Gromit Reads!

More young birds!

The curlew babies continue to get bigger, and now a spur-winged plover has had a chick! The chick is the size of a golf ball! I like that the University puts up signs telling folks to be mindful of the young and nesting birds....

Bush Stone Curlews!

There are some bush stone curlews nesting on campus and they have had babies! The chicks are SO CUTE!

Relaxing!

Got back from my conference late yesterday and spent the day relaxing with the cats!

Yee-ha!

One of our guest speakers was Professor John Snowden, an eminent geriatric psychiatrist from Sydney. As a speaker's gift we got him an akubra hat, which her really liked!

Lots of Excellent student Presentations

There were lots of excellent student presentations at the conference - here I am presenting the Elsie Harwood certificates for the best psychology student research at honours/masters level to our two winners...

Having an excellent time at my conference...

These are some photos from the conference, showing the lovely grounds of the Deakin Management Centre, and my colleague Gerard Byrne speaking on dementia.

Last Radiation Treatment!

Had my last radiation treatment today! Yippee!

Dr Pratt happy!

This is my radio-oncologist, Dr Pratt. He was very happy with all of my progress with the radiation treatments. I will have another CT scan on the 7th December - they will be checking the size of the tumor remaining. They are hoping for no change in the size of the tumor - this would indicate that any cancer cells remaining (if there were any) were so small that when eliminated by the radiation, they were not present in significant enough numbers to affect the sie of the mass.

Dr Pratt (and Dr Morris) have given their OK for me to fly, so I am OFF TODAY on the 4:30pm flight to Melbourne!

MUDSLIDE!

Today, after a night where over two inches of rain fell, we woke up to find that there had been a large mudslide in our backyard from the pipe construction site up the hill from our home. Nothing was damaged (even the new tree we recently planted nearby) AND now we have much-needed dirt to continue gardening projects....

Gromit Exhausted...

After a hard day of lazing about watching us read the paper, Gromit takes a well-deserved snooze....

Denali Caught Sneaking Wine

...And she's not even legal!

Visit with Peter

Peter Baum, our friend from Princeton, visited us for a few days this week. We took Pete up to Mount Tamborine and fed him some exotic (emu) and not-so-exotic (fish & chips) meals. He loved staying at our place and spent quality time with the birds in the hammock on our porch....

Radiation Therapy 66% Done!

My photo of the more mundane room where I actually get zapped....

Weekend in Dalby

This weekend we went chasing after some rare birds that had been seen in Dalby, a town about 2.5 hours west of Brisbane. On Saturday we located the birds without too much trouble (the black honeyeaters, pictured, were my favorite). We also saw a huge sand monitor lizard, and managed to get very close to him for some good photos (notice the lizard on the tree in back of Nancy - click on the photo to see a larger view...). The town of Dalby was very nice, and the B&B we stayed in was great!

My First Movie

With our new iMac I've made a small video, viewed here at King Parrot.

Radiation Treatment 50% Complete!

Am very happy that radiation treatment is 50% done. Have experienced no side effects of note aside from a slight sore throat. May be moving to liquid aspirin in this last week of treatment as is a bit harder to swallow pills. The photo above is quite a bit more "science fiction-y" compared to my rather drab treatment rooms, but my photos (YES! I brought in a camera!) turned out not so well.....

Moving to Mac!

We have switched our computers from PC's to Mac - and this is the stylish result! I love the new iMacs! This is our home computer, and I have the same iMac in my office (although now the rest of the office looks tatty in comparison...)

Sushi!

After a LONG day at the hospital (all computers were down so all appointments were running 45 minutes late) I treated myself to some salmon nigiri (NOT in the hospital cafeteria, by the way...)

Oops!

Well, there is one sentence you would rather not hear if you are me and I heard it today:

"Ah, it seems we've been giving you the wrong dose of radiation..."

It is not as bad as it seems- they just had some confusion about whether it was to be 20 or 25 doses of radiation (!!!) so they had done the calculations to divide the dose by 25, not 20. So when I got zapped today it was a bit stronger.... Could not speak to the main radiation doc today (just spoke to the resident) but she assured me all was well... Sigh...

At least I am DEFINITELY 25% done now!

Gromit!

Here is Gromit getting up close and personal with the camera!

Zamboni is better!

Zamboni is feeling much better and has been eating like a truck driver! His weight is up too, which is a good thing...

An Eventful Day!

Today was quite an eventful day. First, I went to have my first radiation treatment. They added one final tattoo on my chest (the dot in the middle is the tattoo - wjat is around it is just magic marker). The whole treatment takes about 20 minutes. You go in, change into your gown (you get to keep it for the full 4 weeks), then they spend 10 minutes fiddling around positioning you exactly on the treatment table. Then they zap you for 20 seconds. They you get dressed and go home. Crazy!Today Zamboni also had to go in for a procedure - a gastroscopy, where they take a biopsy of his intestines. (This is his "I HATE the vet" look....). The vet said it all looked OK, in that there was no obvious pathology or cancers, but we have to wait for the lab results. He may just need to be switched to a different medication (which is what we hope...)

Magpie on Verandah

Here is our local magpie flying in for a bit of cheese....

Denali at play - VIDEO

Here's Denali chasing her favourite ball!

Memory Talk

This weekend I gave a talk on memory at the National Oral History Conference, put on by the Oral History Association of Australia. This is the first talk I've done since I've been sick, and it was great to get back into the swing of professional activities...

Weekend Drive

This weekend we drove out to Maleny, a small town north of Brisbane, to go exploring. We found some great used bookstores there and picked up a few things. I was really tired after a week of catching up with friends who were in town for a local conference, so was nice to just sit in the car and see the great scenery.

The first picture above is of the Glass House Mountains; the second of Lake Somerset.

NO MORE CHEMOTHERAPY!

Today I had the final CT scan which would show if the tumor was stable - which in fact it did! The tumor has shrunk almost 80% in size since the start of treatment, but hasn't shrunk significantly in the past few months, demonstrating that there are no more active cancer cells. My hematologist, Dr. Kirk Morris (above) was very pleased with these results! I no go for follow-up visits with Kirk every 3 months for 2 years, then every 6 months for another 3 years, then every year once I reach 5 years post-treatment. Cancer, if it reoccurs, is most likely to reoccur in the first 12 months. I will have periodic CT scans just to check that the tumor remains inactive.

I was VERY excited to then finally get my PICC line removed. As promised, they just pulled it out - felt weird but hardly hurt at all! It was pretty long - almost a yard long. Tim dutifully photographed the proceedings....

PET scan results

Today I had a PET scan to check that the affected lymph nodes are still showing no signs of cancerous activity, and that indeed was the case! Yippee!

Too funny!

Maybe we should think about consolidating...