterday at Myer’s they were having an evening sale with quite large price reductions and they applied it to our $399 blanket, giving it a sale price of $279, a saving of $120, which is not to be sneezed at!

We’re happy!

Just when I was looking to caravan with my wife Glenyce up to Alice Springs for a 4-6 week tour, our car started using up water. So I booked it in for attention. Upshot is that it had a blown head gasket. Off came the head and away for machining. Meanwhile they found a broken timing chain guide. Off came the front of the engine as well.

Luckily I had the use of a loan car; it was manual so I had to relearn using a clutch, which went OK. Then the head came back after 3 days, was fitted on, but now car’s missing on one cylinder - needs new rotor button, and head’s taken back off. The car also needs a new valve guide along the way!

By the time they installed two new rear door hydraulic struts on my station wagon, and investigation of a water leak into the boot carpet, all of the cost adds up to a total of $2,920!! All those parts and labour really added up.

But as always, we didn’t quite aspect all that expense. A friend of mine suggest that the fitting of a new reconditioned short motor might have cheaper. But, of course, all of those expenses occurred gradually, and by the time the bill was totalled up it almost three grand. There was not really any point at which we could say that it’s going to be cheaper to get a new motor.

This leaves a big hole in my budget. But we figure that because we’re developing lots of aches and pains, we might soon have to taper off on caravanning. Getting to Alice Springs, Uluru, Flinders Ranges and a good look at Adelaide might be our last gasp, so we’ve decided we’ll run up a little on the Visa card if we have to.

We plan to leave some time after Tuesday, September 23th.

This very date last January I had just come out of a 5 1/2 hour long operation in which my prostate gland was removed by robotic surgery. Results since then show that I am free of cancer cells.

What’s more, my waterworks has recovered almost (but not quite) completely, so that I am almost fully continent. I just have to watch it at night after having a few alcoholic drinks.

However, my sexual functioning is pretty well moribund, which is a great pity - although I haven’t given up all hope yet.

So you’d think that having had a potential death sentence removed from hovering over me, that life would be hunky-dory. Not unexpectedly, it hasn’t always been so. I always find some things to get upset, angry, anxious or depressed about.

I suppose that makes me a normal human being after all, instead of some sort of saint.

But yesterday I found that two jazz bands of mine that I was scheduled to play with at the Grampians Jazz Festival are not mentioned in the program. What’s more, the organizers say they never received my registration forms.

This means that the Jazz Travellers and Jazz Therapy apparently do not exist, and that my wife and I, and my fellow musicians, and their partners and a friend, having booked accommodation and made travel arrangements, are inconvenienced for the weekend of February 8-10th. Three of those musicians are in other bands, and so are not left out, but four other people are highly inconvenienced. To go to the jazz, they would have to pay $50 each, instead of much lower prices as friends of musos.

I know I mailed the forms, plus the cheque, because Glenyce watched me do it. I know posted it all on 26th November. But the cheque hasn’t been cashed, and the first I knew of the situation was a phone call from a friend to say we weren’t in the draft program, sent by mail.

I don’t know what went wrong, but I know it wasn’t something I did incorrectly.

This has hit me very hard. I wish it didn’t but it did. I wish I was tougher, but I’m not. In the last few years I have become more emotionally labile; tears are apt to come over little things, usually when watching the news or a show on TV: something touches my heart unexpectedly and the moisture comes, along with the quivering lip. I hide it because it makes no sense and I can’t explain myself. I have sometimes left the room because I don’t want my wife to see it. It’s a nuisance.

After my friend phoned to tell me we weren’t on the draft program, realization of the true import swept over me like a cold, white, rigid cloud that froze my soul and clutched at my heart. In a dream I walked in to Glenyce to give her the news. Oh, I went through the steps needed to find out the truth; scanning my computer banking records (cheque not cashed); phoning the organizer (nothing received); jogging my memory of events (Glenyce saw me assemble the paperwork and make up the envelope).

It availed nothing. By now, the coldness had invaded my body. I felt faint and weak. I had trouble speaking.

It felt so bloody melodramatic!

I sat down to phone my fellow musicians. My mind was clouded. I asked my wife to sit by my side as I dialed Rob the drummer, who with his wife Fay is booked into accommodation at Hall’s Gap, together with their friend Mae, who will be $70 out of pocket. Then I rang Colin, our saxophone and clarinet player. He’s just separated from a wife who disliked his practising at home. He’s keen to get out and play jazz, and I’d given him this opportunity to get back into the scene. Then there’s Charles, our bass player - he’s OK, because he’s playing in two other bands. I rang Russell (reeds player), bearer of the bad news in the first place, and he’ll phone up Marshall (drummer) from Geelong. They’re OK, because they are in other bands, too.

Everyone was just as incredulous as me, and very understanding for me. But it’s a very hard thing to do.

Right now, my stomach is knotting up, there’s a pain in my chest and a lump in my throat. I feel weak and have to break off typing this.

Why is this important to me? Well, back in 1988, after some years battling serious depression, I had to retire very early from my career as a chemistry lecturer - something I loved doing. It was necessary at the time, but that loss took a lot of getting over. I’ve never really recovered, unfortunately. I just have to accept that that’s what’s happened to me - and and is still affecting me. I wish I could let it go, but it doesn’t happen easily.

