The Size of It

Good evening Oxygen Addicts,

I mentioned in some previous posts that I had lost nearly half of my body weight. Until now I have been surviving on the clothing that I still have in my wardrobe and drawers - most of it too large for me.

A Tight Fit

Even the one pair of trousers that I've been wearing look like a cast-off from a fucking clown suit. Luckily they are a cargo style and meant to look baggy. I have had to cut off the end of an old belt, and drill extra holes into the remaining length to get something which will hold my stoopid trousers up.

This is not always successful - but no embarrassing public incidents yet. (At least none I'll own up to. I've heard that the girl in the peach party dress may never see again, and screams out 'fascist panties' in her sleep.)

As to my top - I have some very nice jackets that are huge on me now, but some look like they should be that way, and again I can get away with it.

So, I've been waiting for a chance to buy new clothes - especially the bottom half. Jeans, trousers, trackky dax and so on. I was hoping some kind soul would find the time to take me shopping, but I've taken matters into my own hands.

Firstly, I've been practising weaning myself off the Walker. This has been pretty successful so far. The walker is not that far away in the back of the car should it be needed. However, so far I've gauged how long and far I should be able to walk at any particular time quite well.

Of course, it started a few months back when I made daring little trips out to the letter box. I walked a bit like a drunken sailor but given the fact that I woke up in hospital unable to walk at all - this was quite a victory.

Since then my legs have strengthened a fair bit and I'm not so wonky. I finally started to getting out and buying the new clothes that I wanted. Firstly to a local jeans shop, and then further afield to large department stores where I was able to wander about for a few hours without too much trouble. I still have a bit of a strange gait, but as long as it doesn't involve stairs, I'm walker-free.

However, being able to get out and buy new clothes has come with a serious shock - my new size! At the local jeans shop I insisted that I could only be down to a size 36 where the experienced eye of the shop assistant measured me in at a size 34/Medium. I tried on the 36 and much to my shock, he was right. A size 36 still tented on me. Sheepishly I called out for the size 34 and they were a perfect fit!

Similarly my tops are around a 34-36, or Medium to Large. I often choose the Large as my shoulder and chest width are still much the same.

So - lots of nice new clothes. I must get some photos that model the new ones, but I do have some photos which show off the old ones and how much size I've lost. An obvious set of clothes was the suit I bought for my father's funeral back in 2009. A give-away is that the shirt is a size 50!

This is me me as I am now with my new svelte size.

And across me I drape the size 50 shirt from my father's funeral suit.

My belly used to fill the shirt quite nicely. Not so much now.

And I used to fill these trousers much better

What's missing down there? No - not that! My belly. Keep it clean readers.

Putting it together doesn't help much. I'm still a newly skinny man in a fat suit.

I can try and cover it up with the jacket - but I don't think that helps much. Still looks silly.

So there you go - a lesson in weight loss. However, this is not the way that I think you want to lose weight.

The Stephen Nicholson weight loss programme: 

Depression, Alcoholism, and more than a dash of Cancer.

Not recommended by the Ministry of Health.

Signs of the Time

Good Evening Skywriters By Word of Mouth,

recently I've been into putting up signs about the place. Some of this is practical, and others, well, whatever takes my fancy at the time.

I made the mistake of finding and buying a pack of blanks for turning photos into fridge magnets. I also made the very silly step of starting chemotherapy.

So in some cases I've simply been having fun with all of this sign making, and in other cases I need to put up real reminders, warning me of things I'm supposed to do whilst undergoing Chemo.

So here are some of the more practical signs having to do with Chemo.

Here are some rules and warning signs I have to follow. I put this up on my pantry cupboard, making it quite prominent in the kitchen.

One of the most important here is to take my temperature (which I note in my log) and be prepared to drop everything and head to hospital if my temp hits 38 or over. Last week I had an upper respiratory chest infection and that almost triggered the hospital alert - sufficiently that I went and dug out a little trundle-along suitcase, ready for packing.

Another sign I put up is in the dunny. Apparently for a time, the chemotherapy makes my bodily fluids toxic. As I've mentioned before, I'm not sure what this toxicity might do - but is enough for me to get warnings in the cancer documentation and from nurses quite a number of times.

It also changes the way the community nurses, who come and change the dressings on my head, get ready to do that.

They're not always that scary ;-)

And I made a sign to remind them of what to do ...

The last instruction is the most important. Who knows what might happen when I'm toxic? Turn into a giant green angry quasi-superhero?

(Yah know the scariest thing about this image is that I had no idea if such a thing existed. I just typed "barack obama as the hulk" into Google - and sure enough, there they were. Teh Interwebs really do have something for everything and everyone. Now that IS fucking scary!!)

