26 June 2010

Lauren's cancer journey pt 3

My trip away to Queensland, before LT started treatment, gave me lots of happy times for the memory tank. I jotted some of them down over a beer on the way back to Hobart.

1829, Wed 6 January 2010.  Melbourne Airport.

The last couple of days have been a mixed bag, feelings-wise, which is pretty normal for me approaching any sort of 'change event' (Don Watson would be proud of my management speak).  I've had a few moments of despair that tend to lead to antisocial outbursts at family members, but they've passed quickly.  I'm a bit scared of what my role as a carer for Lauren might entail, and it's pushing my fear of commitment button pretty hard.  I need to remember that I'm still somewhat on holiday and that I need to look after myself if I'm going to be worth having around at all.  I wish our travel plans were still locked in; it would give me at least one thing to structure the immediate future around.

Phew.  Maybe no wild night tonight, going by my beer breath.  Gotta do something to fight the boredom though.
So LT has had her three first radiation blasts, with only minor side effects so far.  Poor girl was very uptight with that sort of whole-body nervousness before her first dose, but luckily things went reassuringly well. The mystery at this point is which other side effects might show up, how bad they'll be and how long before we're thoroughly fed up with the daily rigmarole of treatment.  You'll here about it here first, dear diary.

This tiny screen gives me fierce eyestrain.  I look up every now and then and can't pick the gender of anyone further than 5m away.  I guess it doubles my perving potential, if I really get desperate for a bright side.

Maybe I'll finish by jotting some holiday highlights to jog the memory, since I was slack as a lazy dog with the camera this time.  In no particular order, they are:

  • Playing at least 15 rounds of yard golf with Alex and, in between the long periods of sucking, actually nailing a few shots;
  • Trying twice, for several hours at a time, to tune A's nitro buggy to a useable state and failing;
  • Spending at least a working week setting up, fixing or otherwise fiddling with Dad, Mum and Alex's computers,  rendering the household somewhat more likely to harness the computing mumbo at their disposal.  I came close to frustration, but the happiness of success (and payment to the tune of $200) kept me going like a crack-addicted ferret with an IT degree;
  • Spending about 4 hours with Alex, chosing a remote control car with his Christmas funds, only to have the one he bought fail after 30 minutes.  Cue another 45 minute trip down the coast to swap it for another (blessedly functional) one;
  • Heading down to Kawana and spending half a day getting my camp cooking kit seriously sorted out. I am so damn chuffed with the compact cleverness of the setup I ended up with.  YEEESSSS!!!;
  • Seeing Mum burst into tears when Nick presented her with a Tahitian black pearl to thank her for supporting him through uni.  While I was completely upstaged on the gift front (the top I got her didn't fit), it was a beautiful moment;
  • Being a small part of the new car purchase that Mum and Dad made to kick off their Season of Spending.  It's a nice new Forester with lots of legroom in the back.  Lovely;
  • Getting myself and Paul some wicked new shirts from Ed Harry.  I love the look of my “Argentina” one, but the Terminator 2 quoting one is the funniest ever.  Paul loved his :-).  I also hooked the big man up with wireless in his house, which he reckons is the best thing since sliced bread;
  • Spending hours with Paul and Alison, vegging out, playing PS3, watching Zombieland, Sin City, Avatar and stupid Youtube clips.  Good clean manly fun;
  • Camping in the back yard in my new tent.  I made it through the night without the fly.  I am mother-effin hardcore;
  • Seeing mum's face when she saw me on Skype video chat for the first time;
  • Having a seriously beautiful time with LT in QLD.  I love just being us, hanging out.
  • Seeing Amy, Sally and the other Prideauxs yesterday.  Amy is looking great, but her lymphocytic colitis is back.  I hope to hell the steroids she's on do the trick, otherwise she's looking at another two years of being wrecked by chemo.  Please God, she's had enough;

I'll think of more, I'm sure, but I'm done for now.  Only half an hour til I can get on the plane. See you in Hobart.

22 June 2010

Home at last

Today's map.

It was a funny feeling to roll into the backyard of Mum and Dad's on a motorcycle. For the first time in the trip, I'd reached somewhere I really identified with from the past, so it was a bit surreal to turn up astride a part of my new life in Tassie. (I didn't get into bikes until I moved from the mainland three years ago.)

Little bro Alex, some twelve years younger than me, was excited to say hello until Nick and Eb arrived and he went totally ballistic. Having left home when he was only five, I guess I fit better into the 'grumpy uncle' category better than 'brother'. We see each other a couple of times a year and that's it. When all the family are together, though, it's loud, chaotic (by our standards) and a boatload of fun.

