134 – Circling the Drain, Part 1: 1 January 2025

This shows Margaret and me on 25 April 2019.  My open heart surgery had taken place in November 2018.  I was delighted and astonished to still be alive.  Celebrating life with Margaret was such a wonderful experience.

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My circling of the drain and growing ever closer to death can be accurately dated to our cancellation by Anne Ryan on 8 February 2021.  What had until then been crippling but intermittent episodes of life threatening symptoms were transformed by Anne’s behaviour into a daily struggle to breathe, eat and live.  The coughing returned far worse than it had ever been in 2020 and my ability to sleep was eliminated as effectively as if the chain saw used to open my chest in the heart surgery had been repurposed to ensure death by sleep deprivation.

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I usually delayed going to bed for as long as I could, hoping that the constant coughing would settle down.  I told myself that if I went to bed AFTER the coughing had settled, I might be able to sleep for longer. 

This strategy was a total failure.

It did not matter what time I went to bed and went to sleep.

I always woke up coughing fiercely at about 12.30 am or (if I “slept in”) at 2.00 am at the latest.

The coughing had a single mission in life – ripping my insides into tiny pieces.

I used to pretend that if I left our bed and crept quietly into the living room and closed all the doors, Margaret would be able to sleep through my coughing episodes.  Common sense told me this was stupid, but Margaret never openly told me that my coughing made it impossible for her to sleep – so I kept pretending to myself that at least she was getting some sleep after I moved away from the bedroom.

The difficult part of the nights started after I had left the bedroom.

The coughing came in spasms from deep within my belly.  It felt as if my insides were going to erupt out of my mouth and spill onto the floor while the spasms were in progress.

I found that I could eventually make the coughing spasms ease up if I did Perimeter Prowling.  Perimeter Prowling was the name I invented for my slow walking around the walls of the kitchen and living room.  I timed how long it took me to do a slow walk around the perimeters.  One circuit of the perimeters took about 60 seconds.  If I did Perimeter Prowling for 30 minutes – or 30 circuits of the perimeter – this usually but not always - induced the coughing to ease up.  If the coughing eased up, I could sit down on the sofa without coughing.  If I got REALLY lucky, the coughing would even go away for a while.  If the coughing temporarily went away, I could sit upright on the sofa and rest my head on a cushion.  Sometimes, I was able to doze for about an hour while resting my head on the cushion.

They were very dark days.

Margaret had been given a miraculous reprieve from death but my own death loomed increasingly closer.

I was not complaining.  If the universe wanted me to die so Margaret could live, that was an extremely fair swap, but the universe did seem to want my own death to take the maximum possible time and inflict as much suffering on me in the process as it possibly could.

As for me, I kept going because I knew Margaret wanted me to stay in her life.

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Margaret was not simply my wife.  She was the only woman who had loved me completely even though she knew every fault I had.  Margaret was my lover.  I wanted her to recover from her cancer and I wanted her have a life filled with joy.  She needed me, so I kept struggling through the daily episodes of coughing, stomach bloat, dismaying weight loss and increasing physical weakness.

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This Table sets out the rapid, significant decline in my health in March 2021.  I drew ever closer to death as “I circled the drain”.  My body made significant progress along Death Row.  My weight loss was caused by an inability to eat.  These are the meals I was unable to eat in March 2021.

 

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Friday 5 March		None
Saturday 6 March		None
Saturday 13 March		None
Sunday 14 March		None	None
Monday 15 March			None
Thursday 18 March		1 banana	3 gluten free crisp bread wafers with vegemite
Saturday 20 March			None
Sunday 21 March		None	Bowl soup
Thursday 25 March		Bowl ice cream
Friday 26 March		None	None
Saturday 27 March		None
Sunday 28 March			None
Monday 29 March			None
Tuesday 30 March		1 orange and 1 apple

 

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Apart from being increasingly unable to eat, I kept getting physically weaker.  This Table summarises the exercise I was unable to do in March 2021.

 

Date	Scheduled Exercise	Actual Exercise
Tuesday 2 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	Nil
Wednesday 3 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	Nil
Thursday 4 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Friday 5 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Saturday 6 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour 15 minutes walking at home; yoga nil
Monday 8 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Tuesday 9 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Wednesday 10 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Thursday 11 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Sunday 21 March 2021	3 ½ hours at Morialta	1 ½ hours at Morialta
Monday 22 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	30 minutes walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga
Thursday 25 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	30 minutes walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga
Friday 26 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	30 minutes walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga
Sunday 28 March	3 ½ hours at Morialta	1 ½ hours at Morialta
Tuesday 30 March	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home; yoga nil
Wednesday 31 March 2021	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga	1 hour walking at home, plus 30 minutes yoga

 

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The exercise I did manage, required massive willpower.  When I did not do scheduled exercise, this was because no amount of willpower could force my weakened body to do what I demanded.

