Not Dead Yet !: a bit of a mood swing...

7th September 2017... just after 8pm

This afternoon, Deb & I have a post-op meeting with the neurosurgeon. I accept the unchanged prognosis with practiced attitude. Eat, rest, wake up ... and find that reality feels just a shade darker.

Not to worry! Reality always sucks! This is MY reality -- to view as I will :-)

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First, time to change the email signature.

In case you have ever wondered: I collect quotes that I like. Most, I like them because I agree with them... at some level. Then I use each quote in my email signature, changing whenever I feel that I need a change.

Sometimes the quote is relevant, to my mood or situation or email subject. Mostly, though, it's just a quote which... says something to me. For 99% of the quotes it is just the next in the list.

The new quote -- below -- is from the 99%. "Asmander" is a character in a book by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The quote -- it seems to me -- is true. Which worries me. But has no relevance to this post. Except, perhaps, to remind myself to forget the urge to quarrel but rather -- in the words of other philosophers: Be excellent to one another :-)

And, time to: Party on, Dude !

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Last night's not-so-short post, plus nervous tension at dawn, meant that I was awake for breakfast by 7 or 8am. Early for me :-)

I tick a task off my to-do list: Let the tax accountant know the situation. Ask, Is there anything we need to do before death? Tick, task done.

Deb & I go to the library, and shopping. Enjoy coffee & cake at The Forum. Home for lunch followed by a rest... Still, I'm not relaxed enough to sleep.

Two pm and we are at Mr Lam's office, for a post-op discussion. It's the same -- entirely expected -- news, with a chance for further Q&A. I later report the same-old-news via email variations on this:

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We're just back from a post-op visit to "my" neurosurgeon. His opinion is unchanged: statistically I have 12 to 15 months to live. Rats, eh :-) I have a few more weeks recuperation before starting treatment. Radiation & chemotherapy.

Overall, the prediction is: I could drop dead anytime. Or hang around for more than a year. A seizure itself is unlikely to actually kill me. I will have (statistically) 12 months of physical and/or mental degeneration. (I've told the kids that if my jokes are not as good as usual, they are to say so. As usual, they will be ignored.) There will be regular scans, periods of treatment, perhaps time for ball as well as brain treatment... Until it all becomes pointless, or too late.

Luckily I'm proficient at 1984 double-think: At one and the same time I believe (a) I'm dying, nothing I can do except accept it and (b) what would doctors know, I plan to be a very long-lived statistical anomaly. Either way, no worries.

Deb raises an interesting question: What do I want on a bucket list? So far... nothing... it's all either uninteresting or already done :-) Though the emails & blogging will continue...

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Hmmm.

Oh well.

We go to the hospital coffee shop, I choose a rather large choc eclair... which I demolish. We enjoy some discussion on whether or not I should worry about watching my weight :-) My thinking, btw is, I'll eat if/what I want but I'm still sort of glad that food has never really been a driving force for me.

Home again. Where I spend some time with emails, spreading the news.

With apologies to those who have just received a morbid and unexpected bit of negative news. Prefaced only, for some, with the suggestion that you sit down before reading. My own preference -- when it's someone else attempting to hog the limelight -- my preference is that I know what it's all about. Whether I care or not. Just so that I do not feel left out.

I'm happy that people -- anyone, everyone, especially people that I like and care about -- I'm happy that people know the situation. If you want more detail, feel free to ask. Or read this blog. If you want to talk to me, you know the current central issue in my life! No need to wonder, no need to avoid... no need to mention it at all, if that is your preference. Whatever you want or need, I'm happy.

See, it's all about "me" :-)

Speaking of me... still... again: Deb asks, Do I want to build a Bucket List? As mentioned above, really, I'm quite happy with what I -- we -- have done so far. Not quite true, but I'll get back later with details. Especially if I do think of new items for my list...

A year or two back I did think about items on other people's bucket lists. You know the sort of thing: Climb Mt Everest, eat the very last of an Endangered Species, fight for World Peace (fight for peace?!). Sure, some people's ideas seem interesting. What I have, I decided, is more of a Fucket List:

"This" task would challenge me to my limit... the result would be extreme satisfaction... fame and glory around the world... an absolute Wow! to have completed... but then I would (eventually) be dead and it would not matter. So... Fucket. That task is definitely *not* on my personal to-do list.

I decided that I prefer the simpler... achievable by me... successes. Things which will bring pleasure to me, Deb, possibly others. And leave me/us with the capacity to do something more, something equally pleasurable.

Small successes, small but important pleasures. Leave the big stuff to people who need the bigger successes. (And, to be honest, who have the capacity to work a lot harder that I care to.)

Okay, I do have a few target tasks. Running the Cradle Mountain trail run was on the list -- till this week :-) But it was more of a point at which to aim... and if (now when) I ran out of time, and had missed -- it does not matter.

Still, it would be nice to have a few items on my ... "Going towards This" list. These may crop up in a future post or two.

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So. I spend an hour or two spreading the nothing-has-changed news to friends and family. Maintaining The Attitude. Putting the facts into words does help... Helps me, at least :-)

Dinner. Lamb chops. Perfectly cooked lamb chops which set off the smoke alarm. Deb cooks the food that I love to eat :-)

After a day of nervous excitement... with confirmation of all that I already knew... I fall asleep after dinner, with Deb watching TV. I have been reading but can barely follow the words (of a good book, too).

Wake up. Deb is upstairs, doing some exercise. I realise:

Oh. Shit. That news is bad, isn't it. Bugger. I'm hit by a touch of gloom. What to do...

Obviously: Go to the toilet. Blog. Get the cathartic juices flowing!

And now... I'm back to "normal" :-)

Belief/disbelief. Acceptance/denial. wtf/whatever. Deal with it. A friend's email suggests -- absolutely correctly -- that Deb will be more fraught than I. For me, there will be a definite end. For Deb, a life to carry on... without me! What a terrible fate :-)

I have "enjoyed" a brief dip into the extreme shallows of despair.

And now I'm back :-) So.

Back to that book. Am I happy/sad? Accepting/denying? I'm getting on with life. Cause when it's gone, it's gone. And then I won't be here to be worried.

Now back to a cup of tea. Perhaps yet more food. And that good book...