Visiting the folks isn't visiting the folks without one of my favourite things: sitting on the deck at dusk, drinking wine and solving life's problems. The house looks over the river and the canefields beyond, with Mum's meticulously-kept gardens and Dad's sprawling vege plantation filling out the foreground. Fruit bats whoosh overhead in small groups, the occasional jumping mullet makes a lonely 'ploonk' in the river and we are united in quiet conversation for half an hour. At least, that's how it would have been if Alex had sat still and stopped using long exposures and a torch to create photos of Nick with a giant phallus erupting from his middle. I loved it anyway.

In the morning, the real men - that is, everyone but me and Mum - went off for a round of golf at the local links (is that what you call them?). Golf, to me, is somewhere between having herpes and being mauled by dogs in terms of enjoyment, but Nick and Alex are both pretty good at it. Worried by the Rev's recent misbehaviour, I raided Supercheap Auto and the local bike shop for everything necessary to give him a full service. Assuming the poor running was an overheating problem, I made sure I had everything handy to flush out the cooling system and make sure it was healthy.

We played copious rounds of Modern Warfare on Alex's PS3. The usual characters were in play: Alex, merciless and happy to sing about shooting you in the face; Nick, almost as good, but more polite when celebrating his headshots; and me, morose and frustrated, constantly being shot in the head. I'm glad I never joined the army.

Next morning, we met up with our very Dutch grandmother for breakfast at a portside cafe. The service was terrible - "D'youse wanna sit inside or ert?" - but the bacon more than made up for it. I feel there would be far fewer broken relationships these days if only people would turn to bacon in times of need.

It was a short stay, because there were still more people to visit in the great southeast, so I prepared to head south to Nambour and visit cousin Sally. My departure was in front of the whole family and did irreparable damage to my ego when the Rev once again refused to start and idle. Alex even had time to get the camera and record my increasingly frustrated attempts to leave. Alex, if that turns up on Youtube, you're a dead man, ok?

Without time to unload the bike and take it apart again, I chose to go anyway, once I worked out how to keep it alive. I made my exit eventually, tense and frustrated, riding in the rain for an hour on the way to Nambour.

21 June 2010

Ten thousand underpants

The next few posts will be a disappointment for people who like photos with their text. While I was in south-east Queensland, I directed my energy towards spending time with my wonderful and extensive family. I'm not really comfortable taking photos when I'm catching up with people. It takes you out of the moment and puts you at risk of being punched in the berries if they're camera-shy. Plus they'd all get mobbed by Australia's Next Top Model if I put any of their mugshots online. So I'm sorry, but all you're getting out of me for the moment is text.

*lonely cricket chirping*

I stayed with Nick for several days, while he and his girlfriend Eb went about their daily working lives. I would normally feel awkward being the unemployed bum mooching off two hard working people, but I'd had plenty of time to get used to it while LT was ill.

Nick works in finance and, as far as I can tell, loves it like mad. He's always had an interest in money, particularly in the area of directing as much of it as possible to his wallet. In his job as an adviser, the more money he makes for his clients, the more he earns for himself, so he gets to be both an altruist and filthy rich. It's the perfect job for a bloke who's always had a natural rapport with people (and their money).

One day, while he was at work, I put a load of laundry on in his crazy cyborg washing machine that plays music (no joke!). When it was done, I had to empty the drier to make way for my stuff. Instead of the usual conglomerate of apparel, what I pulled out, in astonishing quantity, were underpants. Thousands of underpants, maybe millions - all male, all Nick's. As armful followed armful, I began to fear I would suffocate under the steadily-growing swamp of elasticised bum ornaments. My only option was to start folding them as fast as I could and stem the rising tide. Several hours later, I was done and I  knew something about Nick I had never suspected: he has never thrown out a pair of jocks since leaving home.

A highlight of this stay in Brisbane was visiting the Stuart family - my aunt and uncle and their three children. They're a most unique family unit: adventurous, principled and generous in everything. Wade, Maxine and Clay - the kids - span the spectrum of talent from the pure creative to the artfully practical, making an evening's chat with them great entertainment. Aunty Rob treated us all to a gigantic chicken dinner, dessert and cups of tea along the way. Too full to move, I accepted Wade's offer to sleep over in the house he's renovating. All went well until the next morning, when I found the back door locked and a note asking me to leave via the front. Fine, I thought, but there isn't a door at the front! After a moment's confusion, I found a door after all, hidden behind a new wall that I had to slide behind to get out.

