July 17th

Nothing much to report today.

The treatment times are changing and I am once again in the position of having to change routine and sleeping habits to accommodate the changed times.

I have to confess that the treatments are starting to have an unusual impact. When I got home today I felt suddenly very very tired and simply fell asleep soon after sitting down. I was woken by a phone call. I am delighted to say it was NOT someone asking me my opinion or wanting to sell me something or someone telling me that the call was being monitored for customer satisfaction. I am afraid that had it been one of these sort of calls I would have given the supervisors something to think about with my reaction.

Being at home and watching the news from day to day I am struck by how relatively 'fortunate' I am.

I mean to say, I am safe in Australia, getting treatment and looking forward to getting through this period and having at least some chance of surviving a little longer. Compare that with the plight of people in Lebanon and in the South America and elsewhere where sudden unexpected death arrives at the end of a missile explosion or some of the fall out from a volcano that has decided to erupt and can from one moment to the next extinguish life.

Knowing that you have a potential death sentence and having time to cope with that and being able to DO something about maximising the chances for survival is, frankly a lot better than being in continuing danger and being completely out of control.

Enough of my musing about world affairs! That is for a completely different Blog!

Met with my treatment coordinator today and she confirmed my meeting with the speech pathologist next week. Meanwhile I am receiving heaps of mail from people all over the world who have experienced similar problems and most of them are really helpful and full of hope that like them I will be able to regain at least some of my ability to talk properly.

One note however was really of great concern. This person wrote that if your vocal chords do not work then you can't breathe! That does not sound right to me so I will be following it up. In the interim I will do my best to keep breathing AND trying to vocalise.