Deserving of four michelin stars

Yesterday, Queensland chef Matt Golinski was released from the Royal Brisbane Hospital.

For the benefit of interstate and international readers, Golinski suffered horrific burns in a house fire on boxing day last year that claimed the lives of his wife and three young daughters. After admission to hospital, he was put into an induced coma for around two months. This is about the same length of time I was under, so I have some understanding of the rehabilitative work that Matt has put in, and will continue to put in, to rebuild his body from its post-coma state.

Matt has worked exceedingly hard to rebuild his shattered body and life. The fact that he is now well enough to be discharged is the ultimate testament to the man's determination and strength.

Like me, Matt turned 40 in hospital a few weeks ago. But it's there that the parallels end. I will never understand the horrific physical pain and suffering that this man endured, nor the devastating emotional pain of having to recover from a tragedy that has cruelly taken my family from me. Matt Golinski is a remarkable man. A genuine hero in a world that creates all too many for reasons all too spurious. I tip me hat to this brave and truly inspirational bloke. His makes my own struggle appear somewhat modest.



Until next time,


 

ANZAC Week on Desolation Row

This week, Australia and New Zealand celebrated ANZAC Day. For the benefit of foreign readers, ANZAC Day is a commemoration of soldiers who have served our nations in conflict, and in particular suffered mortal or other injury. It originated as a memorial for soldiers who served in the First World War in Turkey and Northern France but now extends more generally to active service in all conflicts.

On Tuesday, Noel was discharged from hospital. The Midnight Cowboy packed his belongings and ambled off into the sunset. He was elated and left us feeling strong and fit. He was well ready to move on from hospital life and had endured a long and difficult wait on the transplant list. All up he had been in hospital for nearly six months. He had experienced the supreme disappointment of three close calls for organs. Two were hearts that were not the right size for him and he was, at the time, not physically well enough to undergo transplant surgery for the third. Close calls like this are not uncommon on the transplant list and fortunately I am yet to experience the tumultuous ecstasy and agony of such an event. Noel put in the hard yards and well deserved the relatively smooth run he was blessed with when the right heart finally became available for him. I will miss his presence on the ward and our days are much quieter without him. The need for a heart transplant has its genesis in many and diverse causes and it is an affliction that will bring together a random group of patients from all walks of life. In many respects, I have had nothing at all in common with any of Noel, Catherine and Mandy, other than our VADs and shared need for a heart transplant. We have all dealt with the situation in our own way. So far as the hospital is concerned, there can be no one-size-fits-all program for the care and management of a VAD/transplant patient. I wish Noel well and look forward to catching up with him when I too have become a former occupant of this place.

Wednesday was ANZAC day and a public holiday. I left the Hospital with ambitious plans. Camilla and I would take the children for a Barbecue in a large and popular water park, to join the Bellbowries and some friends for the afternoon. It was always going to be a challenge for our family to undertake such an expedition with a man and his VAD and an autistic boy who, given previous history, would be likely to be traumatised at the thought of submersion in water. Our more capable companions would be bringing all the gear and food and Julie promised to help with Charlie. We decided that nothing ventured would be nothing gained so it was off to the water park we went, bringing only ourselves, our VADs and two bottles of decent red from the cellar. One was a 2002 Gramps Barossa Shiraz; the other a 2006 Bungawarra Granite Belt Cabernet.

The afternoon was difficult for us. Then again, most things that are easily achieved for a "normal" family are difficult for us at present. The park was ridiculously crowded and the terrain unsuited to pushing a VAD. Charlie freaked when he saw children paddling in the shallow pools and wanted to be as far from the water as possible. Rather than entertain the idea of swings or rides, he just wanted to visit the public toilets, which had long queues of impatient park people. Imogen just wanted to read a book. I felt horrendously disabled and could contribute nothing of practical use to the proceedings. The barbecues were in short supply and frustratingly tepid.  It took forever to render meat dry and grey. It should have been a terrible  afternoon. But it wasn't. Not by any means. Julie took Charlie by the hand and led him around the water park to find things he enjoyed. He found playground equipment he liked. Even a few toilets. Andrew cooked the meat and Erich sprinkled it with lovely South African allspice. Conversation flowed easily. Imogen ditched the book and started talking to the other girls. The wine was excellent.

