Doctor visit - Ron

23 Jan 2007
Dear family and friends,
Dad (Ron) is been pretty good, considering. He is possibly coughing less than a month ago, although he’s still prone to breathlessness. He’s been attending Mon/Fri respiratory physio classes up at the hospital and at least he’s not pushing around an oxygen tank like some . . .

Today, Dad was accompanied by Joan, Chris and Beth for follow up visit to the oncologist. At this stage the specialist is only talking about chemotherapy, which would be offered to alleviate cancer symptoms. As Dad is reasonably well and active without symptoms (just his bad emphysema lungs), he agreed with the plan to continue as normal and see oncologist again in 6 weeks for review.

The chemotherapy Doc would use for Dad’s melanoma metastases is palliative (reducing the severity of the symptoms, slow the progress, rather than a cure) and would cause some miserable side effects, without certainty of significant improvement.

The PET scan done in December showed the multiple nodules in both lungs, and possibly something in lower right abdomen, but bones, organs, head, etc have not been affected. Origin of melanoma still a mystery.

Dad and Mum recently saw the skin specialist, who was also unable to define the primary (original) site of his melanoma. He indicated that it could have spread to the lungs some years ago and the tiny ‘seeds’ were inhibited from growth by the immune system.

Mum (Joan) had many spots freezeburned and one was biopsied. Results show a BCC skin cancer (least dangerous) and she is booked in next week to discuss surgery in hospital by a plastic surgeon (because it is near her nose/mouth, and she’s on warfarin).

Thank you for love and prayers,
Beth,
For Ron and Joan

Coast photos

Fishing at a lovely spot

10 of us out to lunch

Few days at the coast in January

Well, it was a bit brave, but all 10 of us went to the van at the beach together. It was a great few days of swimming at the beach and pool, fishing, cards and talking.


Ron thinks to himself, they're all a bit loud, they'll scare the real fish away . . .








Joan wettin' a line

Finally, a quiet moment.

New Year's Eve 2006

New Years Eve and Dad's Birthday

Ron and Joan as we all toast Dad's birthday and welcome the New Year.

Ron makes a little speech

Not sure how old Dad turned . . ?

Well, it was the day that went . . . all day!

We enjoyed a lovely afternoon tea with the family and some of Ron's close friends. Tom was voted best cappuccino maker in Canberra. Only two of the pretty tea cups were used, sigh. Plenty of fancy food which survived the occasion 'till kids came back home.

Meanwhile, the storm brewed silently in the distance.

A BBQ dinner was in the offing. Then Chris ducked off to feed horse and Mum & Dad trotted home to feed Mitsy and collect salad and sweets. Our friends the Clarks arrived to share New Years dinner.

The storm broke!

45ml of rain fell at our place in half an hour and 64ml fell at Dad's during the evening. Chris' car was on a road that flooded up over her bonnett and after she made it up out of the water, she called for help because the road was blocked by a fallen tree. Mum and Dad waited till the worst was over before coming back, unaware at this stage that their garage was full of water and grassy debris. Tom was out under the clothesline cover in the thunder and lightning, rain and hail, cooking the meat.

Chris was rescued, and returned sopping. The guys went off to see if anyone else needed rescue and to find/bring back her car (the brakes were wet and dead).

Well, it was a nice dinner after all and we all celebrated the New Year at 12midnight.

So New Year's Day turned out to be a clean up the filthy-wet-garage day at Ron and Joans and at our place. Dripping carpet,videos and wet boxes on the trailer off to the tip.

We found out so many others fared far worse with hail damage and serious flooding.

Well, we wanted a wet start to the start of 2007.