John Prine - "Grandpa Was A Carpenter"

As I've noted before, after a few decades of working in palliative care terminal pain control, when in my fifties, I received 2 poor prognoses regarding my life expectancy, one cardiac, one cancer, and so, instead of accepting this, and being a patient, I took off around the world. I ran away. I've never liked hospitals. I spent a lot of money on having fun and not facing up to my own physical reality. I lived in places and did things and met people, none of which I ever would have done without the impetus of life being, for me, quite short. I lived a life far outside and beyond my expectations from being a working class Australian boy of my generation. I came home a decade later to find that I was still alive, as I am today. When working in palliative care as nurse, consultant, adviser and hospice creator I never met one patient in all those decades who ever, ever, didn't die of their illness based upon the usual disease trajectories... except me. I recall I was a nurse consultant in palliative care for awhile looking after folk with a higher cancer count than I had. I expect my continuing survival isn't due to any miracle but rather to the atrocious diagnostic skills of many cardiac and cancer specialists, and to the fact that I have always refused all treatments and still do. One aspirin a day is good. Anyway, this week, at 64 years old, I worked 5 shifts as a clinical nurse in the Ice Addiction Unit, and now have 3 days off. What am I going to do with the days? I think I will take one aspirin and sleep through the first 2 of them, because, wow, I do get tired these days.

If someone doesn't lose 3 or 4 front teeth in an Australian Football game, then, really, what is the point of the game?

True Story. An elderly couple with some dementia lived in a residential estate for folk of their ilk in Townsville, Queensland. They had their old car in their garage and lived a usual life. One day, they were gone. 3 days later they turned up in a small North Queensland town, 300 miles away, had driven up there, and stopped outside a small house in that town. The husband and wife got out and went up to the front door and just walked in, much to the surprise of the young family who lived there. The couple demanded that the family get out of their house. Various services were called in, and it was explained to the couple that, at the moment, the family had no other abode...so the couple let them stay for a few days. Then an aged care nurse and driver were flown up to the town and told the couple that they had a doctor's appointment 'down the road' so, the couple went with them, they drove all the way back to Townsville in the couple's old car, and were put back in their home, and the car was put back in the garage.

Tale from the Holy Land:A man and woman were on a tour of the Holy Land and set off on a walking trek, with guides, and donkeys carrying provisions, up Mt Ararat. All the way the woman was complaining about her sore feet. They got to the summit and the woman was still complaining about her sore feet and so the man went and talked to the guides about what could be done to ease his partner's pain for the journey back down the mountain. He discussed and worked out a good solution. He returned to his partner who was still complaining about her sore feet and was dreading the descent. on and on she went about her complaint and sore feet. He said to her, "Hey, instead of complaining, why don't you just go down on a donkey?" She never spoke to him again.

The wise astronomer/philosopher said to me "I believe we are all, in our own way, stars, all constellations, all galaxies, in the greater reality of the Real Universe." I said "You can't be Sirius!"

One of my old neighbours died last night. He used to play the piano. His funeral service will be low key. I worked for many years on the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was riveting. My pal just back from a trip on the famous train journey, the Orient Express. He said it was murder.