It's safe and easy to opt out of living because it is just too difficult with a VAD and a child with autism. Things that are easy for most families are difficult and frustrating for us. Nonetheless, the VAD is temporary and life cannot come to a complete halt. The show must go on.

Yesterday, my medical team decided to trial another painkiller regime. I had pushed them to indulge me this little experiment, because I was anxious to get this right before the transplant surgery. We decided to revert to a hit of good old fashioned morphine - tried and tested and excellent for heavy duty pain relief. We added a dose of stematil to mitigate the vertigo and a dose of ondanzitron for nausea.

The result was promising. I got a little vertigo, but nothing like the spinning room sensation I had experienced on other painkillers. I had no nausea. I could easily stand and even mange 15 minutes on the treadmill. I vomited once, copiously and violently, after the second dose. Far from ideal, but manageable. My pharmacist hopes that the vomiting can be managed with maxillon or perhaps my old buddy Dom Perignon. All in all, we now have something we can work with.

Today, Camilla and I got to the movies. This was the first time we had attempted the movies since my confinement. Again, it was ambitious and easily could have been too difficult with a VAD. Again, it proved a very worthwhile experience. We saw Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, a film adapted from a novel written by one of my favourite writers, Paul Torday. It was very good and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. It was easy for us to find good seats, as it was a quiet morning session. The Impaler ticked  and whirred loudly throughout, but we had the crowd behind us and cared little whether the noise may have bothered a few people we didn't know and would never see again.

I am slowly coming to the realisation that even now life is for living and changed circumstances just mean that we carry on a little differently than we did before, or tackle things a little differently to everyone else. There is much merit in just getting on with life until the donor organ arrives. We know not the hour, nor the day. But in the meantime, life is for living.


Until next time,

A not so motley crew

Insolvency practitioners, both lawyers and accountants, are sometimes compared to vultures or pirates. I myself prefer pirates. Vultures are ugly, feed off carrion and smell bad. Pirates on the other hand are, well, pirates. They are exotic and brave and speak with a colourful lexicon. What is more fun late at a pub when conversing with your workmates? Talking like a pirate or screeching like a vulture?

So pirate is it. When I get my transplant and sufficiently recover I am going to go back to life as a professional pirate. Back to plundering booty from corporate galleons who have struck misfortune along the Spanish main.

It is axiomatic that a pirate needs a crew and my crew be a fine one indeed.

My first mate is a lad called Sammy. In his younger days, he was a National level rower, or oarsman if you will. Sammy is tall, fair, muscular and good looking. A fine specimen of manhood. Moreover he is a hell of a good young lawyer. He knows the law well, has an ability to formulate and implement tactics, speaks and writes well and is a good advocate in Court when needed. Sammy has been carrying my practice since I've been out of action and doing a sterling job in all respects. It is comforting to know that Sammy is sailing the ship until my sealegs are ready to board again. Well done, mate. Well done indeed.

The young buccaneers who sail with us are Matt and Anna. They are smart, confident young lawyers (or trainee lawyer in Anna's case) with stratospheric academic results and bucketloads of enthusiasm and drive. Matt thinks he's a lady's man, despite the orange hair. Anna has a taste for fine food and wine far beyond the salary I pay her. Other lawyers in the firm are keeping Matt and Anna busy until I get back on deck. Thanks for that, guys. Don't hesitate to drag out the cat-o-nine-tails if they give you any trouble.

The glue that binds our crew together is our secretary, Terrissa. She's a lovely young lass who is adept at keeping order and egos in check. Terrissa is quick and efficient. She types like a machine but has a kind heart and pleasant manner. Over my career, I have had three excellent long term secretaries and all have assisted me to be a better lawyer.

When I get back onto the ship I will sport some mean pirate scars. My current crop of scars are jagged, discoloured and lumpy.  After transplant surgery, these scars will have even bigger, uglier scars on top of them, or through them. The final result will be a patchwork of real man's scars. True battle scars that tell stories of knifefights and brawls in salty sailor's taverns. Scars that inspire rum-soaked yarns and shanties. I'm tempted to think that this whole ordeal will be worth it for the scars.