My body was in deep trouble while Margaret was apparently cured of cancer.

133 – March Miracle Cure, Part 2: 31 December 2024

This was Margaret on 19 September 2021.  on that day we celebrated the birthday of Margaret’s sister Maurine.  My beautiful Margaret wife was so full of life.  She did not live to see 19 September 2023.

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I could barely contain my joy.

In early December 2020, Margaret had been dying.

She had undergone harsh treatment involving chemotherapy and radiotherapy for six weeks – and now we had been granted a miracle.  The cancer had collapsed so much that it was barely visible.  The doctors had no explanation for what had happened.  

The doctors had thought Margaret would be dead by December 2020.  If it worked, the chemotherapy and radiotherapy was supposed to extend her life to about March or April or May 2021; and then Margaret was supposed to die.

But now all of those predictions had been upended.

The cancer had done a vanishing act.  It could not be seen by the surgeon.  If there was anything still there, it was only a remnant of the cancer.

In my mind, my gorgeous Margaret was no longer doomed to die from the cancer!  

She was going to live!  

Making things even better was the fact that the news of the vanishing cancer had arrived 13 days before Margaret’s 71^st birthday on 29 March.

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Buoyed by the miracle of life, we decided to have a celebratory restaurant dinner and invite all of our friends. 

I sent this special text to Anne Ryan at 4.54 om on Sunday 14 March.

Hi Ann, I am certain Marg would love to have you present at her birthday dinner on 29 March – and so would I.  How about coming?

In those wonderful days when I was certain Margaret was going to live, I had no idea that I had already been cancelled.  I also had no idea that the cancer had not vanished.  It had only gone into hiding for a while.

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Anne Ryan never did reply to my text inviting her to come to our celebration.

Perhaps she had no spare time because she was too busy making sure that the celebration of Margaret’s gift of life would be strongly infected by her newly born hatred of me.  

Or maybe her hatred of me was not newly born at all.  Perhaps it had always been there, but she kept it hidden until she got the news that Margaret was doomed to die.  When that news arrived, perhaps she no longer saw any need to hide her hatred.

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Dinner was in a restaurant that the group of us had been to more than once before. 

Heather and Andrew Long were there. 

Sue Chapman was there. 

Nes Fernandez was there. 

Chris Reilly was there. 

Margaret and I were there.

Anne Ryan was not there.  She told Margaret that she would not come because I would be there.

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I sat next to Chris Reilly.  He too had been a long standing and treasured friend since before and after his wife Sue Marshall had died all those years earlier.

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Chris Reilly treated me with contempt.  He spoke to me only when I directly spoke to him.

People spoke to Margaret, but they refused to speak to me unless I spoke directly to them.

The atmosphere was forced and ugly and showed no trace of the celebration that we had intended.

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Our celebratory dinner was vile. 

It was one of the worst evenings I had ever had up to that point in my life.  But up till then, I had not experienced being snubbed by people who thought were friends.

The misery of that night was greatly accentuated by the refusal of Anne Ryan to answer my text asking her to come and by her notable absence from the “celebration” of the miracle cure that had been granted to her very best friend.

I was hurt for my own sake and for Margaret’s sake.  She had been treated like a piece of shit for one single reason – she was married to me.  

The presence of the deadly cancer in her body was completely irrelevant as far as her so called friends were concerned.  

Both the Former Dead Woman Walking and her Cancelled Husband had to be treated with contempt because a Woke Retired University Professor called Anne Ryan had decreed this was how they should act – and our so called friends followed the orders spewed out by the Retired University Professor.

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Making the vileness of the 29 March dinner worse was the continuing – and accelerating – march of my own body towards the death drain.  My symptoms got steadily worse throughout March 2021 and I increasingly became unable to eat.  This chart identifies my continuing weight loss throughout March 2021. 

My Weight March 2021
Friday 5 March 2022	79.0 kilograms
Friday 12 March 2021	79.8 kilograms
Friday 19 March 2021	78.1 kilograms
Friday 26 March 2021	78.3 kilograms

* 73.2 kilograms = 11 stone, 7 pounds, 7 ounces or 161 pounds, 7 ounces

In November 2019, the dietician had told me that my recommended weight for my height and age was 84 kilograms.  It had been months since my weight had reached the recommended 84 kilograms – but the weight kept melting off me.

Margaret had been granted an extension of life, but my own body was intent on shortening my own life.

