Blog update 7 June 2016
Wow what a month we have had in
sport. The most impactful times are when life mixes with sport to create
emotion. On the weekend we had the passing of Muhammad Ali and with it possibly
the most influential sportsperson of the 20th century. My family’s connection
with Ali is strong as my cousin Tony fought him on a number of occasions
including a win on one of those occasions. The 2 most famous fights were in the
final of the national Golden Gloves tournament in 1959 for the light
heavyweight title and the semi finals of the 1960 Rome Olympics for the same
weight division.
We saw Alexander Rossi win the 100th
running of the Indianapolis 500, Daniel Ricciardo
robbed of victory through his own team’s incompetence in the world’s most
prestigious motor race, the Monaco Grand Prix, WTCC at the worlds greatest racetrack the Nordschleife at the Nurburgring and Leicester City
Monday June 6 was the 5th
anniversary of my mums passing and the pain does not seem to diminish with
time. As those close to me know my relationship with my mum was incredibly
close and I miss her terribly. She was an incredibly brave and caring woman who
saved her children’s lives and her own by leaving my alcoholic father in my
early teenage years and raised us in a safe and wonderful environment in my
home city of Townsville , Queensland ,
Australia .
On the medical front things
continue to deteriorate unfortunately with day to day life being mostly time
spent trying to sleep and figuring out how to pay the next lot of bills. Breathing
is often difficult so oxygen is a 24 hour thing. Unfortunately using the oxygen
concentrator means very very expensive electricity bills. I have reached the
point where I find myself having to stretch out my use of some medications so I
can make ends meet. Unfortunately we live in a society that has become
conditioned to thinking that Cancer in its various forms is the worst thing
that someone can get and we have this whole societal thing that if you fight hard
enough you can beat anything. Unfortunately this is simply not true. If you have Cancer there are so many organisations that are out there to help when you lose everything because of the disease. Unfortunately this is not the case if you are in a position like mine.
The concept of beating a disease
comes with the idea that the human body can somehow heal anything if the right
treatment can be found and the right attitude is exhibited. Once again this
could not be further from the truth. The heart and lungs simply do not have the
ability to regenerate tissue and rebuild function once they are damaged. There is
no such thing as having chemotherapy or some other regime of drugs that will
somehow miraculously allow you to go into some form of remission or be disease
free if you somehow “don’t give up”. Medical reality just doesn’t work that
way. This is the reason that the treatment of last resort is solid organ
transplantation. Unfortunately not everyone in that situation is a candidate
for a solid organ transplant.
So often we hear stories of people
who get given a short time to live with a form of cancer and then all of a
sudden we find out that they have gone into remission or the chemo has worked
and they are cancer free. These are great stories and always pleasing to hear. Nobody
wants to hear of someones death least of all someone like me who actually knows
what it is like to actually die and then be revived after 20 minutes. Death is
horrible. Its messy, often very painful and unlike what palliative care people
will try to tell you it is never dignified. Death is the human body’s way of
saying “I’ve had enough, shutting down now”.
My point? Remember the miracle
stories of being cancer free or going into remission? Well they don’t exist
when you have truly terminal diseases such as end stage heart and lung failure.
If you aren’t a candidate for transplantation you are going to die and it is
going to be a horrible way to go.
Think about this the next time you
say something stupid and uneducated like “it could be worse, you could have
cancer” to someone who has end stage heart failure or their lungs are failing. The
truth is it can be and is worse and it is happening to the person you are
saying that to. And yes I have had to cop this from people who don’t have a
clue. I even had to hear it from a former ABC Radio colleague when I was the
subject of an interview.
On the medical front things
continue to deteriorate but I will continue to do my best to keep writing and get
the things I want to get achieved. Went to hospital today to do a pre admission
check for an upcoming colonoscopy. After going through my records and what I am
dealing with right now the doctor said to me “with everything you have to deal
with getting bowel cancer really is a minor worry”. Given the now extremely
high risk of me having anaesthetics it was decided the procedure was too high
risk to go ahead with and we cancelled. Unless it is an emergency any sort of
general anaesthetic has pretty much been ruled out for any procedure now
including an operation I really need to have but will simply have to put up
with the pain till I die. Bugger.
As usual each day is a battle
however it really is hard not to get ticked off when people do silly and
selfish things like disregard disability parking spots or park across 2 car
parks when one will do. Grrrrrrr lol
Till next time, keep fighting the
good fight
love D
xoxoxo
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