Sammy has a few scars of his own. He was involved in a cycling accident a couple of years ago and broke his shoulder. This necessitated surgery and rehab. I think he took a total of ten hours off work.

Anna now has a little scar because she had her appendix out last week. Matt has no scars at all so a few of the boys from work are prepared to help me out with that. Jon Erbacher and Liam Fairhall have agreed to pin him down so that Sammy can create a few choice life tags on his pasty white skin. Alex de Luca has agreed to watch and maybe taunt him a little. de Luca likes to watch.


Until next time, me hearties,

A busman's holiday

All is well up here. My body is in good shape and my doctors have discontinued all IV antibiotics.

I managed to get home both days over the weekend. Saturday was a little stressful. When I arrived home for lunch, Charlie was gavotting about in his usual exuberant way. Then, after a short while he started whining. The whining turned to wailing as he became doubled over with pain.

For the first time in his life, Charlie was able to communicate his concerns with words. He told us he had a sore tummy. Camilla asked him where it hurt and he pointed to the leftt side of the abdomen. Thankfully, this was not the appendix side.

Camilla and my mother both diagnosed colic and agreed that it should pass with time. I was stunned. They rarely reached any form of consensus about these things. As the third member of the judiciary, I concurred that the diagnosis must be correct, and my father did so as well. Concurred in the sense of made no objection. Who were we to blow against the wind?

I tentatively suggested that they give beer to horses when they have colic, but nobody was prepared to trial this treatment so I shut up and left it to the experts.

Charlie did not improve. Three hours passed and he remained distressed and doubled over with pain. He could not walk. The committee agreed that it was now time to take him to the Accident and Emergency Department of our local hospital, the Wesley. We decided that Camilla, my father and I all ought to go. If it proved to be serious, Camilla could then take me back to Desolation Row and deal with whatever needed her attention.

Charlie decided that he would like to go "for a drive" with my father and so Camilla and I travelled to the Wesley separately in our car. I was a little uneasy about going back there. Seven and a half months earlier, my father had taken me there in the middle of the day because my pneumonia had worsened and I was short of breath. That night, Doctors Woodrow and Scalia diagnosed my heart failure and told me I would have had days to live had I not checked into hospital. I have not slept in my own bed since.

Whilst a little uneasy about this, my primary focus was on Charlie. He has always been terrified of doctors. Hence, we told had him that he was going merely for a drive. Admission to hospital would be a torturous experience for an autistic child. Camilla and I comforted ourselves with the notion that he would only be admitted if there was a compelling reason to do so.

Dad got Charlie ought of his car. Charlie was a little better but still walked stooped over. We took him inside and Camilla explained to him that he was going to see a doctor and what the doctor would do. Charlie understood and asked questions. He was calm.

We then saw the doctor on duty, Jenny Bowles. I remembered Jenny from an admission a couple of years ago when I had slipped in the street, fallen backwards and broke both elbows as I landed on  open palms to back my fall. I must quickly add that it was midday and I was completely sober. Jenny recognised me and we explained the situation with Charlie. She had a niece with autism so she knew the deal.

Jenny told Charlie that she was going to listen to his tummy and look in his ears and mouth. Charlie said, no eyes and Jenny assured him that she did not need to shine a light into his eyes. She then pulled out her stethoscope and listened to Charlie's tummy. She looked into his ears and mouth and watched him walk. He was still somewhat crouched, but walking freely. Moreover, he was enjoying the whole experience. This was another measure of the progress he has made.

Jenny decided that Charlie indeed had colic. She gave him a balloon. Charlie asked to go to the toilet and my father took him into the cubicle. He came out cheerfully and announced he had done a poo. As Camilla punched in her PIN number to pay for the consultation, he was miraculously cured.

So we packed up our VADs and our healthy, vibrant boy and the whole entourage left the Wesley and headed home. We we very relieved that Charlie was well. It had been a busman's holiday for me but really nothing to complain about.


Until next time,

A turbulent priest

Things continue to go well. At the moment, my only real concern is the occasional flourish of stigmata from the VAD wounds. Pinochet remains a broken, bitter man in exile, living on memories. I think he is somewhere in Teddington. I am exercising well and tweaking my diet to maintain the best condition for surgery. Now would be a very good time to receive the call.

