I’m enjoying the lazy life of a retiree living in a village specially for over 45s and waking every morning with nothing that I absolutely have to do. That doesn’t mean that I actually do nothing, however. I have taken over the running of the library of donated books that we have in the village and also make much use of their wonderful facilities. I have more new friends here than I had in my old neighbourhood after living there for 10 years. I’m even involved with the Village Players and we rehearse twice weekly for a show that we’re putting on in November. Silly stuff but a lot of fun – and I’m even allowed to sing!

I therefore have decided to take all the sick leave my GP recommends, then all the other leave due to me (including long-service) and then slide gracefully into retirement. I would heve preferred to choose the date but might have procrastinated for several more years.

A week is a long time in hospital but I have been very well looked after and am recovering well. There is some advantage in being a stubborn Taurean as this disease has not been allowed to get the better of me; in fact the doctor gave us the welcome news immediately after the op that it had not spread to any other organs, lymph or blood and I have received the all clear.

The following Monday I booked into hospital at about noon and had to repeat the dreadful procedure of cleaning out mt bowel before the operation. At least I had the assistance of the nurses this time. My surgeon came to see me and i jokingly asked if he could perform a bit of lipo on my tummy at the same time (he was not amused).

Tuesday arrived and Iwas exhausted, hungry and thirsty. I was allowed to drink a bit of water early on but nothing after 9:00 am so I just stuck it out, Timo sitting with me all the  time. Eventually my time for surgery arrived and I was wheeled into theatre and very soon placed under anaesthetic. Of course I remember nothing about the next few hours but when I came to I had pipes and tubes attached to me at various places and a buttin I could press whenever i wanted to control the pain, not that i used it much.

When my surgeon came to see me he gave me the welcome news that he had removed all trace of cancer and the autopsy revealed that, although it had gone through the bowel wall, it had not spread to any other organs or to the lymph glands.

The first few days of recovery were painful but I enjoyed every tiny positive bit of progress. The first time I was able to sit on my own was exciting and when I could shower without help and without even sitting in a chair I did a little happy dance around my room. Food at first was almost non-existent. I don’t know how much weight I lost but the so-called ‘nourishing fluids’ that followed my ‘clear fluids’ diet was far from nourishing. Nurses asked me every day if i had ‘passed wind’ and when that exciting event occurred I was at last allowed a few solids. When my diet reverted to normal my only regret was that I hadn’t the appetitie to eat everything on the too delicious menu.

I was thoroughtly spoilt flower-wise and the staff said that I seemed to have more flowers than any other ward. The rooms are badly designed in that, while lying in bed, one is unable to see the flower shelves but once I was up and about I moved my bed so I could see them all the time.

While in hospital I kept busy reading, knitting, or visiting and partying in Second Life. What wonderful friendships I have made there; two of them even phoned me in hospital, one from Melbourne and one from Chicago. Nurse say that all my activities probably helped my rapid recovery and friends and relations who came to visit were amazed to see how well and cheerful I looked. I had lots of visitors – one day as many as 10 though fortunately not all at the same time – and laughed a lot.

What reason is there not to laugh? I’ve been given new life in so many ways and don’t want to waste any of the many days left to me. In mid-July I’m going to Melbourne to visit my son and his family (my granddaughter there is almost 8 months old) and at the end of July I’ll be jetting off to Bali for a two week holiday in the sun. before that happens we have to pack up our belongings in preparation for moving house (not sure when that will happen yet). It may be pouring with rain and the wind blowing great guns. We may have had the domed skylight blown off our roof and have to catch the drips in buckets on the kitchen floor. But who cares, I’m alive and life is GOOD.

I couldn’t believe that I had heard correctly. My hand crept out from under the blanket and gripped the hand of my husband, Timo, who was sitting beside me. It’s not true; this isn’t happening to me; I’m never ill; were some of the thoughts that went through my mind. I focussed on the word “probably” and gained comfort from that. Timo, however, heard only the word “cancer”.

For the past several weeks I had felt tired and off-colour, quite unlike my usual self. I’d taken more sick days off work than normal and eventually decided to visit my GP and tell him that I was feeling “bleagh”. He sent me for blood tests which indicated that I was anaemic and as a result he decided that I should have a colonoscopy and gastroscopy to try and determine the cause.

Preparation for a colonoscopy is extremely unpleasant. You have a drink a liquid which doesn’t taste too bad at first, but this has to be repeated again an hour later after your insides have stated to work fast and furiously. I gagged after half a glassful and just couldn’t take any more. Then I started eliminating from both ends at the same time!

Come morning I was exhausted and couldn’t face taking a third glass of the liquid. Timo drove me to Joondalup Hospital and had me ensconsed in Day Surgery where the nursing staff couldn’t have been nicer and more positive. I remember one who had to ask me various questions about possible contact with swine flu or mad cow disease; when she came ticking the latter on the admissions form she said, “No mad cow tho’ she sometimes feels like one”. That raised a laugh and helped to alleviate my trepidation about the procedure.

