On Friday I spent the afternoon with my mother, at my son's graduation at The University of Sydney.

On Sundays I always spend the afternoon with my mother too, but this week we spent the whole day together . . . in the emergency ward of the local hospital.

At about 06:45, when I was sitting outside my favourite baker waiting for the fruit buns to finish cooking, I received a phone call from the Vitalcall people to say that my mother had fallen in her kitchen, couldn't get up, and had activated her emergency pendant. The Vitalcall people called the ambulance, called the neighbour who has a key to let the ambulance people in, and were now calling me.

By the time I arrived, about 15 minutes later, the ambos had decided my mother didn't have a fracture and had got her up onto a chair. They said they planned to leave her at home, in my care. However, when they asked her to stand up she couldn't. She also said she had a lot of back pain. She didn't meet their "must be able to stand independently" criterion so they bundled her into the back of the ambulance and headed off to the local hospital.

[our view in the local hospital's Emergency Ward]

It's now 48 hours later, and she's still in the hospital. My life has become a little more chaotic. My 86 year old mother's life has become much more complicated.

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It had been raining in the morning, but as the time for Matt's graduation ceremony approached the sky cleared and the sun shone brightly. I had dropped my mother next to the Great Hall and then gone off to find a parking spot. I made it back to the Great Hall with minutes to spare and secured a seat in the back row as the academic procession gathered at the entrance.

[The academic procession prepares to enter the Great Hall]

This ceremony was for people graduating from the University's Conservatorium of Music, with a variety of degrees from PhD to Bachelors. It wasn't long at all before Matt was up there, receiving his Bachelor of Music (Education) from the Pro-Chancellor. The occasional address was delivered by George Palmer, a Supreme Court judge who is also a respected composer. His theme was 'tenacity'. He spoke about the fact that many of the graduates (especially the performers, composers and conductors) would find minimal financial rewards for their work, and they would need to show tenacious belief in themselves to survive through the bleak times. Plenty of people in the audience would have found themselves nodding in agreement.

The new Dean of the Conservatorium gave a short speech...and then it was over! They processed out while the organ played Bach, then posed to be photographed by their proud parents and friends.

[brother, girlfriend, Matt, grandmother, mother]

As the sun set, the graduates and their friends and families all drifted off, and we moved on to the next phase of the event.

[The sun sets on The Great Hall after Conservatorium of Music Graduation Ceremony 2012]

We (minus Matt's grandmother, but joined by Matt's sister) went on to Good God Small Club for some celebratory drinks, then headed down to this Uygur-style restaurant in the heart of Chinatown.

[Matt chose this venue - Kiroran]

The restaurant turned out to be a pretty good choice. Several of us are what you might call fussy in our food tastes, but I think everyone was satisfied.

The older (Matt's mother and me) and busier (Matt's siblings) then went home but Matt and his girlfriend weren't finished yet. They went down to the other end of town to The Basement, where an act was playing which Matt was really keen to see.

All in all, I think it was one of the big landmark days in the history of this chapter of the family.

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The Great Hall, The University of Sydney

Matt has booked his academic dress. The special procedures for disabled entry to The Great Hall have been noted (due to renovations at the normal entry point) and the arrangements for transporting my (disabled) mother to and from the event have been made. The restaurant for the post-event celebration has been chosen. Matt's girlfriend is flying in on Thursday night.

It's been a long haul through many years of study, and there were times when I thought we'd never reach this point, but we're finally ready for Matt's graduation ceremony on Friday afternoon.

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Yesterday started off OK. It was J.S.Bach's 327th birthday, and my favourite radio stations were playing some great Bach music, including a lovely version of the Brandenburg Concerto No 4 (with the "flute" parts played by recorders) played on 2MBS at 6am while I was on my walk through the city. I even bought a cake with the intention of continuing the celebration that evening.

Unfortunately, the day went downhill from there, although when I think about it, my mood had been trending downwards for a while and the early morning Bach pleasure was "against the run of play". Several things went wrong in the day and I reflected more on my situation and events in my life, leading to a downward spiral in mood.
When I arrived home I decorated the cake, but my heart wasn't feeling celebratory.

[birthday cake for Johann]

I couldn't even find my recording of the Toccata and Fugue in D minor that I was planning to play to cheer myself up. I put the cake in the back of the fridge behind the lettuce, hoping for a change of mood after a sleep.

Not surprisingly, I didn't feel any different In the morning. I took the un-cut cake out of the fridge, put it back in its box, and dumped it in a street garbage bin on my way to work.

I know this feeling, and I suspect it will last for some time. So my blogs will be probably just private for a while...

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Last Saturday L and I were sitting on the front veranda having coffee together. I commented that I hadn't seen Gordon all year. I used to see Gordon at about 03:00 as he rode his bicycle past me on his way to work, as I walked or ran along the road on my way to to work. At that time of day I see so few people that anyone who I encounter at all regularly becomes a "friend", but Gordon is a bit special. He's a fellow commuter, not a garbage collector or food deliverer, and he slows right down and spends some time talking to me.

Anyway, it was quite a coincidence that yesterday, just before 03:00, Gordon rolled up behind me as I tramped along the road to work. It turns out he had crashed his bicycle when riding to work just after Christmas. He came fast down the hill and under the railway bridge and was going around the roundabout when the bike lost grip on the road. Gordon landed on the road and slid across until he hit the white-painted concrete edge in the middle of the roundabout.