Again a sign like that needs to be prominent, so I put it up above the box of dressings that the nurses use.

Now to the fun that I've been having on the fridge with my fridge-magnet blanks. I've only done 2 so far, and made up another sign on some new photo paper.

 

Here's one that I made using a scan of the warning on one of my Endone boxes.

 

Now that warning is being put to a much better use. Guarding my Chocolate supply ;-) Fuck the champagne, lobster and caviar.

Now here's one that I made today. I've started to make more extensive use of my heat pack to try and control the cancer pain - which seems to be getting out of control again in the last few days.

 

Overall it seems to be working, taking the edge off the worst of it in my jaw, and sometimes I get it right under the dressings close to the cancer itself. I like this shot. I truly am enjoying this moment of Comfort.

Finally I was playing with some new 5 x 7 inch sized photo paper - and it seems great for small durable signs.

 

This is a rip-off of one of the more common slogans that you can buy in new-agey sort of shops, or just really fuckin' tacky newsagencies. It normally starts with "God" but I've gotten into the habit of using "Goddess", just to piss off fundamentalist Christians.

I had one printed on plain paper which actually survived many years of house and flat moves. But a search found that it had slipped into a wormhole and disappeared. So I made this nice pretty new one.

Hmm, there seems to be quite a theme in some of these signs that I'm making. Just don't piss me off at the moment. I dunno what will happen, but I've been going through a shitload of weird stuff - so fair warning. It's not every month that you get a death sentence...

... and you seem to be expected to to take it well. You better hope (I better hope) that the shrink I'm seeing on Thursday is good at her job ;-)

The Elixer of the Mud-Gods

G'day Chemistry Set Experimenters,

people have been making jokes to me over the last few months that I should try eating weird stuff because my sense of taste is on the blink (not working) for now.

Suggestions have been things like broccoli and brussel sprouts. It's actually sort of tempting just to see what the texture is like. But the taste itself is likely to be one big nothing with a vague sweet/bitter/salty/sour/dirty-dish-water/mud after-taste (I think I got the list of basic tastes right.)

You might have guessed by now that the best of my taste senses is actually sweet. Which is at least some small consolation.

Official Health Food for Me!

And my Dietician at the Hospital doesn't really care too much what I eat, as long as there's plenty of protein and I'm not losing weight.

When was the last time you got permission from a health professional to eat a fuck-tonne of ice cream, chocolate and marshmellow if you wanted??

Bitter sort of works a bit too. My dietician however, still doesn't really get the whole lack of taste thing. Aside from these hints of sweet and/or bitter - NOTHING has a taste! It doesn't matter if I add Habanero chilli sauce instead of tomato sauce to my pie. It's all equally bland, except that the Habanero will burn the fuck out of my thrush weakened gums - and pain I can feel!

Stupid Git! (Does "Git" apply to a Woman? Gitess, Lady-Git, She-Git?)

As I explained in a previous post - playing with interesting textures is generally the best I can do.

Today I bought some honeycomb to try. Not bad! That crackly-popping feel is a bit of fun. (Alas it was the choc-coated artificial stuff - not wot came out of Neil Gaiman's beehives.) At the very least I must hunt up some Violet Crumble bars.

Slippy-sloppy-slurpy Goodness

I also bought some Cup-a-Soups. The main reason is that they would probably make an interesting hot drink. I was right. The slippy-sloppy-slurpiness of the noodles in the chicken noodle variety was fun and palatable - and hot.

Bliss!

Given the way the temperature's suddenly dropped in the last day, causing me to tense up more, especially in my jaw/head, and in turn generate more pain, hot drinks are something that I will need more and more. It's a recipe for pain relief that you don't find in the literature.

Microwaveable heat-packs are in the documentation, and have been very useful in the past 24 hours.



Now - to one of the most daring experiments that I've performed since I overheated and blew up a test tube with jet-powered force, and exploded the contents all over the lounge-room ceiling at the old family home.

(I numbly went downstairs to my parents and asked for a ladder ;-) That shit soaked into the plaster and no matter how many coats of paint that went over the stains, they just ate their way through. My father built a bench area under the house where I could continue my Chemistry-Set fun and games.)

I DRANK A CUP OF COFFEE!!!

You should know (if you already don't) that I HATE Coffee.

I hate the smell of it. I have to take and hold a deep breath if I walk past a coffee wholesale store in Newtown. Only a Fishmongers is worse.

I hate the taste of it.  Even small amounts in foil-wrapped gift chocolates. Dis-gusting!!

I hate those smug gits that think they're so fucking sophisticated with their latest boasts about sipping ethical-borneo-jungle-shitted-out-by-a-cat-turkish-blend-greek-ground-italian-poured-latte-macchiato.

As such I haven't drunk an entire cup of coffee since I was a teenager.

