GREG'S LEGACY

Google Aged-Care in the news but be surprised for an avalanche of disheartening stories where not only are our aged being mistreated, but in many cases being neglected to the point of death … and no one is being held accountable.  It really has come down to this!

Over the three years of terminal cancer diagnosis, I have been a great advocate of our national health system that has not let me down throughout my illness.  It is so much better than anything the United States can offer but it is far from perfect.

Here is a small collection from today’s news services that represents three unnecessary deaths and a couple of other stuffups that our aged have to tolerate every day.  Will you wait until it happens to your parents before you take this issue seriously?

Woman dies of heart attack while strapped to toilet

A Victorian coroner has called for better education for aged care staff after an 89-year-old woman died while strapped to a toilet.

Elderly lady’s death ‘tragic and distressing’

The SA coroner says an elderly woman who was under her daughter’s care need not have died in the way she did.

Barbara Piro died at her Plympton home in 2008 while her daughter was in the United States.

Patient died after ‘harsh’ treatment

South Australia’s Coroner has found staff at an Adelaide nursing home were harsh and unsympathetic towards a dementia patient who died after being heavily sedated.

• 96yo wins right to stay in Australia

  Posted 2 hours 39 minutes ago | Updated 34 minutes ago

  An ailing 96-year-old British woman has won the right to stay in northern Tasmania with her only surviving relatives.

On the first Sunday every month, the Middle Pub at Euroa has a great Jam Session where local musicians come along and play from 4 pm onwards.

Of course, the pub soon fills with those of us who appreciate live music created in our midst.

The bass player Jan (Yahn) is the local music teacher and there were no less than three of his pupils playing tonight including his youngest student seen her making her show biz debut completely lacking in nerves … a true little professional.

Jan on bass, Neale Watson on guitar and Gary on the drums form the basic three piece blues band that starts the afternoon off.  Soon, the amateur musos start arriving with their saxaphones, trombones and guitars.  To complete the picture we have a few local girls, including one of my visiting district nurses providing both backup and solo singing performances.  It truly is a great evenings free entertainment.  Why don’t you come along some time

I have had a gutful of Bob Brown today.  I woke up to hear him spruking on behalf of gay marriage and then, by lunchtime, he was criticising the government over the refugee swap program. lets look at each of these ideas separately.

Gay Marriage

I have no problem with Bob Brown being gay – that is his choice – but I protest his determination to advance the concept of marriage for gay partners. He will not marry his partner if gay marriage is legalised in Australia – an event the party founder has predicted will occur in the Gillard government’s first term.

As a married man, with grandchildren, I give thanks to the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.  Marriage is a religious rite between a man and a woman that is enshrined in civil law throughout the world.  Historically. marriage is the accepted/preferred union for the procreation of our species and is still enshrined in civil law.

Without procreation, society withers and dies.  Those in gay unions cannot make a valid contribution to the survival of the species.  Don’t give me the crap about gay couples producing children by surragacy which is still against Australian law.

I am offended by the very idea of two men – or two women – being granted the equality of recognition of marriage that is currently reserved for the union between man and woman … as it should be.

Refugee Swap with Malaysia.

Bob Brown claimed the Greens to be the “humanitarian party” and criticised the “two major parties” for being hellbent on exporting Australia’s problem with refugees arriving by boats to other countries.  Whilst I agree that the Australian Government has walked away from it’s responsibility all the way back through the Howard years.

However, when asked if he would bring down the Gillard Government over this issue, he said no because it would mean the ascension of the demon Abbott to become Prime Minister.

How can he be genuine to his beliefs if he rails against the inhumanity of the Gillard Government sending unattached children to Malaysia and not be prepared to do anything about it whilst he holds the balance of power in our government.

There have been recent attempts by Muslim clerics to convince politicians that Sharia Law should be introduced into the Muslim community in Australia.   Experience gained overseas shows us that attempts would then be made to spread the influence of Sharia law beyond the Islamic community as Muslims gain a greater voice in society.   There should only be one law for all people in Australia.

Two protest groups have been formed to contest the religion question on the census – one seeking to deny God – the other to argue that Australia must declare it’s Christianity in the face of the onslaught of the Islam faith as practiced by Australia’s one million Muslims.  Following either path will be a manipulation of the census results because people will be making choices based on fear rather than fact.  If, in fact, Australia is losing it’s Christian heritage, it is important to know so that people’s belief systems can be better understood.

http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/2011%20Census%20-%20Census%20Help%20-%20Religion

A challenge … How many Australian made items can you find in your home?

John Smith started the day early having set his (JAPANESE) alarm clock for 6 am. While his coffeepot (from CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his Electric razor (made in HONG KONG). He put on a (SRI LANKAN made) dress shirt, designer jeans (from SINGAPORE) and Tennis shoes (made in KOREA).

After cooking his breakfast in his new (INDIAN made) electric skillet, he sat down with his Calculator (made in MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his Watch (made in TAIWAN) to the radio (made in INDIA), He got in his (EUROPEAN) car, filled it with GAS (from SAUDI ARABIA) and continued his search for a good paying (AUSTRALIAN) job.

At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his computer (made in MALAYSIA), John decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (made in BRAZIL), poured himself a glass of (FRENCH) wine and turned on his (ASIAN made) TV and then wondered why he can’t find a good paying job (in AUSTRALIA).