Noel is now free from all drains and attachments and healing fast. He is scheduled to be discharged on Tuesday and everything he does is marked with unbridled enthusiasm. He is high as a high school student mucking up in the last week of school. He goes AWOL for hours on end wandering the hospital, enjoying his freedom. Once night the nurses found him asleep in a chair down in outpatients. He refuses his physio sessions and won't study his post-transplant tablet regime for the discharge exam. We all know Noel well and nobody is too concerned. He'll never wander too far and will eventually do his study. He likes to bend the boundaries but is smart enough not to jeopardise his own well being.

So very soon, Voight and Hoffman will cease their hospital partnership. The Midnight Cowboy will return to Wynnum Bay and Ratso will remain in the big house. I will continue to keep up contact with Noel.  He's a good bloke and we will all miss him up here. At some point this year, he is likely to grace our living rooms when the Sixty Minutes story airs.

Noel is looking to get himself a new car once he gets home. He has decided on a Hilux but perhaps he could look a little further afield and see if Jon Voight's Le Baron is still on the market. If he could secure that vehicle it would make for a great and very lucrative story.

Mandy is doing well. She is now able to get in and out of bed unaided and is pushing her VAD around the hospital corridors. It took me until late November or early December to do these things, but this is not a fair comparison. I was very sick and she is harnessing the amazing regenerative powers of youth. Mandy should heal quickly and well and she deserves that.

Mandy is aiming to spend most of her time on the waiting list at home. Her mother is a nurse and it looks like home will be a practical alternative for her circumstances. I really hope she can do this. Hospitals are inherently depressing places, filled with the old and infirm (with a few fabulously good looking middle aged lawyers here and there to break the monotony). They are not conducive to being young and free.

Over the course of my confinement, I have had a few visits from the former Bishop of Toowoomba, Bishop Bill Morris. My first memories of Bishop Morris date to my long lost adolescence. At the time, he was a young and vibrant new Bishop and the diocese quickly warmed to his energy and compassion. He became much loved and respected by his priests and parishioners with very good reason. He was an excellent pastoral Bishop and a kind and gentle man.

In 2006, Bishop Morris wrote an Advent letter to his parishioners in which he had the audacity to suggest, amongst other things, that the Church ought to consider the ordination of women and married priests to meet the chronic shortages in dioceses such as his own. The Bishop merely suggested that it be a subject for debate within the Church. Many Catholics agree with this, whether progressive or otherwise. I see no issue whatsoever in the implementation of such reform. Indeed, it is a blight on the Church that it wasn't done a long time ago.

Some parishioners did not agree with Bishop Morris' views and reported him to the Doctrine for the Congregation of the Faith in Rome. This resulted in Pope Benedict XVI deciding that someone needed to rid him of this turbulent priest and Bishop Morris was asked to resign. He did.

Rome's action saw the events in faraway Toowoomba makes headlines around the world. Local priests and parishioners were outraged and staged protests. Many of them, such as my parents, were conservative and quiet people who had never previously participated in an organised protest about anything.

Several prominent Catholic scholars believe that Rome acted in breach of both canon and civil law, because Bishop Morris had been denied procedural fairness. Among them are Father Frank Brennan, a  Jesuit priest and respected lawyer whose father sat as Chief Justice on the bench of the High Court of Australia. Another is Bill Carter, a retired judge of the Queensland Supreme Court.

True to character, Bishop Morris appears neither bitter nor regretful. He just goes about his business of being a wonderful and kind priest. He is one of the few men I truly admire and I am proud to welcome him into my hospital room. He is a man of God and a man of the people. I sleep well knowing that he is praying for me. The Church would be much stronger and more relevant to the modern world if it were able to embrace and promote the views and works of progressive and good men such as Bishop Morris. We seem to have lost more than a little ground since the days of Pope John XXIII.


Until next time,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Many people have asked me what it was like to experience a long term coma. A good question indeed and one I shall attempt as best I can to answer.

I now know that Camilla, my parents and family spent eight tortured weeks conducting a horrific bedside vigil desperately encouraging a very sick body to rage against the dying of the light. I, however, was elsewhere. My recollection of the experience is understandably imperfect but has improved significantly over time.