One thing I did then was to improve my piano-playing skills.

In 1994 I took some lessons from a well-known jazz piano player, Stephen Sedergreen, and 9 years later some from his father Bob. I’ve practiced thousands of hours. When I felt ready I got myself into a starting jazz band playing “traditional” or Dixieland jazz. I branched out and got to play with other bands, playing at country jazz festivals such as the Grampians, Inverloch, Merimbula, and other places. I’ve also played at quite a few paid gigs and done plenty of freebies. It’s quite hard to get paid work, and there’s competition from extremely good musicians.

A few years ago I started my own band called the Jazz Travellers to play a more modern style called mainstream, plus Latin, and various ballads. I’ve worked with singers, too, and played for a couple of amateur theatre shows.

Playing good quality jazz is something I aspire to, and I think I’m reasonably competent. I’ve become known to many around the scene here in Melbourne. I just want to play the music I like with competent, enthusiastic musicians who are prepared to rehearse. With a reeds player, Colin, and a drummer, Rob, I’ve been rehearsing, and we’ve have picked out the 16 tunes needed for the two sets you need to play to take part in a jazz festival. The reward is that you get to perform in public before discerning audiences, and can enjoy seeing all the other bands.

Glenyce and I have been looking forward to parking our caravan in the Hall’s Gap caravan park, enjoying the unique ambiance of that beautiful place, meeting all of our friends, and listening to some good jazz during the 3 days. It’s a place to play and be heard and judged by your peers, and to make new friends. We’ve been going on and off about for about 9 years.

But last year I had to pull out because of my prostatectomy in January.

So you can see that I’ve a lot of emotional investment in appearing in the jazz festival. I have to try to be philosophical about it all. But I can do all the Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) positive self-talk that I can manage, but my autonomic nervous system has a mind of its own.

Actually, it is a mind of its own.

And no matter how cool I try to be about life’s little dealings with me, on this occasion I feel absolutely knocked for a row.

Here are the main tenets of rational emotive therapy that I need to apply to my present circumstances - these are the irrational beliefs that will prevent me from having a good life:-

(1) I must perform well to be approved of by others who are perceived significant.
(2) you must treat me fairly—if not, then it is horrible and I cannot bear it.
(3) conditions must be my way and if not I cannot stand to live in such a terrible and awful world.

To the extent that I can counteract those false beliefs, I can then live a healthier life.

I’m working on it!

My best-laid plans for regular blogging have (not unexpectedly) taken a nose-dive already, so here’s a summary of this week.

Last Sunday we had the family over for a BBQ lunch. I had trouble with the gas fittings, then in the hands of my son it came good: I don’t know what he did differently, but all of a sudden it worked properly. Now I have to return $70 worth of replacement gas plumbing that I’d bought, unnecessarily so, it seems. Still haven’t got back to Bunnings with that.

Monday I recovered from Sunday.

Tuesday I went to the funeral of a jazz friend of mine, where I shed tears. Then we went to a wake afterwards, and I managed to play the piano for an hour or so with some of the jazzies there. That was good practice, as well as a little exposure to other guys. Several took my details. We’d left home at 9:25 am, and arrived home about 4:45 pm. so it was a long day.

Wednesday I saw my psych on the morning, then played with a trio at the Monash Uni Staff Club for 2 hours before whizzing off to Bentleigh to play with the same musos for about 30 min at a large retirement village/nursing home. Then I shot back to Glen Waverley for an appointment with my urologist. He said my prostate PSA level is zero, so the January surgery can still be called successful: no cancer left. I was pretty tired after all that!

Thursday I wrote letters in some Xmas cards, to get the 6 pm mail in our street (cutting it fine for deliveries). But in the afternoon, nature intervened in the form of a torrential downpour that caused serious flooding and damage in our suburb, plus others. Our back yard was flooded to 9 inches (do your own conversion). The cards missed the mail!

Friday I posted said cards at the Post Office, dropped in 17 prescriptions to get them paid for on the safety net which expires next week. Then I picked up Chelsea and Victoria (grandkids) from school, it being the last school day, all getting caught in yet another brief torrential downpour while we were at it. It rained hard all afternoon, and the underground car parks at The Glen (big shopping centre) were still flooded from yesterday, so the medicine I’ll pick up on Sunday, when we can park properly.

Tonight I have insomnia and have the head cold Glenyce already has. But I did get to cook some Thai red curry and rice for tea.

Now it’s going on 5 am, and I’ll go back to bed. Have to go early to my daughter’s place to be there when the electrician comes to inspect her light fittings which were damaged by water leaking from the ceiling during Thursday’s amazing rainstorm.

I’ll be very tired, but that’s life.

It’s not as though I’ve stopped living my life, but it’s just that I’ve stopped recording it or commenting on it, here in this blog.

My last blog item was early in September. The year just dribbles by. Since I enjoyed the last few outings of the fungi season with my Field Nats friends; I have dozens of excellent photos with with I’ve done nothing. I’ve played jazz piano at monthly outings of the Showbiz Club I belong to, and started rehearsing with several musician friends. We’re playing really well.