He is now hoping he can get some help from the government who are going to create even more jobs overseas with a carbon tax designed to destroy ever more Australian jobs because it is in the natural interest according to our Prime Minister (who was made in WALES).

Technorati Tags: political, satire, australian, manufacturing, jobs, imports, carbon tax

When visitors see the productivity of our vegetable garden, they cannot understand how we can get such results when I am so ill.  The photo above was taken on 1st August and shows broccoli ready to harvest along with lots of fancy lettuce in the foreground, french shallots in the middle of the bed with Pak Choi going to seed surrounded by a ring of cauliflower … there is no bare space available – not even for weeds.

The bed was set out in early march with three rows of strawberry plants from last season interspersed with lettuce seeds also from last years garden.  Down the middle of the bed, small french shallot bulbs from last year were planted into three rows followed by three rows of snow peas which failed miserably.  Cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli seedlings were purchased in a punnet.

The secret to this success is entirely due to the previous owner building the bed and filling it with three parts pig poo to one part topsoil.  It is the most nutrient rich garden I have ever had.  The excess of pig poo is the reason why the peas failed.  Their leaves just curl up and wither.  Beans react in the same manner.

We are growing much more than we can be expected to eat so we give some to any sucker that comes our way simply to get some space to throw a few more seeds at the garden bed.  The lettuce will soon have to be removed to allow next seasons crop of strawberries hiding in there somewhere to see the light

I have long considered palliative radiation a treatment of last resort.  When told at diagnosis that it was too late for any cure with either chemotherapy or radiation, palliative radiation was put on the back burner for a time into the future when analgesics could no longer contain the pain of the cancer spreading in the bones.

With tumour activity in the left ischium (bum bone), the sciatic nerve was copping the brunt of the activity with intense pain affecting my mobility.  Prior to this, I had been successfully managing the pain with Fentanyl patches (100 ug/hr).   But then, all hell broke loose.  The pain intensified – I needed a walking stick – I could not lift my left foot off the ground for the pain.  Pauline had to help me get my socks and jocks on and when I laid down, I yelped like an injured dog as my left leg was raised up onto the bed.

I was rapidly losing my mobility and Palliative Care once again came to the rescue with a walking frame, a foot hoist and a wheel chair.  An Occupational Therapist came and evaluated our bathroom facilities because, if I was to lose my mobility, I would need to help in showering and looking after myself.

A hand shower was installed with a shower curtain to replace the shower door so that a district nurse would be able to attend to my needs.  At the same time, they installed a heavy duty towel rail, a heightened toilet seat and safety hinges on the toilet door.  These consist of breakable plastic hinge pins making the door stop removable so that the toilet door can be opened outwards in case of emergency.  Things were really looking grim.

Throughout all this, my intake of oral morphine (opiates) went from the use of the patches to the inclusion of 160 mg oxycontin (hillbilly heroin) plus around another 30-40 mg of ordine (rapid acting breakthrough pain morphine).  Two years ago, I had to be detoxed when I reached 200 mg/day and here I am on the equivalent of more than 300 mg/day.  This was a new low … a new reality!

My doctors all recommended palliative radiation as a way to relieve some of the pain. So … the time had come for last resort treatments.  I was not looking forward to this as it indicated a major degradation in my condition.

The first trip to the Peter McCallum Cancer Institute was to be examined and evaluated for potential radiation treatment.  Having determined that they could help, the treatment began the following week being a daily treatment over five consecutive days.

Living more than 150 Km from the clinic, we qualified for transport and accommodation costs at one of the hospital’s preferred locations.  In our case, we were accommodated at Ryder Cheshire House in Ivanhoe – a charitable institution that provides accommodation for country patients to all of Melbourne’s hospitals.  The daily fee of $30/pp was refunded by the government as was the ambulance transport to and from the hospital each day.  It goes without saying that as Peter Mac is a public hospital, there were no treatment costs either.

The treatment itself was interesting.  First they do a CT scan to map the area they will be treating.  To be able to relocate the machine every day, they put four tiny alignment ‘tattoos’ on your torso so that they can treat the correct area each time.  The amazing thing is that palliative radiation is a low dose that lasts for less than 15 seconds above and below your body.  There is no feeling associated with the radiation treatment itself … just a low hum of the machine..  The objective is to damage everything in the path of the beam on the assumption that the good cells will regenerate whilst the cancer cells will die off.

The effects of the radiation usually take a week or more to cut in with the maximum impact becoming effective within six weeks.  No one knows how long the benefits last as every case is different.  In my case, I had immediate relief of some pain overnight with further improvement over the next two days.  But then, the accumulative effect of the radiation cut in and I didn’t feel too good with some nausea and vomiting as well as some blood in my stools.  These effects gradually got better and, after a couple of weeks, the intensity of the bone cancer pain had diminished, the bleeding stopped and I was improving.

After the prescribed six weeks to maximum effect, I was a new man.  I no longer needed the walking frame and, in fact, I started losing my walking stick as it wasn’t needed as much.  I can dress myself again and I have been able to reduce my intake of opiates because the radiation has alleviated the self-sustainability of the pain I had been suffering.

Palliative radiation has been a resounding success for me and today, palliative Care came by and picked up all the mobility equipment that I no longer need.  This included the wheel chair, the walking frame, the toilet high chair and the foot hoist … and I never used my walking stick once.