BUT - I have no sense of taste! Time for an experiment.

I suspect this is a cup of coffee.

I found the jar of Moccona instant coffee that I have hidden in the back of a cupboard for visitors and an old coffee cup. I boiled water in the electric jug and not so carefully blended the ingredients until I came up with a cup of hot steaming black stuff.

That's how you make coffee isn't it? It's been a while.

I let it cool down a bit (a lot really) as my mouth is not used to hot drinks.

Slowly, with much trepidation, I bought the cup to my lips and took a sip,

Bugger - not enough to get get any real sense of what I had just done. I lifted the cup and took a larger sip.



It was as I suspected! If I had ever tasted muddy water, then this was it. It wasn't totally foul, but neither was it some magic instant pick-me-up.

Crazily addicted? Probably not yet.

It was as to be expected - tastleless with a hint of bitterness. I added 2 sugars. No real change. I added 2 more. Mmm, perhaps a little better. So I decided to see the experiment to its logical conclusion. I slowly drank it all. It took about 5 minutes.

Whilst there was no obvious magic caffeine energy burst, it was quite a while before my evening drowsiness came on.

So I think it worked! Will I try it again?

People with taste actually drink this?

Possibly. If the caffeine can combat the drug and treatment induced fatigue and drowsiness ... it may actually be of some use. I could try more sugar and perhaps milk next time.

But I don't know what will happen should I get used to it and my taste start to return. Will I be addicted to the shit and have to get used to the real taste instead of sorta-bitter-muddy-ditch-water?

Or is that how it tastes all the time anyway? It wouldn't surprise me.

The Man with No Taste

Bonjour my fellow ex-food-a-philes,

this morning's topic has to do with the somewhat cumbersome problem of: what is taste?

It seems that there are 2 major definitions.

The first is having to do with the classic physical sense of taste and food, tongues and taste-buds, and smell.

The second is the far more subjective social question of what constitutes good or bad "taste" in everyday life - clothing, haircuts, music, and so on.

I think I can easily deal with the second definition nice and quickly like this:

One of these is in GOOD taste, and the other is NOT. Can you decide? Your entire future as a credible member of society is at stake!

Now, having done that, we can turn to the much more basic problem of definition 1 and the ability to taste our environment, most especially the food that we are in the process of eating.  Here is the basic diagram that we all grew up with from out primary school textbooks.

This is an oversimplification. We have taste-buds in our mouth, and they reach all the way down into the Stomach. Using the tongue to taste foods is just part of the process. It is of course, the major part of the process (and yes, smell is important too.)

Now imagine, if you will, your ability to taste food and drinks was ripped away from you over a period of 2-3 weeks, and then pretty much gone completely. Your sense of smell decreased to about 50% normal.

Not only that, this state of affairs is likely to continue for some months to come. And .... not only that! There's this new treatment happening which is likely to make sure your taste is fucked for even longer.

Fun on so many levels.

Yes, my dearest ones - you guessed it! These are all the side effects of months worth of wild gay sex orgies! I've sucked so much cock that my taste buds have been worn away (No no no no! Stephen! These are just stupid things you fantasise about to hide from mundane reality. 

No no no no! Stephen - wrong again! They could have happened in the depths of Tom's Bar in Berlin on a Saturday night in June 1998. Hmmm, that could actually be right! There was that American guy, the Dutch piano player boy from Amsterdam, the leather fisting couple from Darmstadt with the matching cock-rings, and about 15 grams of hash involved.)

As you may have guessed by now, these are the fantasies of a sex-starved cancer patient. I'm not staying that certain things didn't happen though ... ;-)

Arsehole!

 No, it all comes down to the lingering side effects of the Radiotherapy from 2 months back, and the new set of side effects hitting from the Chemotherapy.

The Chemo side-effects have already started (thanks for the Thrush, leaky bowels, renewed fatigue, and Mouth Ulcers: Arsehole Chemo!)

When I received the Bad News the other week (Wed 14 MAY), we were talking about the potential side-effects of trying the chemo.
Doctor Dan said, "there may be a change in the way that you taste things."

There I was, just told I probably had a year to live, and I burst out laughing (which was not expected.) "My sense of taste is already gone thanks to the radiotherapy. I don't think the chemo can make it much worse."

I casually shrugged off the problem as the doctors looked on like freaked out puppies.

That wasn't the first time I managed to catch them off guard like that! Later on in the meeting they asked about who was managing my pain control. I told them that my GP and a radiotherapy registrar were sort of handling it - ad-hoc. They suggested that I should see a pain management specialist. I agreed readily to that.

"Now I don't want you to find this too upsetting. We're not trying to imply anything at this stage," murmured a rabbit-in-the-headlights eyed Dr. Daniel. "... but have you ever heard of ... Palliative ... Care?"