I couldn't stick around long, because I'd arranged a lunchtime rendezvous with Mr Khoo, a friend from my college days. Cooee is a unique and beautiful snowflake in my landscape of friends. He is the Instigator; the Maker of Mischief - a man whose creative medium is life itself. He is an uplifting, confronting, hilarious and sometimes dangerous man to be around. I love him like a fat kid loves cake.

I rode into town without showering or brushing my teeth, since I hadn't brought any toiletries to the Stuart's place. This went poorly with the searing sunshine that sent my armpits into overdrive and the Rev into fits of coughing as he got too hot. In fact, as I rode, I realised he was starting to sound decidedly ill. By the time I reached the Valley, he was cutting out in traffic and turning the trip into a nightmare. Things didn't improve once I met up with Cooee and rode with him to West End for a vegetarian feast at the Hare Krishna restaurant. The Rev cut out at the worst possible times: in the middle of a roundabout; approaching an intersection and just after Cooee, who was riding lead, took a turn. It was a smelly, intensely frustrated Timmy who sat down to his kofta balls and rice that day.

It was a happy, if brief, reunion though. Mr Khoo was preparing for a triathlon and, more importantly, his imminent departure to Italy for a tour of discovery and enlightenment. There was much to talk about, so we arranged to meet for longer the following week.

My uncle Sean and his partner Kylie live on the south side of Brisbane in a house that they are painstakingly renovating. At the end of the week, Nick, Eb and I went out to dinner with them at one of their favourite local restaurants. We had a great time chewing the fat about life, work and toys while we enjoyed a cracking meal under the watchful leer of the extremely camp manager. Seeing as I was the only single person at the table, I was the lucky one who enjoyed his repeated caressing of my shoulder when he topped up my drinks. After tea, we toured the renovations at Sean and Kylie's place and I drooled over his beautiful new Husky TE-510 dirt bike. It was a monster!

Next day, Nick and Eb were going to Maryborough - our birthplace - to visit the parents and Alex, our younger brother. Because I live an idiotic distance from Maryborough, seeing the whole family at once is a rare treat, so I raced Nick up the highway to spend a weekend with the folks. Luckily, the Rev held together for the three hour trip. I beat Nick, despite stopping on the way to buy two pairs of underpants. It stopped me from feeling quite so under-endowed in the tighty whitey department, but I knew I would never come close to his truly epic collection of jocks. I suppose some people are just naturally gifted.

16 June 2010

Back on Queensland soil

Today's map.

It was nearly lunchtime after I'd dealt with the snapped clutch lever, so I was back on the bike straight away, heading for a less crashy place to eat. That place, after a couple of dozen miles of beautiful scenery, was Nimbin.

Nimbin is a freakin' hole.

Be careful asking for a pot at the Nimbin Hotel.

A faded sign, just out of town, boasts that Nimbin was home to the 1973 Aquarius Festival. Almost nothing, it seems, has changed in the town since then. The people in the main street - stoners, hippies (overwhelmingly unemployed), the mentally ill, wandering children and dogs - look as lost and faded as the festival billboard itself. Cannabis passes for culture here; a shallow, smoky and dismal shared futility. The only clean buildings are the police station and the drug abuse outreach centre. Everything else is a confused pastiche of New Age symbology, folk art and simple filth.

In deference to what good there was in town - the alternative power company, working artists and genuine seekers of truth - I ordered a tofu burger for lunch. It was surprisingly good, making a mockery of my own flaccid and tasteless attempts to cook with the stuff.

Tofu done right.

I filled my prescription at the local chemist (yes folks, I bought drugs in Nimbin) and went to leave, but my bike was parked in by a delivery truck. I wandered around some more and talked to three people. One of them asked me for money. The second offered me weed. The third told me the times the police sniffer dogs come by and offered to help me hide my stash. I explained I wasn't carrying and he went on a rant about police suppressing freedom anyway. By then, the truck had moved and I was free to get the hell out of there.

The next hour or so was spent pottering north through the pretty countryside and crossing the border into Queensland. The road surfaces improved immediately, so I enjoyed gently swooping through smooth corners as I came out of the hills behind the Gold Coast. In planning to arrive at Nick's place that afternoon, my brain had conveniently neglected to consider traffic once I was back on the highway. The five 'o' clock rush was in full swing, so the eight lanes of the Pacific Motorway had become 110km/h destruction derby. Nearing Brisvegas, this rapidly became an 80km/h event, then 30km/h, then a going-nowhere-and-overheating contest.

Unprepared for the gridlock, my bladder began to fill with great rivers of impending urine. With my waterworks expanding like the universe after the Big Bang, my mission in life very quickly became finding a way to wee. Simply flopping out my junk and blasting away in public seemed a touch rude, but the crawling cars almost made it a necessity until, shining over the treetops, an beacon of hope shone forth in yellow and blue.

