The Long Way Home - Chapter 5 - Gladstone Day 3

Mortality is just a word and its not until you rub shoulders with a potential end of life event , existence truly becomes an issue. Today Robyn is off for a biopsy on a suspicious lump. We have been told it is a conservative precautionary measure but being the day of the commencement of the “Pink Test” the concept of mortality comes to the fore.

I too have tests that require performance today, which means starting the day fasting. This is not my idea of fun, I love my food. Unfortunately this love has the reciprocating result of a rotundness in my shape. Overweight (or in good condition as a farmer might suggest of his stock) has always been an issue because whereas in my youth there were alway physical things to do, in later life the need to succeed behind a desk had taken over. 

For me, the greater the success the greater the adherence to the furniture.

In my youth I saw my fair share of loss of life, certainly qualifying to be able to view a Thestral as did Harry Potter in the Order of the Phoenix (2007 Warner Bros). We lost many of the original 64 Year 7 students in the years of our secondary schooling. Whether or not it was your time was, at times, a lottery, at others a product of a devil may care attitude to life.

We lost three of our fellow students in one such accident. Five teenagers were in a car that fateful night. The three from our year were all in the back seat without seat belts (they were not mandatorily fitted to vehicles in those days) when the driver lost control launching the vehicle off a bridge slamming into the other side creek wall. The driver ended up permanently in a wheelchair, a paraplegic but the other front seat passenger, an older near neighbour, walked away from the accident and attracted help.

Keith seemed to be somewhat blessed to a point. 

We would pick him up on the bus run into Boorowa Central School. He was in a class, a couple of years older than my year. He was one of a family of tall red headed boys and would often arrive on the bus with brochures of the latest motor bikes, fascinated with the potential for speed. He was also my opening bowling partner in the Rye Park Cricket Team. He had one of those slinging actions with little or no control, bowling from the back of his hand at somewhat terrifying speeds. Often I would field the ball at first slip, untouched by the batsman.

His recklessness on the field continued well into his use of modes of transportation, and with the disregard for safety, came episodes outside the edge of the envelope.

There was the time he lost control of his Kawasaki 900 on the top of a hill on the road from Boorowa to his home. He and the machine slid down the road lined with trees, managing to negotiate the slide, walking away with nothing more than scratches on his leathers, whilst the bike was a mere black spot in the middle of the bitumen several hundred metres for the place where control was lost.

Another accident saw him and his brother with singed legs where the motor from his brothers utility was pushed back between them when they had a head on altercation with a tree on a country road.

It seemed he was blessed and as such somewhat bulletproof and if it wasn’t for the accident where our friends had perished there was an air of invincibility about Keith. His recklessness though was not cause of his eventual demise. When your time is up, then it is up. Keith tripped in the street, hitting his head on the pavement and died where he fell.

We all push the edge of the envelope, sometimes without knowing it and its not until we are made to take a check of our mortality that we are forced to worry about it. I have had incidents, both accident and ailment that have required hospitalisation but never have any of those created a fear of the end. Having said that, in one bout of cellulitis when the urine output was black as my kidneys decided not to work, seemed to worry the medical staff buzzing around the bed. 

The big C (cancer), lumps, lesians and changes in our skin can put fear right through anyone. We watched my best friend waste away with brain cancer, feeling all the emotions of his wife and children with them and being present when the final fight between him and the tumours. The “marketing” of the conflict between the body and the illness is full on. Almost everywhere there are calls for donations for funding for research into this form or that one. 

The Pink Test just another reminder in its tribute to Jane McGrath with the great work that foundation funds in caring for breast cancer victims. 

What does this mean? It means my wife is heading for “routine” tests, ordered by a self confessed ultra conservative medico which we have been unable to undertake for more than a month, leaving her on tender hooks. One wonders how much mindset contributes to illness outcomes.

Initial findings from the tests suggest there is nothing awry. We are needing to stay another 2 weeks for the formal report.

While waiting for Robyn to complete her tests I received an email from an accounting client wanting urgent work completed. A suggestion that I would not be able to even look at the work until the testing was completed are met with “why not”. Its times like this I really do not want to be helpful. 

Clients forget there are lives to be lived. Normally accounting and other professional firms close in the period over the Christmas new year period. This particular client sent information Christmas eve and now the first real working day of 2022…. Oh yes did I fail to mention, they are on leave from their offices at this time

We are having a similar issue with a client in Property Portfolio Solutions who feels they need to treated as if they are God. What they do not realise is their propensity to “throw their weight around” not only alientates those who will be doing the work but is costing them money with their subjective input.

At the end of the day investing in property is a numbers game and trying to second guess an ultimate owner or renter of a property is more than an imprudent use of resources. Real estate sales are all about the imagination of the purchaser and neutral colours and simple fittings allow them to visualise “their” concepts, not imposing yourself into their world.

Once we return to the van, I am able to effect completion of most of the work, but the “required”  piece (which will generate a significant refund) is unable to be completed and I send the client on their way in search of the missing information. 

What this means is my attention to the test cricket is only impinged for a short time. Well, that is if it were not raining in Sydney.

Tomorrow we are going exploring. There is no point being hunkered down here in the caravan park. There is much to see and we have lots of brochures.