Ken Laidlaw Enjoys Brisbane

Ken Laidlaw hung out for a few days after the conference to do some work but also to see some Brisbane highlights such as Lone Pine Koala Park and coffee at UQ...

First Public Lecture from School of Psychology at UQ

from the brochure...
"The first lecture of the new School of Psychology Public Lecture Series will be with guest speaker, Dr Bob G. Knight, honorary professor in the School of Psychology at UQ and international affiliate of the UQ Ageing Mind Initiative. Bob is the Merle H. Bensinger Professor of Gerontology and Professor of Psychology at the Andrus Gerontology Center, University of Southern California, USA. He is an acclaimed researcher in clinical psychology, having published numerous articles and books on interventions for late-life depression, mental health policy and training in clinical psychology.

Bob will be speaking about an exciting new direction his research has taken, namely ageing and the acquisition of wisdom. It is widely believed that wisdom comes with age, but not all older adults are wiser. Many older adults become adept at handling life`s challenges, yet barriers to ageing abound, including ageism, physical changes and mental health concerns."

This meeting is important!

My colleagues hamming it up at an important meeting...

Construction Birds!

They are doing a lot of construction near the business school, building a new teaching building. We caught sight of these Bush Stone-Curlews using the site as a mating platform. This curlew has a truly haunting call - click HERE to hear it! (need MP3 player but should load automatically...)

TERRIFIC NEWS !!!

Today started with some very excellent news from the respiratory physician at the Royal Brisbane hospital. The oxygen exchange rate in my lungs has decreased over the period of having chemotherapy, starting from a low baseline of 70% gas exchange, dropping to near 50% by the beginning of June. At that time the chemotherapy drug responsible for lung problems (called bleomycin) was dropped from the formula I have been taking. Since then my lungs have continued to feel better.

The respiratory physician felt that the initial low 70% baseline reading was due solely to fluid on the lungs and residual fluid around the heart after the pericardial drainage. He did not think my history of bronchitis or mild asthma had any impact on the gas exchange levels. Further, the xrays, CT scan data, the lung function tests results and my own experience of how my lungs were functioning pointed to the decreased gas exchange most likely being from toxicity to the bleomycin, but that no permanent damage had been done to the lungs. He further recommended the most conservative course of continuing to not take the bleomycin, since the different between including or not including this drug on overall cure-rate was the difference between a 91% and a 90% cure rate.

This is excellent news and Denali was so excited she started to sing.... :)


After leaving the hospital Rod, Arlene and I made our way over to the graduation for the Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, to see my students graduate. I wore the lovely hand-made sterling silver necklace Rod made for me, of a bird perched on a branch. It was a really nice day...

Tim's Graduation Ceremony

Today Tim participated for the first time in the academic procession at graduation. And while he did not graduate himself (he'll probably graduate at the December graduation), he was with his colleauges as they celebrated the graduations of students and colleagues. Tim's colleague April did graduate, and her daughter Carla really loved the poofy hat...