In the coma, I constructed a disturbed alternative reality - a vivid and emotive dreamscape that had some elements of reality and many of my own creation. I am told this is common.


I started in a hospital room, but a different room to the one I was actually in. Camilla, Dr Thomson and my parents were all present at various times. There was a heavy curtain surrounding me, but I could hear conversations between them conducted outside the curtain. The conversations were supposed to be secret but I could hear them clearly. I recall Dr Thomson telling my parents that I had died and this caused them to fall apart with grief. They then decided to steal Camilla's mother's car from the parking station. Camilla and her mother were incensed and got the police involved.


As it turned out I had not died and was released from hospital. There was no VAD and no illness. I was completely recovered in all respects. My sister, Shelley, then had twins. 


Camilla and I were then invited to a large party at Dr Thomson's house. He lived in Toowoomba, in a big house near East Creek. Camilla and Mrs Thomson were now good friends. For some reason, I was not allowed to drink alcohol at the party, but everyone else was. They were drinking excellent wine from Dr Thomson's cellar, all in moderation in a very civilised and urbane manner. My temperance was not a concern for me, as I was greatly enjoying the company of the Thomsons and their friends.


A few days after the party, Camilla and I visited the Thomsons and we thanked them for their hospitality. They said that we were friends and that was what friends did.


I then played a game of golf on a country golf course with some mates. We abandoned the golf game and decided to started drinking cheap nasty spirits. We got drunk and rowdy and found what we believed to be an abandoned warehouse next to the golf course. I found a darkened room in the warehouse and it contained a bed. I then damaged something in the room. I cannot recall what it was. It may have been a window. I crashed on the bed and fell into a deep drunken slumber.

I was awoken by a security guard brandishing a flashlight. He said that I had been trespassing and had damaged the property of the company he worked for. It was a large American company and corporate policy was to sue to the full extent of the law, however trivial the incident. 


I then did a dumb thing, because I was scared. I confessed that I had trespassed and damaged company property. He completed an incident report and I signed it. He then left.


I immediately realised that this was a stupid, stupid thing to have done. Had I shut my mouth, the company had no case against me. My own foolish confession had given them all the evidence they needed to put me in jail. So much for years of training. I was just an idiot.


I then decided that the only thing to do was run. To evade service. They could not prosecute me if they could not serve me.


Our family then began life on the run, moving steadily North. We spent a few days at different locations. We stopped at a resort near Mackay where I had conducted a mediation years before. It was safe and one night we were there Bob Dylan's son and his band put on a show in the lounge. 


But the company process servers got word where we were. Someone tipped us off and we kept moving North. We stayed at a farm outside Townsville owned by some friends. They were convening a camp for underprivileged children so we helped out with that. It was a happy few days but we knew the company process servers would find us. Our only choice was to keep going North to Papua New Guinea. We organised a small plane and our friends saw us off at the local airport.


I then can recall being back in a hospital bed surrounded by drapes. I was screaming like a banshee and could not get out of bed. I would see inanimate objects in the room become animated as monsters. The nurses yelled at me to control myself.

That's all I can really remember. There were no bright lights that I walked towards. Just lots of fright and running from trouble.

Waking up was a gradual process. There was no moment of my eyes suddenly opening and my consciousness returning to the real world. It happened slowly over a few days.

I then had great difficulty distinguishing what I had dreamed and what had actually happened. I asked my sister how the twins were going.

I guess my dream sequence has meaning to some extent and I am sure that anyone who would be interested enough to do so, from an eminent psychiatrist to a pop psychologist, would be able to distill the events into a meaningful response to recent events. I was on enough sedatives to put down a horse and I am told that this of itself is a factor which promotes distressing dreams.

I cannot help but believe that some things from the outside world permeated through to my subconscious. They were not actual events as such, but more impressions and silhouettes of reality, which were incorporated into my new perceived reality.

So that, for what it is worth, was what I saw when addled with drugs and close to death.  Somehow I managed to summon sufficient rage against the dying of the light. The lion's share of the credit, of course, must go to the many doctors whose skills and expertise got me through these darkest of days. I like to think that they too were able to invoke some degree of rage in successfully fighting the good fight.



