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Weekly update letter

Dear family and friends

The property has been on the market for a week and we have already had a couple of local families coming through.  I hate this phase of selling up. You have to keep everything looking at its best and you can’t find all those day to day items that you usually leave laying around.

Whilst I would prefer to stay, Pauline does not want to live here after I am gone and I take solace in the thought of seeing her settled elsewhere whilst I still can.

From here, we will probably move into a retirement lifestyle complex where you own your home but not the land. The few we have seen look appealing with their community complex, cinema, bowling green and heated pools. As Pauline will eventually be there alone, she will not have to worry about maintenance and mowing and all those things that the elderly get tired of. She will be able to make new friends and participate in the village activities and hopefully enjoy her final years amongst friends.

It is a traumatic experience preparing to sell up and adopt a completely new lifestyle. As you prepare the place for sale, you remember your experiences running a hobby farm. You remember the cattle by name, learning to milk a cow, and drive a tractor, bale the hay, and all those other self fulfilling activities of rural living.

It seems certain we will have to have a clearance sale to dispose of a lifetime’s collection of stuff. The major items will be the Fergie tractor with a full range of implements along with a tandem trailer carrying a diesel welder and generating set. As for other tools, I have a collection that most only dream of having inherited my fathers and brothers stuff. I will no longer need 4 shovels and six electric drills and all the rest of it. Where we are headed, the tool sheds are about 3 x 2 metres so I’ll have to pick out one of everything to make it fit.

I’ll miss the geese shitting all over the verandah and raising their chicks and gathering the eggs from the geese and the chooks. Most of all, I’ll miss the property itself with its kilometre of creek and its waterfall below the balcony.

Should I be sad? I think so! With the finality of my disease in sight, what I think doesn’t really matter. The important thing is to help ease Pauline through our drama as best I can.

Regards
Greg

My fight – Weekly Update – 25 Oct 2008

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Dear family and friends

I never reported in last week and I have been duly reprimanded by a few dear people.  The fact was that I have done it tough over the last two weeks.  The pain events have shifted from mornings to evenings and they are harder to handle.  It is frustrating to see Pauline absolutely helpless whilst I cry with pain.  The reality is that there is nothing that she can do to help.

This brings the dubious ‘quality of life’ issue to the fore.  I cannot define the term.  I am having serious pain events and, at times, medication does not help.  At these points, you question your quality of life.  The doctor tells you that with the bone cancer, intense pain is to be expected. The best I can do is to puff the magic dragon and where is the quality of life in that?

After the respiratory problems I experienced with pneumonia, I am working on giving up cigarettes with the aid of a prescription medicine called Champix.  The course of tablets is over a four week period and you continue to smoke whilst on the tablets.  Within two weeks, the need for the nicotine fix is gone and the cigarettes start tasting badly.  From here, you have to overcome the pure habit of reaching for a smoke.  I am in my second week and I am headed in the right direction.

The vegetable garden is booming.  Pauline has been out at daybreak every morning hoeing the weeds from “Percy’s Plot” (named after my grandfather) and I am busy replacing the weeds with vegetable seeds and plants.  I have rhubarb, bush peas, snow peas, sweetcorn and popcorn, bush beans, climbing beans, tomatoes, capsicum, celery, chives, garlic chives and French shallots, lettuce, pak choi, strawberries, parsely, cantaloupes, pumpkins and potatoes … and Percy’s Plot is only half full. When all the seeds have emerged I will give you some photos.

And then there is the orchard plot and the herb garden which I will tell you about another time.  I have no idea what is growing in the now abandoned  garden down on the creek (the original Percy’d Plot) but I suspect there will be a good crop of garlic, broad beans, silver beet and snow peas which all self seed.

Today, I made a rare visit off the property and attended the official opening of the new Gentle Annie Bridge over the King River at Whitfield meeting friends, neighbours and local dignatories.

Both the mayor, Roberto Paino, and the CEO, Doug Sharp came and enquired about my health.  Having been a long term critic of the Rural City of Wangaratta, I did not expect that and I was very surprised to find that this BLOG is being followed by some of our councillors.

Of course, I didn’t let that get in the way of criticising their new bridge and I am happy that the suggestion to beatify the area below the bridge – which serves as our public swimming pool – was taken on board.

Regards
Greg

My new vegetable garden

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Dear family and friends,

You may have noticed that I have not posted this week.  That’s because the pneumonia recovery has been slow and difficult and I have not had the motivation to keep the posts coming.

This coming Friday, I see the specialist again to see how the hormone therapy is working … or not!  This will be determined by the blood PSA reading which is expected to have fallen from 300 to 100.

On Saturday, my son David came to visit and to do a few jobs around the place that I no longer have the stamina to complete – like preparing my spring vegetable garden and mowing the lawn.

David loading the tank rings with fresh topsoil salvaged from local roadworks

When he left this afternoon, I had a brand new forty foot garden bed complete with drip irrigation and string trellising for about 20 tomato plants.  At the front of the bed, we transplanted about forty strawberries along with about 20 basil seedlings.  I’ve still got to source the tomato seedlings and the bed will be complete.

Behind that bed, you see David offloading topsoil into the three tank rings and the square sleeper box bed.  The council have recently been resheeting the Edi-Cheshunt road and in widening the roadway, they conveniently dumped about twenty truckloads of virgin topsoil at the end of the property.  Whilst it was beyond my restricted capabilities, David got stuck in and shovelled four trailerloads of this sweet smelling silty loam into the trailer and then into the raised beds (over the remnants of last year’s potato crop) where I will be planting the rest of my summer vegetables.

On Wednesday, Pauline’s brother and his son are spending the day also offering to do a few jobs around the place and I hope to be able to get them to get another two trailer loads to top the raised beds up completely.  Then I will be set up for a fruitfull summer growing my own produce.

