112 – Slowing the Slide Towards Death Part 2: 5 December 2024

The months leading up to January 2019 were filled with ominous omens that terrible events were waiting to happen.

I flew to Albury via Sydney on 28 November 2019.  As I waited in Sydney for my flight to Albury, the air was filled with choking smoke from bushfires that had broken out in the countryside beyond the Sydney city limits.  The smoke followed me continuously as my plane took me from Sydney to Albury (549 kilometres or 341 miles).  When I returned from Albury to Sydney on Tuesday 3 December, the smoke from the bushfires had thickened.  Despite the air conditioning at Sydney airport, the choking smell of the smoke was everywhere at the airport.

By 22 December 2019, South Australian was suffering from its own uncontrolled bushfires.

On 24 October 2019, strong northerly winds combined with existing dry conditions and high temperatures to create dangerous bushfire weather in South Australia (SA). Several fires broke out across the state, including one at Wongulla in the Murraylands where several firefighters were injured. Catastrophic fire conditions were forecast across the state for 20 November and the Country Fire Service (CFS) declared a state-wide total fire ban. A fire threatened Yorketown on the Yorke Peninsula that day before a wind change pushed the fire dangerously close to the township of Edithburgh. The fire destroyed seven homes and burned more than 5,000 hectares (ha). Dangerous fire weather conditions continued from spring into summer. In December, strong winds, low humidity and high temperatures on several days again combined to create dangerous bushfire conditions, including some areas with catastrophic fire danger ratings. Nearly all of SA recorded its highest ever accumulated forest fire danger index for December. On 20 December, catastrophic fire conditions were forecast as the state sweltered though its fourth day of extreme heat. Temperatures in the west of the state reached 49.9°C, several other sites exceeded 45°C, and Adelaide reached 43.9°C. More than 200 bushfires burned across the state that day, including a major fire at Cudlee Creek in the Adelaide Hills that spread rapidly, threatening the townships of Mount Pleasant, Springton, Palmer, Cudlee Creek, Mount Torrens, Harrogate, Inglewood, Gumeracha, Lobethal and Woodside. Twenty-seven roadblocks were set up by SA Police to manage traffic entering threatened areas, and a Large Air Tanker from New South Wales (NSW), called in to assist firefighters, was grounded due to high winds. Over the next few days, the fire burned 23,000 ha before being brought under control. An elderly man died in his home during the fire, and 84 homes were destroyed as well as over 400 outbuildings and 292 vehicles. More than 40,000 ha were burned by fires that started that day and more than 1,500 firefighters responded; 31 firefighters and two police officers were injured. A 24-year-old man from Queensland (QLD) died in a car crash that started a fire in the Murraylands.

****

I took these photos of Adelaide central city area on Sunday 22 December 2019 from the top of the mountains in Morialta Park.

****

It is 2,168 kilometres (1,347 miles) from Sydney to Picton in New Zealand's South Island.  The smoke from the bushfires in Australia was visible in Picton.  I could also smell the choking acrid smoke from the bushfires.  I did not know it at the time, but the smell of the bushfires in New Zealand was one of the last things I would be able to smell until December 2024.  As I write this blog today, my ability to smell brewing coffee is only now starting to return.

****

By the time I took these photos, my sinuses had become completely blocked and breathing through the right side of my nose had become impossible.  The sinus blockages simply kept getting worse; by late December 2019, the left sinus had also ceased to function.  Breathing through either nostril had become impossible by the time Margaret and I went to New Zealand.

****

After our return from New Zealand, Margaret’s cat scan revealed “polyps” in her digestive system.  She had an operation on Tuesday 18 February 2020 to remove the polyps.

****

I had the Cat scan on 10 February which revealed my sinuses and breathing passages were choked with polyps and unusable.  I was referred to an ENT specialist whose earliest available date was 10 ½ weeks away on 29 April.

On Tuesday evening 18 February, I meditated for an hour and asked the universe to get me an earlier specialist appointment through a cancellation.  That hadn’t happened when I started meditating at 2.00 pm on Wednesday 19 February at 2 pm so I stopped meditating and asked Margaret to get me the earliest possible GP appointment so I could make whoever I saw make phone calls to get an earlier ENT appointment.  Margaret got me an appointment with a locum at 4.10 that afternoon

When I told the locum what I wanted, he told me to go home, do a Google and make my own calls to find out about an earlier appointment.  I refused to move and told him I was there because he was the doctor and he was going to make the calls not me.  He then reluctantly did a Google search and made a call to the first ENT practice he found.  When he asked for their earliest appointment, it was 9.30 am next day Thursday 20 February. 

The surly locum looked stunned.

That phone call - which I forced him make - saved by life.  By refusing to go away and by insisting that he do his job, I saved my own life.

I did not know it then, but I was about to see a wonderful, extraordinarily kind and almost miraculously skilful miracle worker called Dr Harshita Pant.

Dr Pant is my personal nominee for the most wonderful Australian I have ever met.