Greg’s Greatest Journey – 4 July 2008

Front Page Story …

The regional daily newspaper, The Border Mail, published a front page story on Wednesday 2nd July- with a sub story on page 6 – about this blog site following the progress of my cancer journey.

I would like to thank Brad Worrall, the journalist, for the dignity in which the interview was conducted and the story that followed. I would also like you to know that the newspaper previewed the article with me before publication to ensure that I was happy with it.

As the story has been referred to on fellow blog sites Dave from Albury and Alpine Opinion, I have had a few requests from those who have not seen it to publish it here. So here goes:

Date with destiny on the internet … by Brad Worrall

Greg Naylor is dying and he is not afraid to tell the world. In a small home along a dirt road in the upper King Valley, he is chronicling his battle with terminal cancer on his website,

Prostate cancer, first diagnosed at Easter, has spread through his body a bone scan showing hotspots from his head to his legs. The prognosis is not good.

Doctors tell him they have caught the cancer late. It has already developed into a secondary, aggressive bone cancer. A needle the size of a kebeb skewer delivers hormone therapy that may prolong the inevitable.

Concern in his head and neck have the potential to cause paralysis. Already, he wakes at night, saturated in sweat, from what is known as breakthrough pain. Mr Naylor says it is like nothing on Earth.

The grandfather of seven has already decided he wants to die in the room where his computer work station sits. The self-confessed computer geek says it’s where he can see the world go by.

However, for many on the web none of this is new. The 66-year-old has been running regular updates of his illness on his King Valley Watchdog website. Mr Naylor’s site gets about 100 to 200 hits a day. International websites have also picked up on the story.
Mr Naylor says it is cathartic and vows to continue blogging until the end. “It doesn’t bother me that people read it, it is just my thought processes,” he said.

“I’m a confrontationist, I tackle things head-on, it’s the way I am.

“And I did it partly for the kids – they’ live in Melbourne and we don’t get together very often.

“So part was about keeping them updated with where I was on the travel — whether I was doing it bad, doing it good.”

Mr Naylor said the blog evolved rather than being planned.

“I don’t know that I set out to tell the world about this,” he said.

“I’m a blogger and run a blog and started documenting the thing from the start when I didn’t know the full extent of the problem.

“But now I draw strength from the people that respond – it is amazing.

“The emotional strain (during the illness) is you don’t know whether you are going crazy, exaggerating, putting false perspectives on stuff.

“But the feedback from others, mostly strangers, has really helped.

“Still I’m not putting anything on there that will upset the family.”

Blog lights up last days … By BRAD WORRALL

ON a 4ha property at Whitfield, geese are honking in the yard, a cow is calving in a paddock, only the fruit trees in the orchard are bare.

A wood heater glows in the cor­ner of the living room.

Suddenly the lights go out. “Don’t worry that is pretty stand­ard up here, the power will be back in a few minutes,” Greg Naylor said.

It is not the first dark moment for Mr Naylor.

From his King Valley home he has been chronicling a battle with cancer on a blog for the past three months.

But for most of May, pain and un­certainty saw his website idle. The father of three and now granddad of six boys and a girl says it was his darkest moment.

“But I don’t see it that way, it was an event that I travelled through and put on the website when I was ready,” he said.

“At the time I didn’t know where I was headed, what was in store. “But when I sat down to write again it came so easily, it was raw and personal and yet it helped. “It touched others and the feedback has helped my battle.”

But the personalised approach to his mortality is not embraced by all.

His wife is supportive but doesn’t want to be part of the story, she is less than comfortable with the publicity.

Daughter Anthea Naylor has reservations too but said it had been a great source of inspiration.

“It has been good for Dad to sort out his thoughts and what he is going through,” she said.

“It is not stuff that we all knew, new stories are coming back and that is a beautiful thing for us.” His son, David, a Melbourne-based comedian, says it has been a journey for the whole family.

“It has been good because he has been unpacking his history as well,” he said.

“It’s good for us to learn that stuff too.”

Mr Naylor said that the blog and medical treatment had stretched time.

“It has only been three months, but what I have done in three months is just amazing – time seems to stand still,” he said

“While I don’t have an absolute number of days left they are all going to be big ones.

“All I can do is face it head on and I’m fortunate that I have the sense of the ridiculous, that I can laugh at it, and really fortunate that I have a family that wants to be part of it.”