In early February I’ll be playing in two bands at the Grampians Jazz Festival. (Don’t expect much from that web site because the bounders don’t keep it up to date at all!) I was going to play in two at this year’s at the Grampians, but I had a radical prostatectomy instead! This time last year I had no idea I had prostate cancer, but glad I had the tests. It’s wrecked my sex life, but for years that was pretty abysmal anyway. A sore point with me, that is. Musn’t dwell!

Since last writing in an act of hopefulness that I could be of service in a fine organisation, the Victorian Jazz Archive, I got involved with learning to be a tour guide and also help them update their web site. But this week I resigned from that endeavour because I am finding too many fuzzy-headed, painful days. When that happens, I can’t be of value to anyone and just an embarrassment to myself.

I’ve learned from the past to restrict myself to just my core activities, namely, being a good companion to my wife (42 years married yesterday), playing my jazz my way with my friends, and attending to my internet activities here and in my elfram.com site.

And…Oh yes!…In mid-October we went away for a month in our caravan, touring the south coast of NSW from Lakes Entrance to Nowra. God, this country’s beautiful in springtime, regardless of the drought. We did a lot of things, saw many sights, and went on three boat cruises. The first was out to sea from Two-Fold Bay, Eden, watching for humpback whales. We did see them, but they weren’t very spectacular.

What was spectacular was a fall by yours truly, smack down on the deck of the cruise catamaran, bucking around in rough seas! To add injury to the loss of dignity, that solidly sprained my ankle. I hobbled around for the rest of the month, dosing heavily all the time on Panadeine Forte and Neurontin for my normal pain in the back and legs, exacerbated from holiday exertion, plus the sprained ankle.

I came back an exhausted mess, then dried out over a fortnight from the analgesics, but have never really recovered. I’m up and down, but continually depressed, very tired, fuzzy in the head, and with unpredictable bursts of back and leg pain. Some days I can barely utter a coherent sentence - or so it feels.

But this is a new start to my blogging. I turn 69 on Saturday, am feeling my age, but resolve to keep enjoying what I can. I’m better off than a younger musician friend of mine, an excellent trumpet player and nice fellow all round. Last Saturday Royce Charlett dropped dead from a sudden heart attack, with no prior warning and no previous illness. I’ll miss him, and I’m going to live as though this could happen any time to me!

Vale Royce! A true gentleman, trumpet player and entertainer.

I went to the Crown Casino in Melbourne last Wednesday night. Their promotional video (Note 1) shows how luxurious and extensive are their facilities. They promise a “experience that will linger in your mind forever”.

Well, it really did impress myself and my wife, but not in the way they intended. We were there to have dinner in a relatively modest bar and bistro called The Pub; they offered a Wednesday night meal deal of Porterhouse Steak and a pot of beer for $12. I was with an ad hoc group of friends who occasionally have a meal and a chat in various venues.

Last night’s dinner was for eighteen people, and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. We all swapped anecdotes, experiences and opinions on almost everything. Six of our group were there for the first time. But the evening drew to a close and we wended our various ways home.

But as Glenyce and I had never been to this giant, complex venue, (more by design that by accident), we thought we had better have a look before we launched. It was quite an eye-opener. Apart from many lavish shops, restaurants, cafés, bars, theatres and night clubs, there is a huge gambling area that seemed to go on forever. This was absolutely staggering in its size and scope.

Hundreds of poker machines stretched in all directions, garishly glittering lights hypnotising the players as they spun the machines in the hope of a big win. That, of course, will only impel them on to the vain hope in another big win before their assets vanish down the tube. I have friends who’ve been seriously damaged by this mind-set; one of them is essentially destitute.

But, of course, I know that many people get a lot of pleasure from the pokies and all the other types pf games - poker, roulette, and so on. And of course, vast sums arrive in the coffers of the state of Victoria, much of it earmarked for those support for unfortunate citizens who have a gambling problem! Moreover, of course, Crown Casino can offer much free or subsidised entertainment because of the cross-subsidy from the afore-mentioned gamblers. It might be that our $12 cheap meal was possible in this way, so perhaps that sort of makes me a hypocrite!

The thing is, all of this has no charms at all for my wife and myself. In the past I have actually put a dollar or two through a pokie, but mainly to see what it’s all about. And for me, it’s about nothing! It intrigues me that an activity that is hugely attractive for millions of my fellow humans has absolutely no impact on me whatsoever. There seems to be a distinct psychological divide between people like me and people like them.

I wonder if it’s genetic?

I’m not religious (I’m an atheist), I try not to moralize about it, and my beef really is how powerful the whole thing seems to be for the punters. But for us, it just looks and feels crass and tatty.

Perhaps I’m getting old and conservative. That’s a worry!

Note 1: Caution: Streaming video requires broadband ADSL and runs for 3 mins.

For a long time now it has been recognized that the way that we talk to ourselves about the experiences that life offers us has an important influence upon our mental health. And if we can pick up what we telling ourselves at the time we are doing it, we can change those dysfunctional messages to healthier self-talk. This is the crux of Rational Emotive Therapy.