 

132 – March Miracle Cure, Part 1: 30 December 2024

Because I loved Port Lincoln, we started driving to Port Lincoln on Friday 12 February 2021.  I did all the driving.  Margaret was too weak to drive.  We stayed the Friday night in Port Augusta.  It is only 310 kilometres from Adelaide to Port Augusta, but I was exhausted when we got there.

Margaret discovered a local hotel made a chocolate pizza, so she nibbled at a chocolate pizza.  I can’t remember what I ate, but I do remember I spent that night in terrible pain from my bloated stomach.  I tried hard pretending that it didn’t hurt even a tiny bit while Margaret pretended not to notice my agony. 

I did not sleep at all that Friday night and it was very hard driving the 343 kilometres from Port Augusta to Port Lincoln.

Our stay in Port Lincoln was depressing.  I was in terrible physical shape and Margaret was dying.  We stayed there from Saturday 13 February to the morning of Wednesday 17 February 2021.  We both thought it would be the last time we would ever have a holiday together – in Port Lincoln or anywhere else.

I took this photo of Margaret on Thursday 18 February 2021 in Port Wakefield on our way home from Port Lincoln.

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I took this photo of the Port Lincoln waterfront on Tuesday 16 February 2021.  Apart from being in great physical pain, I only wanted to weep.  In a few short weeks I was going to lose the company of the finest human being I had ever known.

I did not enjoy our Port Lincoln holiday at all, but a big surprise was in store for us when we got home.

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On 10 March, the surgeon did another operation on Margaret to look at the cancer again.  His written report says this.

Findings On endoscopy, the previous ampullary lesion in D 2 was not seen.  The biliary orifice, however, was not well seen with the echoendoscope. On EUS, the previous 1.8 x 1.2 cm oval lesion at the ampullary region has reduced in size to 8 mm the max.  There was no obvious extension of tumour into the distal CBD, which was no longer dilated (7 mm).  Overall, the appearance could be a normal ampula. The PD was not affected and was normal in calibre (1-2 mm) The previous 2 cystic lesion within the pancreas neck: neck (23 mm) and tail (8 mm) were both seen.  Both has no high risk or worrisome features. There were a few enlarged node[s] seen, with the largest in the celiac axis, measuring up to 15 mm.  This was biopsied using EUS FNA technique.  Material was collected for histology. There was no obvious lesion in the visualised portion of the liver.

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The surgeon took a tissue sample when he operated on Margaret on 10 March 2021.  The pathology report on the tissue sample confirmed what the surgeon saw during the 10 March operation.

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The oncologist gave us the astonishing news on 16 March.  For all practical purposes, Margaret’s cancer had “vanished”.  We had not foreseen this possibility and neither had the doctors.  We had hoped the chemotherapy and radiotherapy would grant us a short extension of Margaret’s life.  The oncologist had no explanation for what had happened. 

I was so thrilled I kept asking Margaret what she had done with her “Dead Woman Walking” badge. 

I know Margaret was not fooled even for a moment by her apparent “cure”.  As a cancer nurse, she had seen this type of "cure" many times.  She told me it was not a cure but a remission. 

Margaret continued to attend Lift Cancer Care Services and I kept working on the Postcard Book.

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Margaret sent a text to her wonderful friend Anne Ryan on 10 March telling her the news of the miracle cure.

Margaret got a reply at 9.40 pm saying “Fantastic news. Celebrate. Ax”.  Anne sent a second text at 21:43:17 saying “Have a good rest”.

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I sent Anne this text at 7:09 pm on Wednesday 10 March 2021.

What Marg didn’t say in her text.  Not enough cancer left for surgeon to do biopsy.  Did biopsy on lymph node but surgeon says he expects negative result.  Surgeon does not want to look again until 6 months had gone.  We used up a treasure chest of miracles.  Marg can’t believe this has happened.  Nor me.

I got a reply from Anne at 7.12 pm on Wednesday 12 March 2021 in response to my excited text telling her about Margaret’s miracle cure.  The text from Anne said this.

Wonderful news

My wife – supposedly Anne’s closest friend – had just been given news of a miracle cure and all Anne Ryan had to say was “Wonderful news” – 2 days after I had told her the news.

Our cancellation was in full swing.

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We received more good news on Tuesday 16 March.  I sent this text to Anne Ryan at 2.34 pm on that day.

Just got result of tissue sample taken at endoscopy last week.  Cancer is gone.  Live happily ever after.  WOW.

To my astonishment, I got a reply at 2.41 pm on the same day.  This was the reply.

Wonderful news

Unfortunately for me, I had not yet realised that both of us had been cancelled.  Anne Ryan had no interest in whether Margaret lived or died.  Margaret was married to someone who had been cancelled by Anne Ryan.  That meant Margaret was cancelled too.

Margaret’s life or death was of no interest to the woman who she still thought was her very best friend.