A mixed day

The day started out rather unusually.  I slept most of it. A number of other factors caused both Jenny and me to suspect that I had a urinary tract infection.  I get those occasionally. So I got a lot of cranberry juice into me. Cranberry is very good at killing UTIs.

For dinner that night Jenny gave me savoury mince - cooked my way. It worked well.

 

I had an awful night after that, with nausea, constipation, stomach pains and vertigo making a very unpleasant combination.  I woke up in the morning feeling fairly well, however.

David Isaac

I am not much into receiving visitors these days but I received from David, a Sydney anesthesiologist, a call saying that he was a keen follower of my writings and wanted to come up to Brisbane to meet me in person while that was still possible.  In the circumstances, I told him I would see him tonight.  Jenny kindly made us both a cup of tea.

It was an unusual meeting. He spent 95% of the time telling me about himself and the political writers he had been reading recently. They were all far-Right and I am guessing that he hoped I was one of them. I do make comments about race and IQ at times so it was an understandable mistake on his part.  My interest in those topics is largely academic, however. I have in print quite a lot of academic journal articles on those topics.

It is in fact amazing that mentioning the low average IQs of African-Americans does not get me "cancelled".  But I think that the clearly academic character of my writing saves me from that fate.

An especially good Saturday

Saturday morning is my usual time to see Anne. And this Saturday, Anne drove herself over to my place. She has now served her period of penance due to her stroke.  I was not in much pain after my fall and was mainly bothered by my persistent vertigo.  Anne and I spent most of our time together lying down and listening to Bach, however, that was only a small problem. We still had a nice time.  Jenny made us  a good brekky.

But that afternoon Graham arrived unannounced and unexpectedly. He evidently wished to see me before I died and thank me for my life. With constant travel restrictions between Queensland and Victoria, that was wise.  Anyway, Joe joined us for a good chat on my verandah. The George Floyd matter was much discussed

Diary of a decline

Fri 16 April vertigo onset

Sat 17 April Morning with Anne.  George drives her here in our Prado at 7:20am, Jenny makes us breakfast. Despite vertigo, we have our usual nice time together. George collects Anne 1:30pm

Anne with Ganesha

Sun 18 April Bad fall in bathroom due to vertigo.  Hurt my Left side

Mon 19 April Saw Dr Gahlot to get Stemetil for vertigo. Abandoned dining out that night

Tue 20 April Lamplit dinner

Wed 21 April Saw Dr Gahlot about pain from fall. Now taking 200mg  Tramedol daily 

Thu 22 April Joe buys an electric goanna with my assistance

Fri 23 April Waiting for ailment progression. Mostly sleeping

The end is nigh

My stomach cancer did NOT respond to the lutetim test so that hope of recovery is gone.

I did seem to be undergoing some sort of spontaneous recovery yesterday.  I  even had enough energy to put up my political blogs

This morning, however I have woken up with a disabling case of vertigo. It has  however improved a little over the day so far so I will just have to see how that goes.  But with the fail of the lutetium test I don't have long to go anyway.

Jenny and Joe are with me 24/7 so I am well looked after.  I will in any case die amid love and that may be the best anyone can ask

A good Easter

Despite living in the shadow of death from cancer, I still enjoyed my Easter.  The highlight was of course the Saturday morning I spent with Anne but subsequent events have been good too.

On Sunday morning Jenny organized a family brunch.  Present were Jenny, myself, Joe, Katie, Timmy and his wife Rachel.  Timmy is strictly not a relative but I helped bring him up and have always thought highly of him.  He is now a very pleasant young man.  His young wife Rachel is gorgeous and she has recently presented him with a baby boy -- Liam. Photo below. 

Much of the conversation centred about Timmy's planned trip to the UK.  He is optimistic that all the COVID restrictions will have eased by the time he gets there.  If a change in the regulations "traps" him there he is not concerned.  He has a British passport so can work there.  He is looking forward to seeing Paul and his other relatives

Jenny put on a Canadian breakfast with pancakes, good bacon and real Maple syrup

Then that afternoon Jenny came over to my place and we went out for dinner. We went to the "Bollywood" which is now called "Spice Avenue". It still has first class Indian food. We had Tandoori chicken, samosas etc. We were the only customers there so got good service

Then this morning (Monday) Joe came over for breakfast and we  went to our old brekky haunt -- the Yeronga pie shop.  I had an excellent lamb and Rosemary pie. We mostly talked about American politics, as usual.  The trial of Derek Chauvin was much discussed.  That he will get a fair trial seems very doubtful.

And tonight Jenny is making me -- at my request -- savoury mince on toast for dinner.  She does good savoury mince.   On Mondays we often go to Nandos but they close early today.

A poignant occasion

An interesting Easter Friday

Last Tuesday I had a CAT scan of my stomach that revealed a large number of enlarged lymph nodes around the stomach.  They were obviously cancerous and were clearly well advanced for there to be so many of them.  So my life expectancy was obviously sharply reduced, but by how much is as yet unknown.  I have been feeling very poorly and weak but my weight has come down to 94kg so that is a compensation of sorts. I was up to 120kg at one stage.  I am in only slight and intermittent  pain from it

I told everyone about the scan and partly in consequence of that Joe came over this morning to have breakfast with me.  He wanted to spend time with his father while he can.  Since most other places were closed for the Holy day, we went to Maccas. 

We had a very lengthy talk about the big interest we have in common: American politics.  Although we both know the same facts, there was a difference in our conclusions about the matter.  Joe takes a very long-term view of where American politics are going whereas my horizons are pretty well limited to the mid-terms.  It seems possible that the GOP may regain control of the House at that time, which would spike Biden pretty well. Joe thinks that the Democrat party will eventually implode and lose power as a result of that

Anyway it was a great chat that I much enjoyed so it helped lift my mood considerably.

Then at 3pm my kindly brother came over at my request bringing with him my late mother's collection of family photos.  I thought that some might seem worth putting online.  I enjoyed seeing many of them and I have picked out three that seemed of particular interest.  

The first is of my sister "Jack" (Jacqueline) when she was a kid.  It is a good photo of her and is one of the few remaining traces of her life.  She was born 14.9.1945, died of breast cancer in her '60s and had no children. She was in general a good and kind person and remained good friends with Gary Ward, her ex-husband, for the whole of her life. He was there at her deathbed.  So I am not the only one in the famiy who keeps good relationships with former partners.  My other two siblings are still with their original partners.

Next is a photo of my mother and father in their younger days sitting in a vintage car -- a Whippet maybe. It looks like it had a dicky seat so  would have been "sporty" in its day.

And the third family photo is one I find mildly hilarious.  My father was described as a "bit of a lair" in his youth -- i.e. he enjoyed dressing fashionably.  You see both him and my mother in the photo. What gets me is the hat.  It is a super formal one -- maybe a Homburg. He wore it convincingly.

And Jenny came over tonight to share dinner.  I had asked her to dig out what she could of photos taken in her younger days.  When I met her she was already a mother of three so showed some effects of that.  Since she still looked pretty good at that age, however, I guessed that she must have looked rather  gorgeous in her teens. No good photos of her teenage self have survived but the photo of her below when she as about 11 gives a very good hint of how good she would have looked a few years later. She was holding ducklings

And a photo of Jen when she was 15.  Not terribly clear but it will have to do