It was IKEA.

I raced in, disobeying all the carpark speed limits along the way. With relief so close, my pee tank issued its warnings of imminent rupture even more frantically.  I spoke to it internally, reassuring it that the time was almost at hand, if it would just hold out a little longer.

How cruel reality can be when judging the nature of a decision, though. Inside the store - one of the largest in the southern hemisphere - I became lost. There were hectares of bathroom fittings, but not a single plumbed loo in sight. Toilet roll holders mocked me as I searched, weeping, with my fingers still in my ears after being assaulted by a display of miniature fountains. For nearly ten minutes I wandered in circles, ready to go in a reasonably capacious vase if I managed to find one, before I found it: a single staff toilet under a small black and white sign. I unloaded with such force that I swear I bent the urinal.

IPeeAhh.

Apart from getting lost in the dark because, as usual, I had only the vaguest idea where my brother lived, I made it to his place without further bodily crises. I was grateful for his and girlfriend Eb's warm welcome, not to mention his fusion cooking prowess in making pizzas out of spaghetti mince. We chatted and watched the wrongest and most hilarious movie ever, then I sank into the most beautiful bed in all of bedly creation. Happy times.

09 June 2010

The Rev takes a dump

It rained on and off during the night, mostly when I was trying to get between the tent and somewhere else. Weirdly, the morning after was the first to gift me a dry tent, so breaking camp was quicker than usual. I was bound for Queensland - my brother's house in Brisbane - for the night.

Before catching up with my bro, though, there was the small matter of choosing a suitably tortuous route through the hinterland and across the border. I have driven the Pacific Hwy across the border only a handful of times, but they were enough to convince me to find another way. On Ez's advice, my first stop was in Byron Bay.

I don't think I've ever been to Byron, so it existed in my head as a simple jumble of adjectives like 'chilled', 'green' and 'unemployed'. It didn't take much snooping around to add 'brain-haemorrhagingly beautiful' to the list, amongst others. I parked the bike near the southern headland of the main beach, grabbed the camera and went exploring.






Following the track around the headland, I immediately regretted embarking on a hike in my motorcycle clobber. Kevlar-lined jeans, knee pads, tall black boots and the morning sun do not mix well with steep walking tracks. Oh well. It's tough looking cool.

The next beach along was also beautiful; aided greatly by the quantity of naked breast-meat spread liberally over it. For my moral safety, I kept the camera at the wide end of the zoom range here.


Another sweaty hillclimb later, I was at the easternmost point of the Australian mainland. I forget what it's called, but it's probably Cape Eastylots or It's All West From Here Point.



So overheated that a Japanese tour group mistook me for the Shinto god of perspiration (the offerings were lovely, but unnecessary), I called the exploration quits and retraced my steps to the bike.

The road bent inland and I followed it to Lismore (home of the Lizmorons, according to Ez). It was my first visit to her home town. It was also the first time I've ever lost control of the Rev.

Rolling down the main street, dehydrated and looking for something to drink, I came upon the scene of a recent traffic accident. A small four wheel drive was marooned unhappily on the kerb with its front wheels jutting outward at sick angles. Bystanders paused to offer help to the distressed driver on his mobile phone. Taken by all this, I failed to register an equally distracted driver reversing out of a car park right in front of me. Easing on the brakes, I came to a safe halt and moved to put my foot down to steady the bike.

The road wasn't there.

Caught out by the steep camber of the street, I pedalled on air for a frantic second before the Rev - all 250 loaded kilos of him - gracefully subsided onto the bitumen for a short nap. When a bike leans past its balancing 'point of no return', there's only one thing you can do: swear loudly and let go. I did.

The bags took the worst of the impact, but poor Reverend suffered a snapped clutch lever in the fall. My injuries were limited to my ego, having just treated the accident-gawpers to a second, if less violent, episode of mechanical ineptitude.



I needed some time to calm down and plan how to deal this little setback. With the help of two other blokes, I picked the Rev up and parked him out of further harm's way. Using my laptop at a coffee shop across the road, I nearly wept with joy when a Google search for Honda dealers in Lismore delivered a result. A little phone-work and fifteen dollars later, I had a replacement lever in my hand. Thanks Ongmac Honda; you rock!

It took no longer than to finish my takeaway cup of bean gravy to get the new lever installed. I was grinning like an idiot. I had made impromptu repairs to a motorcycle on the road. My ego was restored: at last, I had truly become a man!