Monday, 4 February, my brother and I met
with registrar Dr Sarah and then Dr Lisa.
My liver continues to function normally and the CT scan shows one lesion
reduced from 36mm to 30mm and the other being monitored increased by 2mm to
56mm. They regard this along with
other information as showing the cancer remains dormant. My next appointment is March 27 and
will be a blood test and discussion with Dr Lisa. It is now nine months since my last chemotherapy.
As each appointment approaches I endeavour not
to think about it much. And after
I find out the result I feel a bit down.
It seems an anticlimax. I
am very grateful that the cancer remains dormant. Logically, I want each appointment discussion to be about
the cancer remaining dormant.
However, emotion sits in the background. Another thing I notice is that I am more niggly and touchy as
the appointment approaches.
Our daughters-in-law continue to progress fit and
healthy through their pregnancies.
We now know there will be two granddaughters. While two moved out, four of us remain in the home, however, my brother arrived
last Wednesday for a two week visit – so our home remains ‘packed to the
rafters’.
Barbara is flying to the US for two weeks with
her family from 9 February. Before
she returns I fly to Dubai and am working in Abu Dhabi for a day and visiting
friends Pam and Allan in Uganda during the first week of March. At the end of March Barbara and I, with
our friends Steve and Lesley are spending a weekend in Canberra including
taking a hot air balloon ride.
Three major items over the last two months I
would like to report upon are Christmas, backyard work and Country Music
Festival in Tamworth.
Christmas
Our family Christmas celebration was on Sunday
December 23 to allow for family members doing other things on Christmas.
The Club 55 Heyco Christmas was very enjoyable: entrée of scallops,
roast shoulder of pork and vegetables main course and trifle dessert prepared,
as usual by the Heyco siblings. A
raucous and fun time was had opening the presents. In a very civilised manner our celebrations ran from late
morning to early evening.
Backyard Blitz
From before Christmas and into the new year
the major project was removal of the old shed and replacement with a new 3.75 x
3 x 2 metres shed. The new Easy-Shed
has a sliding door and two louver windows. It was not that easy to assemble and took many hours and
reading of instructions. The walls
and roof parts were separately assembled and then erected. I could not do this on my own. Barbara, our three sons and our
friends from Kuala Lumpur
assisted.
After the shed was erected I built a workbench
and set of 3 by 2.1 by 0.9 metre shelves and a vertical unit for holding garden
tools and a portable bench.
Working with various tools and using bolts and screws I thought of my
Dad as many of the items were his.
I laid bricks for garden edging, mixed concrete, laid pavers and sifted
dirt. Pete and I fixed the fence
post beside the back gate by digging out the bottom section of the broken post,
cementing in a new post base and bolting the top part of the old post to it.
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| The shed this afternoon |
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| The shelving already filling up |
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| The workbench with gear to be repacked |
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| The vertical storage unit |
I did not expect to be doing so much building and other activities again in my lifetime. I was pleasantly surprised and how well I did things and my methodical approach. I felt good usually working several hours in a day and sometimes quite long days.
Country Music Festival Tamworth
I made my fourth trip to Tamworth for the
Country Music Festival from Wednesday 23 to Sunday 27 January. I stayed with friends John and Alison
and met up with lots of people.
Meeting up with our neighbour Graeme and his friend Trevor we visited
with his cousin Mandy and her husband Ken
'Chainsaw' Lindsay seeing him perform. I also visited friends and relatives and on
the way home visited a cousin and her family.
I saw a number of great acts. One of these was the Hillbilly Goats who specialise in
hillbilly and blue grass music.
Another was Bill Chambers
at his sessions at The Pub where he fosters young Country Music musicians. His famous daughter, Kasey and her husband Shane Nicholson
made a guest appearance.
As always, my favourite time was at the Supper
Club run by the amazing Andrew
Clermont. I particularly
enjoyed the Connor sisters, Siskin River. You can see their performance of their
own song Walking Dead
on U-Tube which was filmed at the Supper Club. These girls are stunning – the U-Tube does not do them
justice – eerie, magnetic, erotic, ethereal, awesome terms do. I also enjoyed Salvation Jane and Totally Gourdgeous a
group of four amazing musicians including Andrew Clermont.
Tamworth holds the world’s second largest
country music festival and it is the world’s tenth largest music festival. The whole event is a great credit to the
NSW regional country city of about 35000 people.
