No.2 in an occasional Series It’s long been a given, that the next installment in my series on personal heroes would have to be an astronaut. The only reason I chose to put Babbage in pole position was to avoid the blindingly obvious. The dilemma was always which one. Well the events of recent days, […]

Circumstances seem to call for a good blues. And this is a VERY good blues which sum it all up rather succinctly. Over to you Wolf…

I’m sitting here eying up a large paper parcel. My latest haul of drugs from the Island pharmacy. When I picked them up this morning the girl behind the counter quipped that I’ve just about cleaned them out. It certainly looks that way. I’m pretty sure I hold more inventory than they do right now. […]

Hi everyone. I know from the phone-calls and texts that everyone is keen to know the results of the recent scan. Long story short. They weren’t great. We went in hoping for the best, but prepared for the worse, and I suppose what we ended up with was somewhere in-between. In spite of eight rounds […]

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Many years ago, when I first started to work in the advertising industry, we used to have this thing called The Overnight Test. It worked like this: My creative partner Laurence and I would spend the day covering A2 sheets torn from layout pads with ideas for whatever project we were currently engaged upon – […]

Last Tuesday I had my regular assessment meeting at the Cancer Unit prior to starting my fifth cycle of chemo. It’s become quite routine now. We pitch up at the reception desk where the relentlessly cheerful Mrs. Buckwheat checks me off on her list and hands me a clipboard with a Biro attached by a […]

  Now that I come to think about it. It was inevitable that I would wind up living on an island. Not necessarily this island. But some island. I was born by the sea in the West-Country of England, and apart from my student years in London, I have never lived more than a stones […]

I was thinking about that old, multi-purpose expression “Life’s too short” the other day. You know, life’s too short for drinking bad wine, life’s too short for standing in line, life’s too short for _____________________________(Complete as appropriate.) When life suddenly turns out to be shorter than you could have reasonably anticipated, this tired old cliche […]

Today, in the interests of fair reporting and factual accuracy, I’m going to set aside my usual, practiced sunny disposition and unfeasibly optimistic outlook for a moment and have a good winge. I am after all I am a Pom and it is my birthright. I feel crap. Shite. Buggered and, to use an old […]

How are you feeling today? It’s an incredibly subtle and delicate business. Trying to detect and quantify the daily changes in my mental and physical condition. As I’ve observed before, the first big lesson to learn is that cancer is, by and large, a slow, drawn out affair. Nothing happens over-night. At least if it […]

The Bus Stop Messiah is a real character. He hangs around the bus stop over the road from the hospital with a cardboard sign promising “CANCER HELP!” I’ve only spoken to him once briefly, a few weeks ago and haven’t seen him since, but I can’t get him out of my head. I hope I […]

It’s been a while since I have posted anything, so I am writing more to alleviate a nagging sence of guilt and obligation, rather than because I have anything particularly pressing to say. So, this is an un-rehearsed stream-of-consciousness ramble which may or may not lead anywhere interesting or useful. You have been warned. If […]

It’s Christmas Evre. I got the results from my CT scan on Monday. Acording my oncologist, my primary tumour is visibly smaler after two cycles of chemo. Merry Christmas everyone.

Well here I am, reporting live again from the Acute Oncology Dept. of picturesque Auckland Hospital. It’s coming up for 12.30 pm and I’m four hours into my iron infusion. I’m here to tell you it’s really not the most thrilling of procedures, but for the sake of accurate and complete reporting, I’ll give you […]

I’m grumpy today. And frustrated. Right now I should be sitting in my favorite big green viynal lay’z’boy in the corner of the oncology day-stay center being pumped full of vicious, cancer killing chemicals. Instead I’m cooling my heals here at home on a humid, windy, overcast Wednesday afternoon. I’ve been bumped for another week. […]

I Lindsey Peter Redding, being of sound mind and body… Hmmm. A sound mind? Well that’s debateable, and as far a sound body, well hardly. Right now my body is about as sound as a 1972 Trabant. Today we made our wills. It wouldn’t have been my first choice of diversion for a sunny December […]