Until next time,

Days of wine and roses

The last few days have been very positive. Things have been pretty good health wise, so there have been some opportunities to get out a little and break the soul-destroying tedium of Hospitalworld.

On Monday, I received a visit from my maternal grandmother. Nan will turn 96 next month, but she is still  fiercely independent. She lives at home and cooks for herself. She played tennis into her eighties. Nan could not entertain the thought of a nursing home. She lives life on her terms. I offered to arrange her a wheelchair to escort her from car to room and she would not have a bar of it. She would walk, slowly and proudly, all the way, by herself.

Nan is a lovely, gentle lady and I was very pleased that she was able to travel from Toowoomba to visit. My uncle Jim and auntie Annette were taking her for a short vacation to the Sunshine Coast, so they were able to stop by the hospital on the way through. It was good to see them. For a time, it looked like Nan would outlive me. Even when I get the transplant, it will be some time before I get to Toowoomba. For many reasons, it was a welcome and timely visit.

Yesterday, I got out for a pub lunch with my best mate, Rhino. It's been and long time since we've enjoyed a beer together and I daresay the only time we've only consumed one each. Rhino was able to make it to Bluesfest to see the Pogues, taking his older kids to experience some classic old people music. They got a good position close to the stage and were near enough for Shane MacGowan to spill a beer on them. Shane was, of course, very drunk but on song. Whilst I am disappointed that I could not get there, I was much pleased that Rhino could. His dear mother took a bad fall recently and it was difficult for him to get away. Rhino has been a terrific mate during this saga. We'll definitely get to Bluesfest next year.

Having a little lunch session at the pub should have been the prelude to a quiet relaxed afternoon, but my physiotherapist had other, more sinister, ideas. Lisa politely suggested a session of hill walking, just a little further and steeper than we had been doing previously. Lisa knows I cannot say no to her and she ruthlessly and mercilessly exploits this weakness for her own sadistic pleasure. Mind you, I cannot complain. She is invariably a pleasure to work with and has produced results.

Today we finished my medical stuff early and my lovely nurse Bridget suggested that Camilla and I check out Redcliffe or Sandgate for a seaside lunch. Bridget is full of good ideas and this was a particularly fine one. I had not seen the ocean for many months and we decided that a salty sea breeze was the perfect accompaniment to a decent meal. These areas were virtually unknown to us and we had never really given them much thought.

We chose to dine at Morgans, a fabulous purveyor of seafood overlooking the marina. We sat on the deck, breathed in the salt air and worked our way through an enormous platter of the freshest seafood, including Pacific oysters, Moreton Bay bugs, tiger prawns and spanner crab. It was divine. We then took a slow drive along the waterfront with the windows down. Then reluctantly it was back to the stark reality of Hospitalworld.

I apologise for being nauseatingly positive today. This Polyanna manner is completely out of character and I will make sure I take a strong dose of cynical pills and resume normal programming next post.


Until next time,

Exchanging a walk on part in the war for the lead role in a cage

Whilst I am desperately missing my family, I am also desperately missing my work.

Practising as a litigation lawyer is our version of macho. It's intense, combative and tactical. Your opposing lawyers are very much your opponents and each side strives to outwit, outmanoeuvre and outlast the other. Alliances are formed and broken. Compliant witnesses turn hostile. The rules of the game change as new laws are made and new precedents are set. Hearings are listed before good judges and bad judges. The enemy briefs good barristers and sometimes bad barristers. Important victories are won and lost over pleadings and disclosure of documents. Temporary injunctions are sought and either obtained or repelled. Clients run out of stamina and money. It's heady stuff. Litigation is war. It's both demanding and exhilarating.

Adding an insolvency angle to my practice creates a challenging new dimension to the dynamic. For each new file there will be, generally speaking, a new problem containing a limited amount of wealth and numerous competing stakeholders all of whom want to maximise their share of it. There are secured creditors and unsecured creditors. Receivers and liquidators. Landlords, suppliers and employees. On every given matter, I will be asked to act for one of these players with the role of advising how to advance his, her or its interests in the game.

