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Weekly update letter …

Dear family and friends

Good feedback from the Border Mail story continued this week. I had a visit from one of the locals, Phil Gambold – a colourful character who read the paper and come to let me know he was there for Pauline and I.

Phil Gambold - farmer & friend

We had a great conversation and he informed me that he had hosted a Collingwood footballers camping weekend on his King River side farm back in March. I mean, he could have told me back then … but he was sworn to secrecy.

It seems Josh Fraser has been camping on Phil’s property for years and when a camping trip was mooted in the club, Josh said he knew a place where nobody would find them. That’s our King Valley!

Anyhow, the word is that – back then – they were targeting 4th place so they could play Geelong first up because they knew they could do them like a dinner. So, Eddie really does think they can take this year’s premiership.

Pauline came back from Canberra on Tuesday … with a bloody cold! No cuddles and sleeping in the back room wasn’t what I was looking forward to. In my last post, you will have found that it hasn’t been a real good week for me but the pain management seems to be finally coming into place.

It is amazing, I start falling apart and so does everything around me. First, it was the mower and then the washing machine. Being on the pension has it’s benefits with the end of financial bonuses for both Pauline and I – just enough to replace the washing machine. I was telling the palliative care social worker about this and she told us not to rush out and buy one yet as DHS had a grant program that just might help out so we applied. On Thursday, we got a call from Harvey Norman to tell us that DHS had told them to deliver a new washing machine under the grant scheme. How good is our Social Services system! We are so grateful to all involved.

This coming Friday is crunch day. I front up to the urologist to get the verdict on my blood PSA reading. At the time of diagnosis, it was measured at 800 and 1000 – extraordinary numbers when the normal range is between 0 and 4 calculated to 2 decimal places. Under screening processes, you get above 4 and they are looking for early stage prostate cancer which can usually be cured or at least delayed so that it never becomes a problem. It just shows how developed my late stage prostate/bone cancer really is.

Anyhow, if the hormone therapy is working, the PSA reading is expected to have returned to the normal range where they declare remission, probably for a couple of years. If the treatment has failed, I guess I am in the sh*t.

No doubt, I will be letting you know next weekend.

Regards
Greg