[Roundabout in Hampden Road Artarmon]

He fractured several ribs and one of them punctured his right lung and gave him a pneumothorax. He spent a week in hospital then had a couple of months of pain, and is only now getting back to normal. Woah!

In other news....
We celebrated Mothering Sunday on the weekend (out of sync with our fellow Australians, who follow the American date of the second Sunday in May). It wasn't a great day for me, but it was nice to have all three children present.
My sister is now back on her farm, with no primary cancer located, and having chemotherapy which doesn't help improve her symptoms.

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L and I had a weekend away from home in Shellharbour, to celebrate 36 years of marriage. We did a lot of sitting around in cafés, eating, reading, and drinking coffee. We did a little walking as well, but the weather was against us (that was our excuse, anyway).

Sunday morning is the time I always do a slightly longer-than-usual run, so I had planned one out in advance. I had used RunningAhead to map out a 19 km run on Friday morning before we left Sydney. On Saturday afternoon, while L clawed back some of her chronic sleep-debt, I drove over the route to make sure I would be able to follow it in the dark the next morning.

[I check my running route map and memorise the turns. I'm about half way: Central Avenue, Oak Flats]

Unfortunately, despite my best laid plans, the next morning I took a left turn at the wrong place and eventually the road I was on just disappeared into a totally dark country lane. Luckily I was able to retrace my steps and get back to the right route, but that little detour added 5 km to my journey. I was very angry with myself for making such a stupid mistake, and by the time I'd run about 20 km I was feeling pretty tired too. Fortunately I was saved. I had my radio tuned to the local Wollongong signal for ABC Classic FM, and just when I was starting to feel miserable, Colin Fox began his weekly Sunday morning 'Bach Time'! How wonderful!! I was accompanied on the last few km by Bach Keyboard Concerto No 3 in D, BWV1054: 1st movement, played by Angela Hewitt, and Bach Motet, BWV225 “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied” (Sing unto the Lord a new song) by Bach Collegium Japan.

What would my life be without J.S. Bach?

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It was a big weekend for our family. L and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary by going away to Shellharbour for the weekend (more later on this).

[Riff Raff Radical Marching Band - picture is on this web site].

The two older kids were in the Riff Raff Radical Marching Band which performed in the huge Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade (pictures of preparation for the parade).

Our youngest child went to Canberra for the weekend to take an active part in the running of a national conference of The Greens, after having spent the week before organising The Greens orientation week stall at Sydney University.

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For quite a while (maybe 5 years?) I've had this pigmented lesion above my left eye.

[pigmented spot in early 2012]

Then much more recently (maybe last year some time) I noticed I had developed another area of pigmentation on my back, just below the right scapula, where I could neither reach nor properly see.

[my back in early 2012]

I was a little concerned about these but hadn't done anything, partly because I didn't have a regular G.P. that I could consult. I guess it was the news of my sister's cancer that prompted me to do something. I decided I wasn't really ready to die - I have quite a few more good books I want to read. So if one of these were to be a melanoma (as my mother had some years ago), then perhaps I would want to have it removed.

I decided to try out a new G.P. - one who does a lot of running, so he can't be all bad. More about him another time, but the result of my visit was that he wasn't prepared to make a decision and he referred me to a skin cancer specialist. I couldn't get an appointment until six weeks later, and yesterday that day arrived.

With some amount of fear and trepidation I walked from my work place here in Rat City up to the rather prosaic building in the formerly seedy, now decidedly trendy inner city suburb of Darlinghurst.

[the Skin & Cancer Foundation]

To cut a long story short, the specialist and his registrar examined me from head to toe and declared my skin to be free of malignancy. Woo hoo!!

I had done some washing for my sister so I jumped on a bus to the hospital to return her clean clothes. I got there before the official start of visiting hours so I decided to celebrate my newly established health status with a long black in this café: Fresh Ground, in Randwick.

[Fresh Ground, Randwick]

I think the coffee was Morgans (as on the footpath signs) rather than the superior Campos (as on the roof sign), but it tasted pretty good anyway.

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Last Saturday night one of my older son's friends disappeared while snorkeling at a Sydney beach. He is presumed drowned, but no body has been found. How especially sad that this should happen to a young person.

My sister had a gastroscopy yesterday which, as she expected, showed no real evidence of cancer (although they took lots of biopsies). Now they're lining her up for a colonoscopy. She is convinced that they're not going to find a primary, leaving her in a bit of a prognostic wilderness, although the outcome for people in such a situation is generally poor.

Today's 'spoken word' piece on my favourite radio station was Do not go gentle into that good night, a recording made by the author, Dylan Thomas. It always makes me think of the time when my father was dying; and now of course my sister comes to mind. That was followed shortly after by a request - Irish Tune from County Derry (aka Londonderry Air, aka Danny Boy) for someone who had a very long drive every day to drive himself to and from his radiotherapy treatment for cancer. Again my thoughts turn to my sister whose home is on a farm located well out of the city.

In the midst of all this bleakness my older son received this letter from his university yesterday...

[letter from University of Sydney for Matthew]

Wow! I am so proud.

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My sister had her uterus and ovaries removed, along with her omentum, to give her the best outcome for treatment of ovarian cancer. It's a major operation and you wouldn't want to have it unless you thought there was a chance of a real benefit. It's now been a week since the surgery and the pathology report on the stuff they removed has apparently been completed. The verdict: She doesn't have ovarian cancer after all! This isn't good news, however. She does have cancer, which has produced metastases in her omentum, but the site of the primary is unknown. They're thinking maybe upper gastro-intestinal tract . . . maybe pancreas . . .

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