Recently I was able to pick up some of that for myself, and come out of the situation much the wiser and, hopefully, healthier. Only time will tell.

On the Friday I had been to the circus with my wife, daughter and grandchildren. The Big Top was erected in the large car-park of a local pub - basically a beer-barn, concentrating on rock music. Ar half-time I visited the toilet of the pub bistro, and I noticed a grand piano in there. Enquiries to the barmaid told me that “someone used to play it but they don’t now”. She encouraged me to play it there and then; it was about 9 pm, and one table of diners was left. Sitting down, I played a few runs and chords, and to my surprise the table cheered and clapped. I apologised, explained, and left, to their disappointment, as I went back to the circus.

I have been looking for places to play the piano, to enjoy myself, to overcome the anxiety that has dogged me for years, to gain more experience, and to provide pleasure to others. This pub seemed a likely venue; after all, they did have the grand piano, and possibly had some sort of use in mind for it, although my experience tells me that it might once have been used, but a change of management might have made it a white elephant. From my experience, it was unlikely that I would get paid, but maybe petrol money would be possible.

And so on Saturday night I turned up about 6 pm, with my bag of music, to see if I could play for a couple of hours or so. Seeking out the manager, I explained my aim. But he simply said that it was not a decision he could make, but that it would have to wait until the actual manager came back from holidays in a couple of weeks. Slightly deflated, I left, wishing that a manager could simply have made such a simple decision as inviting me to play for one night at least. I wondered at the management arrangement that disallowed such a minor thing on one night. Now I was irritated!

Driving back toward home, I sped up through a set of lights just as they turned amber. As I did so, I’m sure that I felt the flash of a traffic camera going off. I was sure I was though well within the amber time-frame, and wondered whether I was over the 70 kph limit. I couldn’t be sure, and winced at the expensive fine. This had not improved my mood; in fact, I was now pissed off, as they say.

Nevertheless, I decided that as it was early on Saturday night, I might call in to another potential playing venue that I had my eye on, namely the local RSL. Recently remodelled, this boasted a bistro restaurant. They had had a jazz band there occasionally, but not since remodelling, which had reduced the dance floor space. I knew that through a muso friend of mine who’d had that gig. I didn’t hold out much hope, because from a casual glance, diner numbers were not exactly over-flowing. Anyway, such RSLs tend to be oriented toward the poker machine revenue; a musician is unlikely to attract enough extra patronage to pay for the meagre fee I might earn, or so I thought.

But seeing as I was out anyway, I decided to look in. I parked the car and presented myself at the desk. Just as I thought: I would need to see the real manager, Hank, some time during the daytime. I had been primed for disappointment, and here it was, handed to me on a platter. All I had to do was the usual: tell myself how hopeless it all was, and how there’s “no place for live music these days”!

It was while driving the few blocks back home that I caught myself at it. I was busily doing the self-indulgent, self-fulfilling prophecy of no hope, not competent, no room for what I do, yada yada! When this happens, the pattern seems to be that there’s always enough element of truth in it to make it all sound feasible. And all the times that I’ve “failed” in some way, that is, not lived up to my own very tough expectations, come crowding in, a well-lubricated chorus of hopelessness, anxiety and fatigue leading to a fore-gone conclusion.

Except that this time it didn’t work. Why? Because somehow I managed to reply to my own self-sabotage. Don’t ask me why. Perhaps it comes from being desperate enough to realise that I can’t do this for the rest of my life. But of course, I can, but I know that it just feeds into the underlying depression that’s been dogging me day and night for the last 30-odd years.

The facts are that I’m an OK jazz piano player: not brilliant, but competent up to a point, and on a good day I can play beautifully! Also a fact is that I can simply await the return of the pub bistro manager from holidays, then turn up and see if I can get a go at the grand piano on Friday or Saturday night. My chances are not bad, and, see - the thing is - I do like to play a nice grand piano. It brings out the best in my playing.

Another fact is that I’m sure I didn’t run the traffic light on any part of red; I just don’t do that. But if I was a little over the speed limit, as I accelerated uphill, I’ll just cop it sweet, like the other few times I’ve been caught over the years. And the flash might juts have been photographing someone else!

And if I want to go to all the trouble of lugging my own digital piano keyboard into the RSL to play for a modest crowd of diners for some frugal or zero fee, then all I have to do is drop in on Hank the day-time manager, put it to him, and come to some accommodation. After all, I’m getting nothing now. Although I’ve been playing jazz piano seriously for over 12 years now, I’m sufficiently developed enough to make a really good go of it now.

Here’s where the next hurdle comes up! I feel I need to have a CD of my playing so I can hand it to said managers so as to land the gig.

Isn’t it amazing? Here I am, having successfully overcome a slough of negativity, all ready to go, and I hand myself another obstacle in the way of my own success and enjoyment.

I’m currently sixty-eight years old. Is this going to happen until the day I die?

Not bloody likely! Onward!!

Like all of us, I am quite affected by the books I have read. When I was a boy it was Arthur Mee’s ‘The Children’s Encyclopaedia’, Digit Dick, Coral Island, Treasure Island and Biggles. In my youth it was science fiction, horror stories and the Bible.

