106 – Staying Alive, Part 6: 26 November 2024

Magaret and I both started yoga classes on Wednesday 23 January 2019.  Our then great friend Ann Ryan had spent the Australian summer in her unit at Glenelg and she also started yoga with us on 23 January.  We continued doing yoga classes even though I was simultaneously undergoing the cardiac rehabilitation program after the open heart surgery.  We were all one great big happy family.  Anne, Margaret and I attended yoga classes from January to April 2019 on the following Wednesdays. 

·         30 January 2019;

·         6 February 2019;

·         13 February 2019;

·         20 February 2019;

·         6 March 2019;

·         13 March 2019;

·         20 March 2019;

·         27 March 2019;

·         3 April 2019;

·         10 April 2019

·         17 April 2019; and

·         24 April 2019.

Peter Hussey had lived in Ann’s house in County Kildare for more than 20 years by 2019 and Margaret and I both considered him to be a very good friend.  Peter is the moving spirit behind Crooked House Theatre Company and Newbridge Youth Theatre Company.  Peter arrived in Adelaide on Tuesday 12 February and Nes Fernandez held a barbecue to welcome him to Australia.  Nez was at that time my close friend.  He had been Ann Ryan's lover and had started moving away from me when he started his affair with Ann, but tin 2019 he still talked to me.  

We held our own different barbecue on Thursday 14 February.  Both barbecues were filled with friendship and good humour.  Attendees were Margaret and me, Nes Fernandez, Ann Ryan, Sue Chapman and Andrew and Heather Long.  

Margaret is now dead.  Nez and Ann refused to attend the funeral; Sue Chapman, Heathe and Andrew Long went to the funeral but refused to speak to me.  Peter Hussey - like all of the others I have named - - couldn't be bothered sending even a sympathy card when Margaret died.

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We continued the good fellowship by driving to Goolwa on Friday 15 February and staying Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights in Goolwa.  On the drive to Goolwa, we stopped to admire the statue of the Goddess Kwan Yin at Sellicks Beach.  Kwan Yin is the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion.  Supposedly, Kwan Yin is always compassionate to those who ask for her help – no matter what evil deeds the help seeker has engaged in. 

 

I took this photo of Kwan Yin on 15 February 2019.  The Goddess statue is beautiful.  

Kwan Yin must have been completely unaware of the plans the universe had for Margaret and me.  If she had known, I am certain her compassionate heart would have forced her to soften at least a little, the terrible hardships that were accelerating towards us to try and drive both of us to our deaths.

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This is a photo of Margaret with Ann Ryan taken on 15 February 2019.

While we were at Goolwa, Ann could not have maintained a better pretence of being the best friend Margaret or I could ever have.  

Neither Margaret nor I imagined for a moment that Ann's behaviour was just a pretence and that it was indeed a complete lie.  As I said, after Margaret died, Ann refused to come to her funeral.

As another part of the lie, Ann regularly walked my perimeter circuit with me at Morialta, arriving at our place at 6.00 am on Sundays to drive me to Morialta.

The photo above is the River Murray at Goolwa, South Australia.  The River Murray discharges into the sea at Goolwa.

Margaret turned 69 on 29 March 2019 and I attended my final cardiac rehabilitation lecture two days earlier on Tuesday 26 March.

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Superficially, our life together was trouble free, but there were signs that in reality, things were not what they seemed.  Looking back, it is obvious to me that we had definitely begun “circling the drain”.  Our spiral towards death had certainly begun by early 2019.

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Although my heart was now operating perfectly, I still struggled whenever I walked uphill.  This was a big issue when I walked at Morialta where there are mountains.  Something else was clearly wrong with my body quite apart from the heart which had needed such urgent repairs.

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I began to have increasingly severe sneezing attacks as I struggled my way up and down the mountains at Morialta.  At first, the sneezing attacks were what I called moderate.  I would start sneezing violently and then reel off about 30 violent sneezes - one straight after the other.  There would then usually be a short break in the sneezes before I had a second or third sneeze attack, each also involving about 30 sneezes in a row.  Once the series of two or three sneeze attacks had finished, I would then usually be free of further sneeze attacks until after I got home.

Worryingly, the stitch line from the Chain Saw operation began to fray.  I could physically see how the constant sneezing was starting to tear one side of the stich line away from the other side.

I assumed that the sneezing was caused by the stress of what I had been through and that the sneezing would settle down as time went by,

I was wrong.  

The sneezing never settled down.  The sneezing steadily got worse and the stress on the stitch line down my chest became steadily harder to ignore.  If the sneezing continued like this, the whole stitch line was likely to disintegrate.  The situation was worrying but I hid my concerns from Margaret.  She had worried about me enough.

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We drove from Adelaide to Port Lincoln on Tuesday 30 April 2019.  Ann Ryan and Sue Chapman went with us.  We returned on Friday 3 May.  It was a very enjoyable time, interrupted frequently by my sneezing.

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The photo above is of Margaret and me on 25 April 2019.  Before a year had passed, Margaret had become unrecognisable from the woman who posed for this photo.

Ann Ryan returned to Ireland on Friday 17 May 2019.  We drove her to the airport.  We knew we would see her agin soon when we visited Ireland later in 2019.