Like most litigators, I have always worked long and hard. I have never had time for hobbies or sport. Spending time with family and spending time at work will completely consume the waking hours. There is little time for much else.

I've played the game for a while now, and like most things you enjoy it more once you know what you are doing. Golf is more fun when you shoot in the low eighties, rather than trying to scrape below a hundred.

I  have never regretted my chosen career. The majority of my friends are lawyers, many of them litigators. It plays a large part in defining who I am. It earns me a decent living and enables my family to live in a nice home in a nice suburb. I drive a nice car, as does my wife, and my daughter attends a nice school. My son attends a very nice autism centre and is making more than nice progress. We holiday in nice places, eat nice food in nice restaurants and drink nice wine.

We are never going to be fabulously wealthy and our money is earned through working hard and smart. Yet we will never be destitute and our children will never be denied opportunities. Every year I pay enough tax to support a largish mini-bus load of pensioners. We donate to charities.

All in all, I have led a good, busy and productive life, centred around family and work, as an independent and intelligent man.

My world was completely demolished the day I was admitted to hospital. For over seven months now, I have been institutionalised. There is no privacy, no independence and no dignity. The day revolves around medication, dressings, consultations with doctors, observations, scans and physiotherapy. I eat slop brought around on a trolley. I have long stretches of leisure time. I have no staff to manage and no clients to advise. I inhabit a small room where life is centred on a bed. I call for assistance with basic tasks. It is a major expedition to mobilise anywhere.

Somehow, I have kept patient and sane. This is, I believe, because I have always maintained a tenuous grip on the old world. I see my wife every day and we try to have lunch together every day. I see my children at home every weekend. I maintain contact with work to provide advice and assistance. I interact with friends and extended family. I read online newspapers every day and watch documentaries and current affairs programs.

In the movies, prisoners say that you only serve two days of your sentence - the day you go in and the day you get out. This is a romantic notion, but not an accurate one. I have felt every one of 170 odd conscious days of my confinement. Periodically throughout each day I have counted the remaining hours until I hope to fall asleep.

My days in hospital will come to an end, but there is no way of knowing when. That is frustrating. It precludes any planning. The return to the world remains a vague and nebulous concept.

In the interim, I must simply channel my inner Rick Parfitt and maintain the Status Quo. Each day endured is a day closer to transplant and a day closer to discharge.



Until next time,

Still crazy after all these years

On 21 February 2012, after four and a half long and arduous months in hospital, my battered body turned forty. It was a limp-over-the-line effort, but we got there somehow.

The day started badly. I was not in the best frame of mind as I had hoped to have had the transplant by this date. Logic told me that this thing does not respect my deadlines but sentiment had been fooling me into thinking that there would be beautiful symmetry in receiving the ultimate gift on a milestone birthday.

I had made plans to have dinner with my good friends, David and Kate Schwarz, at a fine eatery in the City called Urbane. Then, Camilla and I would spend the night at a posh hotel. Alas, the Impaler had other ideas and I began the morning with a flourish of stigmata from the VAD wounds. It gushed all morning.

Camilla and my parents visited and made a gallant effort to cheer me up. The nurses did a whip around, bought me a cake and sang Happy Birthday.  But I was far from festive. Camilla called Kate to postpone the dinner and she cancelled the hotel booking.

Then the Impaler decided to give me a little break. The bleeding stopped. Dr Thomson gave us his mandate to venture out to dinner, so Camilla called Kate with the delightful news that dinner was back on.

By mid-afternoon, Rhino had arrived for a visit so I invited him to dinner. He obtained a leave pass from Helen and Thunderbirds were go.

Dinner was wonderful. We savoured a seven course degustation feast. We ate crayfish, wagyu beef and lamb. We drank some great wine including a punchy Blanc de Noir Champagne and a sublime Chateau d'Yeum generously donated by another friend.

For a few hours, life was good. I wasn't the guy in hospital waiting for a transplant. I was me. Thanks for the evening, guys. It was the best fortieth one could have!

The only downside was that I got to enjoy it with a select few. When I get better, I am going to have history's biggest 41st. It will be the party of all parties. Here's what I have in mind.

I'm going to invite all of my extended family. This thing has shown me that family is everything. I am privileged indeed to be part of a great clan.