Managing all this work has exhausted me but at least my muscles are responding after six months of withering since diagnosis.

Regards, Greg

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Weekly update letter

Dear family and friends

So much has changed in my active life and my diet since being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The primary hormone treatment (ADT) of itself knocks you around. Apart from the chemical castration I have already spoken of, it reduces your physical activity, slows your walking speed and robs you of any stamina. Just wheeling a barrow load of wood from the shed to the house is exhausting. As a result, I have had to give up work and basically spend my time doing bugger all.

It also has an effect on your cognitive powers, slowing thought processes preventing multi-task thinking all together.

But, more importantly, there is a high risk of developing osteoporosis (a loss of bone density allowing easily broken bones) and an attack on the immune system. The mohphine based pain killers also cause constipation.

Last week, the doctors changed my morphine based medication from MS Contin to Oxycontin in an effort to reduce some of the side effects of the previous medication.

Last Friday, I came across a news article about a scam supplying oxycontin to the recreational drug world and it led to this CNN page listing 27 news items about the misuse of Oxycontin. It explains that Oxycontin either crushed or dissolved in water gives an instant high – the prescribed method of use is by swallowing the tablet whole.

Some of those articles reveal that Oxycontin was one of the two drugs that police are trying to source in the death of Heath Ledger.

Then you read that Courtney Love overdosed on the same two narcotics as Heath Ledger. She referred to Oxycontin as ‘Hillbilly Heroin’. Toss in Winona Ryder’s misuse of the drug and country singer Mindy McCreedy’s fraudulent access to the substance, and my use as a simple pain management tool puts me up there on the “A” list of Oxycontin misusers.

So, with all this going on in my body, I have had to modify my diet to take in more fibre and am now on a regime of supplements to combat these side effects.

I am using lactoferrins plus bovine and shark cartilage as immune boosters, Psyllium husks to add fibre and to combat the constipation, calcium supplements to ward off the osteoporosis … and I am eating porridge for breakfast for the first time in my life. I do miss my bacon and eggs!

Regards
Greg

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Weekly update letter

Dear family and friends

Living with cancer takes you through the full range of emotions. Whilst you can laugh at some aspects of it, the sad side of it is always with you. There is no relief from the reality of it all.

A couple of weeks ago, there was news of a new drug to extend the life of those with advanced prostate cancer and I volunteered to join clinical trials if they came my way (which is unlikely as the trials are scheduled for England and the USA).

These trials will provide two thirds of the participants with the new drug whilst the other third will be given a useless placebo. To qualify for the trial, the participants have to forego all other treatments currently being used.

That is one hell of a decision to have to make … take a 1 in 3 chance of going without any treatment so that the other 2 out of three get the chance to live another 12 months longer. I do not know if I have the guts to go for it.

As it stands, I have the chance of about 18 months remission if the PSA reading drops back to the normal range. After that, I can expect a constant deterioration until I lose the fight somewhere in the following year (+/- 6 months). No ifs or buts – that’s the way it is.

Recent developments don’t hold much promise either. They have trialed one form of chemotherapy that gives about half the patients an extra month of life but with major threats to the heart. Is it worth it? I don’t know.

Similarly, they have proven that another drug can slow down the inevitable osteoporosis of the hormone treatment but it does not prolong longevity or improve the quality of life. Is it worth it? You tell me.

Do not think of me as being negative here. Rather, I am explaining the reality of day to day life from the trenches … and there is nothing in the progression of the disease to be positive about.  You try not to let it get to you … but it does!  You hope for a miracle … but you prepare for the worst!  The only thing left is to try and get the most out of today.

Anyhow, the pain management becomes more finely tuned by the day and I actually got through a night without having to get up due to the pain / hot flushes.

This week, another donation of a trailer load of firewood turned up (thanks Wayne) along with a couple of meals of my favourite meal – lambs fry and bacon (thanks Shirley) and a bag of freshly picked King Valley oranges (thanks Murray).  That’s real country generosity and we appreciate it.

Regards
Greg

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Weekly update letter

Dear family and friends

You may not think so, but there is a funny side to prostate cancer.

The indignities of rectal examinations, the cathetars, the feminisation of hormone therapy, the loss of libido, and impotence are just a few of the insidious outcomes of being diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.

The fun begins when the doctor puts on the rubber glove and tells you to tuck your knees under your chin. They say that most men have trouble with this rectal invasion and the thought actually deters some of them from presenting to the doctors surgery in the first place. In my research I came across this attempt at humor to educate such men.

Then there are the hot flushes. It amuses me that, when I strip to the waist to cool down, some woman will say, “Now you know what menopause is all about!” … I have no concept of menopause … but I do have some idea about dying. When was the last time you saw a menopausal woman strip to the waist with a hot flush? Now, that would be amusing!

The little boobies look cute and the regression of the testes takes one back to ones childhood. These days, when they itch, I scratch my throat.

Finally, I came across this web article that indicates that penis size is reduced by 2.2 inches in men with advanced prostate cancer. So, I guess I will just have to settle for a normal sized penis like the rest of the guys. Sorry girls!

Back in the trenches, this week has been a mixed bag. I overdid it at the weekend spending Saturday afternoon with the Blogging boys and Sunday afternoon at the Whitfield footy club’s ‘big effort’ raffle. I found a new limitation.

I slept all day on Monday and came unstuck on Tuesday morning with the most intense pain breakthrough that I have experienced. Gee, that morphine liquid comes in handy sometimes.

Next Monday, I have a review of pain management with the Palliative Care physician and on Tuesday I get the second hormone implant at the local doctors – with that needle as thick as a kebab skewer – to help me along the way to remission.

Regards
Greg