Again, I burst out laughing! "Do you mean Dr. Barclay and his mob out at Port Kembla?" Dr. Dan looked taken-a-back.

"I was referred to them back when I left hospital in February as someone who would need long term recovery support," I explained jovially. "Nice lot of people. I've already met Dr. Barclay."

Dr. Dan's astonishment turned to instant relief on his face. He wouldn't have to go through the whole Palliative Care spiel that he had been dreading to deliver. With the look on his face, I laughed again. You can get a good laugh even in the darkest moments.

Anyway, it was agreed that Dr. Barclay would be the best to handle my pain problems, and that was that.

But for now - no-one can repair my missing sense of taste. It's AWOL, MIA, walked out, havin' a long smoko, shot through, completely and utterly fucked off.

They say it'll come back eventually - but that can take months. And it never just switches back on. You might get your sense of taste for chocolate back again, but only for 2 days and then, gone again. Prick teaser!

The only thing chocolate that I like at the moment is Lindt 85% Cocoa Dark Chocolate. I can't taste the chocie flavour as such, but I can taste that it's sweet with a wicked bitter afterbite.

As for milk chocolate: I bought some really nice ones for Easter, and was going to hold off until Sunday and celebrate zombie Jesus day with a nice scoff. But like an excited 6 year old, I wanted to try some now. And being the irresponsible 49 year old in charge of the eggs, it was easily resolved.

And shot the friggin' Easter Bunny

I broke up a single egg as a taster, and started to nibble it. NOTHING! It tasted like ... damp chunky cardboard. I could vaguely sense that it was sweet - but nothing more.

I gave away my Easter Eggs :-(

But the Lindt chocolate is a different matter because of the strong Cocoa content. It doesn't taste like chocolate, but at least something interesting, and it breaks down into a nice easy creamy mass.

Same with Jelly Beans. Was at the Chemist getting a script filled and saw some of those little packs of "medicinal" Jelly Beans. (Medicinal my arse - simply packed full of glucose rather than sucrose.)

I bought a pack and came home and tried one. Again no taste and it was like eating (what I imagine to be) congealed rubbery snot. Spat it out. A cheap Coles mini-cup cake followed suit a few days later.

All things containing high levels of fat and salt have little or no taste - and anything that does get through is just disgusting. Can you imagine me not snacking into a hamburger and chips? Neither can I but these are just awful to me now. 

By now you should assume that pretty much everything has no taste, or very little. Some sweet gets through vaguely. I can sort of tell the difference between the 4 basic tastes - I know if something is sweet or sour, but beyond that ... nothing. Like tumbleweeds down a dusty deserted street.

Would you like more of Mr. Lecter's Bacon, Timmy?

Even BACON! Goddamn fucking Bacon!! The food of the gods.

So nice that even Vegans have their own soya-and-chemical substitute (which isn't bad); and Muslims (at least in Malaysia) have Beef-Bacon which is very thinly sliced beef (instead of pig-meat) cured in the same way, and not a bad substitute at breakfast time.

(I don't know if the locals in Malaysia actually eat it themselves, or it's just a sop for us foreign devil Western business men.)

Tried some on Sunday when my cousin Joc visited. Ordered a bacon and egg roll. The bacon was nothing more than nicely cooked strips of slimy rubber!

Not all is bad news though. Since I can't have taste, I have been concentrating on texture. What has an interesting pleasing texture?

Things like Ice Cream and Yoghurt are a good start - nice and creamy and soothing (esp. on the mouth ulcers and thrush.) but even the ice cream needs to wait a few minutes to let it start to melt before the texture is right.

Again on the creamy scale, Cream of Chicken Soup is good, and thickened Tomato Soup (with cracked pepper for a bit of zest - yes I can taste pepper-power.)

So what does all of this add up to? A fuck-tonne of dire frustration, that's what!

Yes, I've been all funny about it - but this is getting serious. It is truly driving me crazy. It is also getting serious from the perspective of my weight. I'm not gaining any, and can barely stay stable. Just a few weeks back I lost 3 Kg over 2 weeks.

Hello would you like all my food?

This is not a good situation for me to be in. I am half my former self, and dropping. Add to this the mouth ulcers and thrush from the chemo, and you have a very nice recipe for Disappearing Stephen. It doesn't fucking matter if I get nausea from the chemo. Most food is a turn-off anyway.

I wasn't sure if I was going to show this photo of me (right). It's actually for a future post about having the chemotherapy - but in relation to what I've said, this the Amazing Shrinking Stephen. My, what masculine arms I have, and that cute pot belly.

You may think I've just taken some emaciated person and stuck my head on in Photoshop - but not so. This is me.