I didn’t have long to wait before I was wheeled into the theatre and within seconds I was asleep, coming round to feel thirsty and hungry but not able to have more than water for a little while. I longed for the promised sandwich and cup of tea but had to wait until what seemed like ages. I didn’t realise that anyone was avoiding telling me the results, I just wanted my tea and sandwich. Only after Timo returned to sit by me did the doctor tell us the awful news. and advise us that it was probably hereditary and I would need to tell all my close relatives.

I was in a daze when we returned home. I made an appointment to see my GP the following day, Friday,  and he advised a CT scan the next morning and made an appointment for me to see a surgeon the following week. Monday June 1 was a public holiday in Western Australia so nothing could be done until after the long weekend.

The surgeon was very positive about the wholel thing telling me that colon cancer is one of the easiest to treat and he had every confidence in being able to remove all traces of the cancer (by then it was a probability, not a possibility). I was booked into Glengarry Hospital for an operation on the following Tuesday and just had to wait. I was so glad that I had some pretty nighties and an attractive dressing gown so didn’t have to go shopping for those.

Wednesday I returned to work to break the news to my boss and colleagues. I didn’t want them all pussy-footing around me so told them bluntly what had occurred and what the stakes were. I also said that I had absolutely no intetion of letting this disease get the better of me and with my good old Taurean stubbornness I was ready to fight!

My reason for not posting here is that I am concentrating on getting the new Library blog for central TAFE up and running. It is called The Fridge (is that cool?) and we are hoping to involve library users more. Though we try to promote The Fridge as much as possible and posts are much more regular, this semi-dormant blog still receives more visitors. Are people more interested in personal blogs?

What do you think might be the reason?

I have a Firefox browser open as well as an email application (Groupwise) , a Word document and my timesheet in Excel. There are no widgets for download because you create them yourself. You can clip any part of any web page to your desktop, get web widgets or keep your favorite media files on your desktop. It can be most popular page from Youtube, your playlists from some music site etc..

Take 360desktop for a spin and see if it suits your needs.

Abstergent: Cleansing

Agrestic: Rural

Apodeictic: Unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration

Caducity: Perishableness

Caliginosity: Dimness

Compossible: Possible in coexistence with something else

Embrangle: To confuse

Exuviate: To shed

Fatidical: Prophetic

Fubsy: Squat

Griseous: Somewhat grey

Malison: A curse

Mansuetude: Gentleness

Muliebrity: The condition of being a woman

Niddering: Cowardly

Nitid: Bright

Olid: Foul-smelling

Oppugnant: Combative

Periapt: An amulet

Recrement: Refuse

Roborant: Tending to fortify

Skirr: A whirring sound, as of the wings of birds in flight

Vaticinate: Prophesy

Vilipend: To treat with contempt

By William Lee Adams.
Find this article at: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1847042,00.html

I must admit I had never heard of any of them before reading this list but now I’ve seen them would love to try adding them to my conversation. Would they have an abstergent effect on the calignosity of my griseous vocabulary?

Ravyn Hynes, the new designer, had some lovely ideas and we worked together to produce a complete change to the look of my house. Then the TV team moved in. We had a rehearsal on Monday morning (5:00am my time) and worked out our positions and what we were going to say and filming was done on Wednesday (starting at 4:00am in Western Australia). I was amazed at the number of people involved. Just as in a RL situation there were sound, lighting and camera technicians as well as a continuity person and probably others whose function was unknown to me.

Shortly before filming started a Demon Queen landed near us and proceeded to vomit blood all over the clean pool deck. Luckily she departed as suddenly as she had arrived – and didn’t time her appearance for the middle of the show. Pity I was so flabbergasted I didn’t take a picture of her!

After the makeover

The Interior

View from the Front

Recently a new acquaintance visited my SL home and immediately commented that she could tell from the furnishings that I was old and married. That may be true but in Second Life I want to cast off the stereotypes of age and present a younger, more vibrant look. I wrote to the SL magazine, PrimPerfect, and asked for their help and the staff there jumped at the challenge.

Designer Xylo Hasp has visited our home and we have given him free rein to do as he pleases, with the proviso that, if we don’t like it, he will make changes. I’ve even promised not to peek all weekend. Last night the magazine editor, Saffia Widdershins, arrived to take a few pre-makeover shots and we had a lovely long chat about what she plans for a TV presentation to be aired in about 10 days time.

What fun it will be to see the results, though I do wonder whether Xylo’s ideas and mine will agree. I will paste more pics here when it is done and give a link to the TV presentation too.

I have never been one to try to get to the top of any search ranking and was pleasantly surprised to see this. I’m currently doing research to try and find what other TAFE colleges are doing in Second Life or other virtual worlds and would love to hear from colleges in Australia who are dipping a toe in the water.

The Australian Police Force is planning to conduct recruitment interviews in Second Life which may make our management think twice about dismissing it as “just a game”. I have read that the British Police ran a similar experiment recently and, although they din’t actually employ any of the people they interviewed in the virtual world, it certaimly raised the level of awareness of their recruitment drive.