From the books I read there a form of osmosis whereby the ideas and attitudes seep into my brain to make me who I am. So here are a few some of my influences, from my most recent reading.

Steven Pinker (1997) “How the Mind Works” (660 pp.).

From the above discussion: This “…book by American cognitive scientist Steven Pinker… The book attempts to explain some of the human mind’s poorly understood functions and quirks in evolutionary terms. Drawing heavily on the paradigm of evolutionary psychology … Pinker covers subjects as diverse as vision, emotion, feminism, and, in the final chapter, ‘the meaning of life.’”

I’ve been dipping into this book on and off over the last few years, and never fail to be engaged by Pinker’s writings on these difficult subjects. Although the pages are starting to yellow, it’s on my list of “to be read again some day”.

Monk, R., & Raphael, F. (2000) “The Great Philosophers; From Socrates to Turing” (563 pp.).

A series of articles by different authors on the great philosophers from Socrates to Turing, this book collates a sequence of expositions on the ideas of those men, and their pros and cons. Like the Pinker book, this is really hard going.

About 1964 in Melbourne University, where I did a Diploma of Education, I was introduced to serious readings of Plato, Popper and the like. Ever since then, my interest in philosophy, and its cousin psychology, has simmered away in the background.

This book is hard going, just as expected. But so rewarding!

Peter Carey (1997) “Jack Maggs” (402 pp.)

Last year I played the piano on a jazz band at the Wagga Wagga Jazz Festival. In a spare moment I popped into a used book shop and thought to look for something by Patrick White or Peter Carey, two Australian authors whom I enjoy. Travelling in a caravan gives you plenty of spare time to lie down reading a good novel. It’s one of my favourite pastimes!

To my delight I spied “Jack Maggs”. Clutching it to my bosum, I hied me back to the caravan park and immersed myself in this wonderful, complex story. Now although it is set in 1830s England I shall always associate it with Wagga Wagga, Hay, Mildura, Broken Hill, Ouyen and Hall’s Gap.

It won a swag of literary awards as soon as it was published. Having read and enjoyed “Illywhacker” another of Carey’s novels, I knew I was in for a treat. I was not disappointed.

Kathy Lette (2006) “How to kill Your Husband (and other handy household hints)” (326 pp.)

Almost a year ago my wife, Glenyce, was hospitalized by startling symptoms of mysterious origin, which resolved into blood poisoning followed swiftly by bladder poisoning. She celebrated her birthday in hospital. On impulse, a member of the family bought her this book as a whimsical gift. I suppose it was whimsical rather than serious?

Anyway, it tickled her fancy, and so last year I read it, too. It’s quite a light read, but quite funny. The essential plot line is based on the general thesis that wives withhold sex from their husbands because husbands never do their share of the house-work. And “All women want to kill their husbands some of the time“.

I my opinion, the flaw in that idea is that most men who live alone are happy to tolerate degrees of untidyness, dust and general filth that would send most women gaga. It’s a matter of degree. Despite that gross over-simplification, I liked the book. Not memorable, like Carey’s “Jack Maggs”, but worth a look.

For what it’s worth here, my comments are that most men never ever get the amount of sex they’d hoped for, and there’s a general monumental mismatch between the libidos of men and women. The comeback from women is that men have no idea of the existence and potential of the clitoris. Something along those lines.

Lynne Truss (2005) “Talk to the Hand: The Sheer Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life” (210 pp.)

I bought this with the ubiquitous Xmas gift book voucher, because I have read another book of Lynne Truss, namely “Eats, Shoots & Leaves “.

That was about the demise of correct punctuation in most aspects of daily like. I was impressed by the way she had taken a subject that was potentially as dry-as-dust and made it a delight to read. And so I had great expectations of this later book.

I was not disappointed: “Talk to the Hand” is a dizzy romp describing the myriad ways that good manners and thoughtfulness seem to have diminished in modern life. This could have become a rant-fest, bit in my opinion the author retains the high moral ground by avoiding the pitfall of descending to abuse of the things that she, I, and probably you, dear reader, abhor.

I hope to read more from this writer.

Shelley Gare (2006) “”The Triumph of the Airheads and the Retreat from Commonsense” (296 pp.)

Somewhere there’s a quotation about Shelley Gare: “In her latest book she questions the sort of society we have become, where Paris Hilton is a teen idol and if we don’t like someone we just vote them off the television. In short, Shelley argues that society is losing the plot.”

And from a review: “Gare is clear about the following dilemma. The people who do something or produce something are a threatened species, while the strategists, public relations and human resources types thrive like Paterson’s curse. They’ve absorbed all the ground nutri-ents and they use up all the spare oxygen. They are paid unhealthy amounts of money to inflict themselves on hapless colleagues, whose career paths (if they’ve survived the purges and retrenchments) they hold in their hands.”

I agree. I never cease to be amazed by the degree of sheer ignorance and fatuousness found in what passes for popular culture in this country. Especially prominent in the ferment of sporting heroes, popular music, the cultish “celebrity” world, merging into politics and all that is associated with that arena today.