Soon to come with no flavour at all

One saviour that I have is the Ensure Plus™, a special medically formulated milk drink which is super rich in protein and all sorts of other good things. Normally this is given to grannies in nursing homes who are one step away from a friggin' feeding tube up their nose.

People in the know say "isn't that stuff pretty awful and sweet Stephen?" And I reply "I can't even tell the difference between the chocolate and the banana any more. How the fuck would I know otherwise?"

Banana, Chocolate, Orange, Congealed Snot. It's starting to sound like I could enjoy all of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. Yum, thanks Bertie.

Oh and radiotherapy...?

You're still an arsehole.

Tongue in the Sun

Greetings fellow sun worshippers ...

Just had a lovely day today (Sun 25 MAY)  with my cousin Jocelyn.  She came down from Sydney and arrived about 1/4 to 12, just as Lee my Community Nurse was changing my dressings.

Brave woman that my cousin is, she stayed and watched Lee clean everything up and re-dress my ear.

10 years of Work

After wandering about the house and showing it off to Joc, I gave her the fruits of my family history labour of love. A large dusty tome of the ancient family secrets? No. A pleasant little bound book stuffed with fold-out family trees? No. It was a small piece of plastic! It was an 8 Gb USB Flash Drive, containing my book The Leavetaking (which is not about her family anyway - but my mother's.)

She was so happy to get it as she has more than dabbled in the curious arts and crafts of genealogy herself - looking into her father Bob's Edwards family, and our grandmother Ena's O'Connor family. It also contains a copy of my entire Nicholson family digitised photo collection, some scans of cookbooks left behind by my mother, and my entire family history database.

It was a strange feeling that a work that if printed would fill an entire room or more, was now condensed to a few grams of plastic and silicon. In the end the contents almost completely filled the entire 8 Gb!!

After that momentous event (I fucking forgot to book the Mariarchi band - damn! Q - click your fingers quick) we headed of to the beach.

It was such a lovely warm day here (apparently reaching 27 deg C) with a nice cool sea-breeze, that we decided to have lunch down at Bulli Beach, where there is a lovely café on the headland overlooking the beach, swimming pools, rock platforms, happy families on the beach with a few braving the water, and ocean. Behind us swept an entire view of the Illawarra Escarpment.

On Bulli Beach - Panorama

That's what Wollongong is like, a slim coastal strip sandwiched between the mountains and the sea. I still remember being taught that the local Council motto means that exactly by my history teacher Father Dean back in 1979. "Urbs Inter Mare Montemque".


Although we bought it with us, I decided that my legs felt strong enough not to bother with the Walker, and the distance between the car park and café was not far. I took it slow with no problems. I ordered a Banana Smoothie (always a favourite of mine) and Bacon and Egg roll - in the hope that I may be able to taste some of it.

The egg in the roll was nice, but I couldn't taste the bacon-y power of the bacon and found the BBQ sauce somewhat overwhelming. I noticed yesterday that my tongue and gums had become sensitive, and suspect that this is a minor side-effect of the Chemo. My lack of ability to taste food is really starting to piss me off!

Joc and I sat and chatted for what seemed like ages about everything and nothing - as you do on a fine Sunday afternoon. It reminded me of the long lunches that we had many times when I lived in Sydney. Sometimes we would meet in North Sydney where I worked, sometimes in the City, and occasionally at my own stomping grounds in Newtown. When we discussed that, it almost brought me to tears. Joc suggested that Leigh, her and I should meet someday soon in Newtown for a long lunch there.

We wandered out of the café's seated area and out onto the grass in the sun. It was photo time and she took this lovely one of me with the beach as my backdrop.

My Nigerian Uncle wants to sell you this.

I snapped this quick cheeky one of her, with her commenting that it wasn't fair. Tough shit. It's been quite a while since I had an elusive up-to-date photo of my cousin.

A little wind-swept my dear?

We saw a man seated near us with a good looking camera, and assuming he knew how to use it, asked him to take my camera and get the even-more elusive shot of us cuz' together.

Lord Kodak couldn't have taken a better picture of happy Cuz'

Now, Bulli beach was much more than just a beach close to where I grew up in Woonona.
Woonona has a nice beach as well, and it has a history: Captain Cook had tried to land there 28 APR 1770 - the first place he attempted to land in Australia. Despite the need for fresh water, Cook's boats could not put in due to heavy surf.