Have these banana-heads ever read a book? Have they ever studied a subject in depth? I don’t mean law and I don’t mean accountancy. Proper subjects engendering wide reading and reflection.

If I hear anything more about Warnie or Britney Spears I swear I’ll throw up. I just put her name into Google and got 34,500,000 hits!!! Jesus Christ!

If you Google on “Jesus Christ”, you only get 15,900,000 hits. Go figure that out!

In my own town of Melbourne, “The Age” used to be a paper that I respected as a balanced source of news and commentary. Not any more; there’s been a slow but sure degradation. Recently some sporting team won some prize or other and there was a banner headline; the same headline size that used to be reserved for announcements of World War III!!

The emotional and intellectual currency is being degraded left, right and centre. And no-one seems to care, except Shelley Gare and myself.

And maybe you, dear reader.

The saga last Wednesday (Feb 7th) of the removal of a cancerous prostate didn’t end as well as I had hoped in the previous post.

I had the urinary catheter removed that day, two weeks after the operation. Until about 4 or 5 in the afternoon that day, the normal but rather weak dribble of urine was going OK, but then it dried up. I could feel it coming through the right channels, but somewhere in the last several inches of my undercarriage there was a blockage. I suspect that it was caused by a bacterial infection with which I am being treated by a strong antibiotic.

And so, about 9 pm I alerted my beloved that there was a painful problem developing, and that I would need to go to hospital. The choice was Monash Medical Centre, which is a free public hospital, but with a very long wait: I could not afford to wait, because I had a rapidly distending bladder which was becoming very painful.

Or I could go to The Valley, a private hospital with an all night emergency service. It costs $205 to walk in the door, plus other fees.

I went to The Valley.

Even then, I had to wait until about midnight to see a doctor, who in due course inserted a new catheter, collected 600 ml from my painfully full bladder

What a relief!

And so I drove home again, relieved of my urine, plus $250 for the service. And so for another week I have been happily emptying my leg bag, to which I have grown quite attached, so to speak.

What next?

Well, I have the urunary catheter removed today at 10:30 am. Then I’m on my own to deal with holding back the dribbles and streams of urine that has been so efficiently done by the leg bag that I’ve had for the last two weeks.

I am also taking very powerful antibitoics to deal with a very painful bacterial infection of the urinary tract. Adds injury to insult. It’s been very, very painful, and still is! Excruciating!!

After the catheter’s removed, I have to wander around East Melbourne for 3 more hours until the surgeon sees me at 1:30 pm. In that time, I have discover what degree of bladder control I’ll have. I’m carrying 3 spare pairs of underpants and 10 Tena pads, which slip inside the undies to absorb the urine.

I’m scared that I won’t have enough control and will have to constantly look out for toilets. I’m also worrying that the pads won’t be able to handle the flow.

I don’t mind smelling pissy for a few weeks until I get the hang of it, but I’d rather handle that at home, thank you very much!!

I’ve cheated a bit: nothing to drink since last night, except a fruit juice for breakfast, and the milk on my muesli.

What? More unexpected expense to get my prostate removed?

Yep!

On a document given to me by the urologist it states that the out-of-pocket fees for the anesthetist would be $500-$1000. When he got back from holiday he got his receptionist to phone me. She informs me that the initial fee will actually be $3000, and that I can’t expect to get much of that back from the health funds.

That’s apparently because this new operation by robotic surgery is so new that the government has not yet given it a service number to claim on. So they have to use the number for the older more invasive methods of radical prostatectomy, which are rated cheaper.

So I’m figuring, say, $2500 to pay instead of my budgeted $1000 allowance. That’s if you can talk about a budget in the present circumstances. It’s more like riding a yacht in a hurricane.

Hang on for the bumpy, perilous ride of my life!!

Last Sunday night, a whole week ago, I made a couple or errors of judgment using Norton’s Ghost software in an attempt to back up my C: drive hard disk to another drive.

Firstly, the software is dated 2003, and might be superseded, but I don’t think so.

Secondly, it seemed to require a special floppy disk to be made, on the floppy drive, before use. I misread the directions, and it really uses that floppy as part of the “ghosting” process. But the floppy drive has not been used for a long time, and failed to read or write anything at all! Bugger.

And so, late at night I took a risk and gave Ghost its head (if a ghost has one).

Bad move!

Ghost restarted the ‘puter, but to my horror, after the CMOS stuff appeared, ready to boot into MSDOS/Windows, there was just the cryptic message:-

Missing operating system.

There I was, suddenly left with an unbootable machine. What’s more, I did not have a CDROM that would simply boot into Windows! All the C: drive is suddenly unavailable. Bad news.

Next day I installed a new floppy, but my search through stacks of old disks only found a few disks that had irrelevant old programs. What was clear was that DOS could only see an unbootable, empty C: drive.

Upshot of all this is that I had to buy a new, modern computer (old one was 8 years old), plus Windows XP Professional, total about $1100, at a time when I am already financially stretched to breaking point by the upcoming prostatectomy.

So I beavered all week trying to fix this disk, to no avail, then got the new machine, practised using Partition Commander on an old 20GB drive, then plucked up courage to get onto the new machine.

It has taken all weekend to partition the 250GB hard drive, install Windows, setup the modem, and start setting up emails and all the stuff which is now inaccessible.

Fortunately I have a habit of writing down everything that happens when i do major software/hardware things, including all the setting and especially the login names and passwords which are used in all sorts of places.

Now I have a long task of reloading all software and getting going.

Unfortunately I go into Epworth East hospital this Tuesday afternoon, ready for a four-hour operation to remove my cancerous prostate gland, by a “robotic procedure”, no less!

I think that when I come out, I will be pretty sore, with a urinary catheter, 6 holes in my belly, and feeling a bit buggered.

But I intend to live for many years without that threat of prostate cancer hanging over my head - or my groin, I suppose!!

Tomorrow we have our young granddaughters with us from 7am until after 5pm. This goes on for 3 days in a row. I suppose I’ll cope, but I am not a natural with kids, especially one’s who are more manipulative and sassy than our own ever were.

They are Chelsea, age 7 years, and Victoria, age 6 years old. I reckon that they’ve had more life experiences than I’d had by age 14.

That’s just the way it is, I’m afraid. I’ll need all my coping skills, and Glenyce is better at this than I am. But we love them to bits!!

All I need is the chance to get a little time on my own at the computer or the piano keyboard as an escape now and then.

I have dug out an old microscope given to me by my Mum and Dad when I was about 10 years old. It magnifies up to 150x, but at 50x you can look at interesting things under it.

Things like human hair pulled out by the root, thin leaves, onion skins, flower parts, pollen, bits of dead insect, scales off moths wings, wriggly things out of the compost heap, sugar and salt crystals, crystals of the same growing out of a solution of said substances when the solution dries out.

I’ve got tricks involving cutting paper up, and an old “donkey engine” driven by steam. Books to read, stuff to eat.

We’ll get them to help pull out a lot of old parsley, then go up to the nursery and get new herbs to plant; they got gardening tools for Xmas, so it seems.

The next day we’ll take them to the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. There’s a Children’s’ Garden area there, ducks and swan to feed, grass to romp on, and all sorts of stuff. That day the forecast is for 36degC, so we’ll appreciate the shade trees in there.

You can’t say we are going to try!!

I’m struggling to raise money to pay for the robotic laparoscopy need to remove all of my cancerous prostate gland and seminal vesicles. Unfortunately this has come along at a time when my finances are already overstretched by Xmas and other things that have happened.

I was hoping to recover in a couple of months by aggressive paying off of the Visa card debt, but this operation has come along and blown me out of the water, so to speak.

It has been a shock, especially as I have been paying top private health insurance for all my adult life!

I can’t get Medibank Private coverage for something that will save my life and keep me healthy, but any nincompoop can go along to a variety of quacks like acupuncture and Shiatsu “practitioners” and get refunded!!

Not only will the radical prostatectomy deprive me of my manhood but it will push me into very stringent budgetary constraints. I see the bank tomorrow to get a loan to cover the out-of-pocket expenses of about $7500.

Of that, $5320 must be paid to the surgeon a week before the operation, because that has to be paid in advance to the Epworth East hospital for hire of the surgical robot! I don’t think I can meet that deadline, but I’ll try!

I am coping OK, but am inclined to go into a state where it is all just a bad dream, wherein I am disassociated from reality. Then I get confused easily, and I will need Glenyce to lean on, plus the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa, which does help. I tried to arrange a loan over the phone, but couldn’t cope with the thinking involved.

Somehow I’m glad that I won’t get to play with my two bands at the Grampians, because I think that my mind is getting shell-shocked or something! I’m frightened of losing my marbles, mentally.

It might be a lean year now. Glenyce hopes we can get away in the caravan, but she might be disappointed, just as I am.

My urologist today tells me I have a greatly enlarged prostate gland, with 3 out of 12 biopsy samples showing cancer cells with a Gleason score of 7 on a scale from 2 to 10 (worst case 10). This means that I have a relatively aggressive prostate cancer.

Given my age of 68, with my state of health being quite good, and longevity in the family, he recommends total removal of the prostate and the seminal vesicles. This is called “radical prostatectomy“.

He offers operation by laparoscopy using a robotic system controlled by the surgeon, namely him, Dr S. Sengupta. This gives least trauma and speediest recovery. He has trained recently at the Mayo Clinic, New York. I have accepted his advice, but was not pressured to do so. The alternatives were “watchful waiting”, radiology, or more invasive, older surgical methods. There are pros and cons to all of this.

The operation will occur during the week starting January 15th. It will take half a day in the operating theatre, but I will be in hospital up to a week, followed by many week’s convalescence at home, initially with a urinary catheter in place. I will have have a very small chance of continuing urinary incontinence in the long run.

It is pretty well certain that I will have greatly reduced or zero erectile ability, since the body’s source of testosterone will be removed. I am told that that can be remedied with Viagra, but considering that our sexual relationship has been moribund for over seven years, that will not be necessary - at least, not at home.

I think I can cope with all of the above. Now, I do have top medical and hospital private health insurance, but it seems that this method is not well covered. Consequentially, I will have to pay out-of-pocket medical expenses adding up to more than $8000!! I do not have ready access to such a sum.