"Saturday, 28th. In the P.M. hoisted out the Pinnace and Yawl in order to attempt a landing, but the Pinnace took in the Water so fast that she was obliged to be hoisted in again to stop her leakes. At this time we saw several people a shore, 4 of whom where carrying a small Boat or Canoe, which we imagin'd they were going to put in to the Water in order to Come off to us; but in this we were mistaken. Being now not above 2 Miles from the Shore Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander, Tupia, and myself put off in the Yawl, and pull'd in for the land to a place where we saw 4 or 5 of the Natives, who took to the Woods as we approached the Shore; which disappointed us in the expectation we had of getting a near View of them, if not to speak to them. But our disappointment was heightened when we found that we no where could effect a landing by reason of the great Surf which beat everywhere upon the shore. We saw haul'd up upon the beach 3 or 4 small Canoes, which to us appeared not much unlike the Small ones of New Zeland. In the wood were several Trees of the Palm kind, and no under wood; and this was all we were able to observe from the boat, after which we return'd to the Ship about 5 in the evening." 

Journals of the Endeavour Voyage of James Cook R.N. 1769-1771.

They gave up headed north, and the next day Cook spotted a Bay he eventually named "Botany".

Whilst Woonona had a Surf Life Saving club, at the time it had no junior section, but Bulli did!

Ever since I was born, I had problems with my right leg. A doctor at one stage suggested to my parents that I would end up in a wheel chair  - time's up, fuck off, pay the bill, and yer kid's a cripple. Life sucks!

My parents wouldn't accept an answer like that and after moving to Wollongong sought the wisdom of a local doctor who suggested that running on the sand, and swimming, could probably strengthen my gammy leg and get me walking properly without going arse-over-tit every third step.

So they put me, and my brother Chris, in Bulli Surf club:

Yellow? Painted YELLOW? Where is the classic Red brick, tinea & vomit motif?

Yes, we became members of the esteemed Bulli Aqualads - a name which could bring naught but respect and absolutely no derision at all! (You there! Yes I see you snickering behind your fingers!) We got our club speedos (aka Dick Pointers or D.P.s) and surf caps.

I have to look like this to walk properly? Gimme a wheelchair!

My brother was the natural athlete of the 2 of us - and he took to the sand and water easily. Me? I just came last an awful lot. Nonetheless, upon reflection, Surf Club was an important part of those formative years. It's values of hard volunteer work, selflessness, and ya know - trying to save people's lives - certainly had their impression on me.

The men and women with whom I associated were mostly working class salt-of-the-earth people, but in between their latest schooner of beer and fag, they had much to teach. They could party in the club house knocking back 20 tinnies of K.B. and a carton of smokes til 3 AM, and be ready on the beach by 8.

Overall though, I didn't like it much and eventually dropped out before getting my Bronze Medallion - something which disappointed my mother bitterly - around the age of 14. However, there were upsides that I found from the age of puberty onwards. I was a proto-gay-lad, not just an Aqualad - and running about with all those near naked boys helped me take on a somewhat more ... positive ... attitude.

I'll tell you a true story that no-one else has ever known.

Towards the end of the season of my final year in the Junior club (under-13s), we had our annual competition with our sister-club Cronulla Crays from south Sydney. They came down to Bulli this time.

OK, this is my 12 y.o. one -
but close enough.

That year I'd been particularly slack in the surf club, and my father and his best friend Greg Gleaves who jointly ran Aqualads had agreed that I would probably not receive my Efficiency Medal at the end of the season. (I think I was going through my first serious depression.) I was equally unenthusiastic about this competition with Cronulla.

Yes, I had medals and trophies!

Oddly I blitzed that day like I never had before - running and jumping like crazy in the sand, and entering and doing well in every swimming race. I was a regular little Iron Man for the day. This surprised Dad and Greg. They were so proud that they re-instated the Medal for me. They let me know how close I had come to losing the medal (like I gave a shit!), but could never figure out where this bout of prowess had come from.

Simple - I was 13 and horny! One of the Cronulla boys in my age group had caught my attention - he was beautiful! And he was nice too, we talked often during the competition and struck up a good friendship for the day. I couldn't be slack for this gorgeous young stud, and so I threw everything I could into impressing him.

I'm pretty sure to this day he was giving out all the right signals of his own. What could have happened had we found ourselves alone and locked in one of the changing rooms and showers in the clubhouse remained a favourite masturbatory fantasy for many years to cum.

Alas, there was no chance to do anything about it. After the competition was over, and the obligatory sausage sizzle and piss up for the oldies was done, the Cronulla Team jumped on their bus, and I never saw him again, don't even remember his name.

So there ya go! Mystery solved. The power of lust.

Oh yeah - and my gammy leg? Yes, Surf Club probably helped, amongst other things, to make sure I could at least walk properly without any hint of a problem. And I fell over a lot less.

So in honour of all of that, here is me today in front of the Surf Club.

Thank you Bulli Surf Club for all those boys in Speedos. Aw yeah - and the stronger leg.