I will have to take a bank loan to consolidate my current circumstances and expand to cover this new situation.

This will be a substantial blow, but not nearly as serious as choosing inaction, then only to find that my PSA level rises some years further down the track, with concomitant spread of this known cancer to other organs. Best be rid of the source now and for ever!

I can cope with a loan, but not with the uncertainty to my health.

I am really pissed off with the way things are turning out, because as regards sex, I had a lousy, screwed-up childhood and adolescence and a sexually disappointing marriage and sex in general. But that wasn’t really her fault, and most probably mine. Let me just say that I reckon that I have had only 1% of the sex that I would have liked in my life, and very little of that was really good.

I blame the stupid churches and their political and social hangers-on. Go to Hell, the lot of you! Damn you with your pathetic, infantile, cruel, crude “beliefs”. And I was one for 12 years, too!!

What a waste of good life energy!!

Last week I saw a urologist, who administered a DRE (Digital Rectal Examination). He reckoned that the walnut-sized gland clustered inconveniently around my urethra seemed a bit too big, and got me into a hospital, pronto, for a Day Procedure, namely a panendoscopy.

No doubt many of you have been down this track in their own way. However, I can tell you that sitting across the desk from a doctor using the word “cancer” in relation to the body that I currently inhabit certainly attunes the intellect in a remarkable way! It has never happened to me, except for those solar keratoses that get zapped with liquid nitrogen by the GP every second visit or so. But prostate gland cancer is an entirely different kettle of fish.

So we need to find out just why the prostate is enlarged, with a good chance that is simply a benign process (hyperplasia) that happens to some men upon ageing. I turned 68 last week.

Dr. Sengupta intended to stick a thin metallic telescope up my old feller to have a Captain Cook inside my bladder. Meanwhile, he would shove an ultrasound probe up my bum and have a squiz around the vicinity of the prostate gland, looking for suspicious bumps and lumps.

Moreover, to add injury to insult, he meant to shove a bloody big hollow-pointed needle through the rectal wall and take half a dozen samples of prostate tissue. I am glad to learn that a general anaesthetic will be used!

And so last Friday I presented myself to Epworth Freemason’s Hospital to be done over as above. I had:-

a) fasted from midnight,
b) taken broad-spectrum antibiotic Norfloxacin for a day (to suppress any stray bacteria that escaped into the prostate via the needles), and
c) purged my rectum with a suppository about 4am to give clean lower bowel.

I always find it interesting to be converted into a patient when they clamp a plastic band around your wrist, after you’ve negotiated all the paper work. I’ve lost count of the times, these days.

And so in due course I climbed onto an operating table, and had one arm clamped flat for the cannula for a drip and administration of medications. I knew my legs were to be up at an angle, and spread out. I thought of the “stirrups” used on women in childbirth! Is that dignified or not? Effective, yes!

And then I am awake, in bed, with a saline drip in my arm. I need to urinate, and receive a plastic “bed bottle”. It stings as I pee, and it looks like raspberry cordial!! I am bleeding from the thin telescope up in to my bladder, but I am told that this will taper off. It does, but a have some slightly blood-stained undies over the next day or so.

Strangely, my bottom seems to suffer nothing more than mild tenderness, and now, four days later, I seem to have had no ill effects at all from any of it.

Excepting that the first time I needed a pee after I came home, I discovered that although the plumbing all worked well enough, the flow-controlling sphincter was apparently still asleep!

The result was that I peed my strides comprehensively, well before I could make it to the toilet!!

Talk about embarrassing!!! It’s just as well that Glenyce and I have good senses of the ridiculous. I’m sure glad it didn’t happen in the taxi on the way home.

Christmas and Boxing Day have come and gone, and I impatiently await the results of the histology done on the prostate tissue samples. I trust there will be no cancer cells, and I will get on with my life after a slight pause.

I do give thanks for the miracles of modern medicine. I have had a general anaesthetic with no ill effect. I have had a thin tube shoved up my cock so a guy can peer around inside my bladder. I have also had a tube up my khyber that shows on a screen what’s in and around my prostate gland. And a doozy little needle punch that grabbed neat little bunches of prostate tissues that someone else can check with the aid of a microscope and some stains.

I hope to get the results soon, perhaps tomorrow!

Many times in in the past I have been deeply afflicted by bouts of bottomlessly black depression, wherein I have seriously contemplated taking my own life. At such times I have been torn between my wishing for final oblivion and thus an end to my existential suffering, as against the my wish not to inflict grief and sorrow upon the ones I love. This could easily overwhelm at times like the present, if it were not for very helpful medication and the help I receive from unloading my thoughts with a psychiatrist, Chris, who knows me very well.

Chris the shrink once asked me what stops me from killing myself. In a nutshell, I replied, it is because I want to see what happens next!

I am endlessly fascinated by all aspects of my life, my own body with its whims and idiosyncrasies. My own life, relationships, family, friends, society, nations, human nature, culture, the arts, science and nature all intrigue me. On a good day, that is, which is most of the time! Spare me the inevitable bad days.

I just want to see what happens next!