By this stage, my strength was starting to fade, but I was desperately trying to hide it from my cousin. I was enjoying this "normal" day out. Not a nurse or CAT scanner in sight. We agreed to head home, and I rang my brother to join me there.

Chris, Joc and I sat about for a while chatting, but I couldn't stop myself from nearly falling asleep in the chair. With much sorrow I agreed to their haranguing about going to bed. I am sorta sick after all.

They left and I did indeed toddle off to bed for a deep 4 hour sleep.

Which is something I'm going to repeat right now.

What did that Cronulla boy look like? Mmmm...

Take your PICC

Greetings early morning risers and other perverts,

This week has been buzzing along at an amazing pace. I can't believe it's already Friday, albeit at stupid o'clock in the morning. Yes, the pain is getting to me again. Which is really fucking me off because almost all of yesterday (Thu 22 MAY), I was CLEAR of pain. I don't know what magic combination of Oxy, Endone and Lyrica did the trick.

A pretty good day

Actually that's not true: I've started to seriously keep track of the pain killers, the pain, and my sleep patterns. I designed this nifty form which I keep filled in.

Bring on the chainsaw

It should help the pain specialists to figure out what to do next. But the answer doesn't seem to lie in the data. I went back to bed Thursday morning about 5 am, when I woke at 6:45 am in order to get to the hospital on time to be connected to my chemo, the pain levels were almost 0.

(I order the pain levels from 0 - nothing at all, to 10 - the
screaming mimis where I wish someone would just take a chainsaw and chop off the afflicted parts of my body. I used to suffer from severe migraines, and so know about being at pain level 10. The numbers are all subjective anyway.)

Throughout the rest of Thursday the pain levels stayed amazingly low which was quite a relief! It's only been from about midnight tonight on that the pain started to go fucking doolalley again.

I mentioned in my second last post that I was about to get my PICC line in, and also attend an education session, telling me all about the fun facts of Chemo. So on Tuesday arvo (20 MAY) I rocked up to Wollongong Hospital, ready for the fun and games. And they began.

The stylish bed

I was weighed, and given a hospital gown to swap for my jacket. I was allowed to keep my trousers on. I lay down on the hospital bed and soon enough they were at it with the Ultrasound - determining which arm had the best vein to reach close to my heart. As it turned out either was acceptable, and I chose my left arm, leaving my right arm free for wanking writing.

Then they asked me to lay flat with my left arm extended so they could begin the grizzly task of running the catheter tube, through a vein that you can barely see on the ultrasound, all the way to my heart. Of course, to get to the vein requires a hole.

I think I prefer a model plane ki

It was a bit bizarre because as I lay there, the last few days worth of shit sleep started to catch up and I found myself hanging precariously between consciousness and the realms of Morpheus. Then they started.

On the left is the actual catheter kit. There is basically a tube within a tube. The outer tube - standard translucent plastic - is just the external packaging & feeder tube. The thinner tube you can see coming out one end (esp. on right of picture) is the catheter itself - what will worm its way inside of me.

They took the measuring tape (left of photo) and tried to crudely measure the distance they would have to feed the catheter for it to reach its destination - up my left arm from just above the elbow, to my shoulder, and then across my chest to close to my heart.

So-many millimetres one of them said - as if they were like Mr. Humphries measuring my inside leg.

They covered part of me over in one of those green surgical cloths that has a square window in which the work will be done.

"Just a little prick Stephen," one of them said. Were they making fun of me? I mean, I know that I've lost some weight - but I didn't need this! I was just about to jump from the bed and call for Captain Peacock, or someone in management, when I felt the little sting of the first of 3 local anaesthetics. [Did you see what I didn't do there ... I didn't make a dick joke ;-]

Two more, and a few moments later, they were ready. It was nice of the nurses to wait for the locals to actually work!

So subtle!

I didn't see how they precisely got down and into the vein so accurately. I asked later and it was done with a very large needle and a small scalpel. The next thing they were playing with the area and feeding the catheter from its feeder tube and into my body.

I was both a little disappointed and relieved that I didn't actually feel anything. There was no sensation at all of this long thin foreign object penetrating my body [almost a dick joke]. They just kept mumbling out millimetre numbers. Whilst one fed the catheter, the other was keeping an eye on the process as best they could with the ultrasound.

A few minutes - and it was done. They were putting various dressings over the wound. I had a look. There was a little blood under the clear dressings, to be expected, but that was it! It was all wrapped in a classic long white crepe bandage, winding round and around my arm - a pressure bandage to stop any further bleeding and help the hole in my body [okok - who started with the arse jokes? hands up!] to heal.

Have selfies come to this?

The only visible sign of all of their hard work, aside from the bandage, was the thin plastic tube dangling from the dressing and floating free in space - with some sort of cannula plug on the end.

The Aliens have been eating Baked Beans again.

Once I got up and dressed, they sent me off to get an X-Ray which would look and see if the catheter has been accurately placed.

Nothing special about that - except on the way to Medical Imaging there was an odd sign that I saw on a door to the outside construction zone (Wollongong hospital is having a massive new wing added, as if the fucking place isn't already a totally illogical maze to get around.) Very odd.

I returned to the Cancer Care level, and waited for the results. Nope! Mr. Humphries had got the length of my inside leg all wrong. They had pushed the catheter through too far, and it had veered up another vein and ended up near my right collar bone.

Standard dressings for a PICC Line.

They asked me to lay down again on the bed, and took off the dressings with a view to literally pulling the catheter back out bit by bit until they had what they thought was the right length. I took few snaps during the process.

Straight to My Heart

To the left is what it will look like for as long as the PICC line is needed. It will need to be re-dressed on a weekly basis as under this it goes straight into my body - a lovely vector for an infection - straight to my heart.

Hmm, "An Infection Straight to my Heart" sounds like the next big hit for some poor Country and Western singer. She could compare luuurve to MRSA or some other super-bug infection. Classy yes?

You're like an MRSA to my Heart, Bobby-Jay

And I just want to say,

We could live in sin,

Youuu, meee, and the Van-comy-cin.

 Have we had enough of this? I sure have. Rightooo ...

Once the PICC line was re-dressed, it was off for a 2nd X-Ray. They said they would forward the results up to level 2 of the Cancer Care unit, where good old Radiotherapy lives, as well as lots of offices.

Because of the delay caused by the 2nd X-Ray, it was now getting late in the afternoon, and the Education Session that I was supposed to attend was in theory going to last 1-2 hours. I couldn't see how they would fit that in - and I was right.

When I found Monica, the nurse who was supposed to gittin' me some o' that learnin' real good now (how did this post go from "Are you Being Served" to a redneck America theme? I cant think of weirder opposites,) she confirmed that it was too late. I would have to come back to the hospital tomorrow (Wed.) ! Groan...

Luckily I had to be in the hospital again early for an appointment with my Gastroenterologist (liver specialist) Dr Rogge, so Monica organised it so that the new Education session was just after. It all worked out so well.

Anyway, the 2nd X-Ray came back good. They had the catheter precisely where they wanted it, so I finally managed to head off home.

I'll skip a long post about Wednesday.

The news from my Liver specialist was excellent. She said that it had been many years since she saw a liver bounce back so well - going from nearly useless in January, to pretty functional. She told me that I must have quite an impressive strength of will.

When I told her about the nasty prognosis and my determination to squeeze as much time as possible out of life, she was equally impressed. Hey does that make me officially an impressive person? "Pull yer bloody head in Stephen!" I hear you say. Yeah yeah, OK.

Is he Impressive?

Nah - now he is fucking awesomely Impressive!!

The Education session went for about 1.5 hours in the end - but was interesting.

It went through how the Chemotherapy actually targets the cancer. This type of cancer (Squamous Cell Carcinoma - SCC) is comprised of cells similar to our fast growing  & replacing epitheleal cells, such as in our mouths, stomach & intestines. The drugs actually target these sorts of cells, which is why, as well as hitting the cancer, they alas can cause the standard side-effects of mouth ulcers, nausea & vomiting, and diarrhoea.

I was told to expect more fatigue - great! I was just starting to get a little more energy after the radiotherapy. Bye bye that.

Was it this?

Could have been this!

The drugs can also cause a change in your sense of taste. I laughed at that one! I lost my sense of taste back in 1975 after an episode of Countdown - and it never truly recovered. Or was it an E.L.O. album cover?


Er, no. The Radiotherapy knocked it out, with no sign of it coming back yet. So I guess that Chemo taste side-effect won't really matter.

One of the more interesting things that I found out is that during the first 7 to 10 days of the chemo, my bodily fluids are actually toxic. In what way precisely was never mentioned. So after a piss, I need to put the toilet lid down and do a full flush. I might have to postpone my leading roll in the Kissathon at The Toolshed on Oxford St. on Friday night. Damn.

I have to carry sanitary wipes with me so that I don't pass on something nasty, and vica versa. My pee can burn through 10-inch steel bank vaults in seconds. Watch out for the latest weird crime spree: News at 6.


But this was an education session! I could tell because towards the end there was even an out-of-date PowerPoint presentation. Nurse Monica embarrassingly rushed through that as fast as possible.

Anyway ... it ended. Another box ticked before the real event on Thursday (22 MAY) morning.

Yawn fucking yawn! It was yet another bloody 8 am start at the hospital. Have these people no sense of civilisation??

A gentleman may sit down to pee,
But he rarely rises before morning tea!