I'm going to invite my friends. Many of my mates have stood tall and been counted when times have gotten tough. Mates have brought me meals, stopped in to chat, helped Camilla at home and given me books and dvds. Emma even arranged a surprise visit from Melbourne. Thank you one and all.

I'm going to invite my workmates. These guys have been tremendously supportive, as I have demonstrated in previous posts. Work mates indeed.

I'm going to invite all of my doctors, nurses and therapists. I know we are going to get this thing over the line together, one day. And I've heard that nobody parties like the medicos.

The cuisine will be Lebanese-Irish to reflect my ancestry. Guinness pie and tabbouleh. Kibbeh and stout. I'll invite my favourite chef, Anthony Bourdain, to handle the catering. Tony leads my ideal life in that he writes, travels and eats, all very well. Sort of my retirement plan. He also has great taste in music and may be able to bring some pals  (I'm thinking Lou Reed and a few Ramones) to play a few tunes. They can jam with my house band for the night, the Pogues. Naturally, His Bobness is also invited to attend and do whatever the Hell he likes. Shane MacGowan can prop up one side of the bar with him.

I'm going to invite Al Pacino, the world's greatest living actor. When I've had a few, I start to think I look a little like Al, and start to channel the Pacino presence. Then as I sober up, it becomes more Dustin Hoffman or Paul Simon. By the next morning, it's back to Rowan Atkinson or George Caloumbaris.

I'm going to invite Kinky Friedman. For the uninitiated, the Kinkster is a Jewish writer and country singer who emerged from Texas with his band The Texas Jewboys in the Seventies. He now writes mystery novels starring himself as the wisecracking, hard drinking private detective and his mates as his crime solving accomplices. He recently made a semi-serious run for Texas Governor. He prides himself as being the only Jewish adult in America who doesn't own real estate. Last year, Bellbowrie and I got to see Kinky in concert and chatted with him after the show. It was a great night and I laughed like a drain. I didn't laugh again until a couple of weeks ago when Dr Thomson arrived with Dr Javorsky to check out Pinochet at his worst. He pointed to his surgical mask and said, "You realise we just like to put these on and pretend to be doctors?" It was classic Hawkeye Pierce. Better invite Alan Alda too.

I'm going to invite my favourite writer, PJ O'Rourke. He may be right of Attilla the Hun but I love the things he writes about and how he does it. We just violently disagree a lot.

I'm going to invite Stephen Fry. The man is a genius. A modern Rennaissance man adept at writing, comic acting, serious acting and just about whatever else he pleases to attempt.

Finally, I'm going to invite Russell Crowe. After all, somebody needs to pay for it!


Until next time,

Czech Mate

For the next two weeks, three of my doctors will been in Prague attending an international heart lung transplant conference. They did not seek my imprimatur to gad off to the other side of the world. Nor did they offer to take me as an interesting subject.

So if an organ does become available in the near future, we'll need to do the transplant without my cardiac surgeon  (Bruce Thomson)  my head cardiologist (George Javorsky) and my Doogie Howser (Scott Mackenzie).

I blame George, because he's Czech and that must have something to do with it.

Somehow we will manage if need be. Dr Tesar is an excellent cardiac surgeon and for the next few weeks he walks on water, even if he does have the flu. My other cardiologists, Dr Platts and Dr Brown are excellent cardiologists as well so were are nicely covered. Even though Dr Platts is Tasmanian.

I am quite sure than doctors treat their conferences a little more seriously than lawyers do. I daresay that during the days my doctors will be diligently attending seminars and workshops on obscure transplant topics, and in the evenings attending quiet cocktail parties where they politely chat with their colleagues from Papworth, the Mayo Clinic and John Hopkins about their most special patients and how to best manage them. There will be no late night boozing, no gossip sessions, no dirty hookups and no shenanigans. What happens on tour comes home to Brisbane to be put to good use.

I understand that Dr Thomson is presenting a seminar on the Hospital's progress with the artificial heart. Dr Mackenzie is also presenting and for all I know Dr Javorsky will present as well, probably in Czech. I don't know how these blokes fit everything into a day. They are amazing.

We had another red letter day for Charlie yesterday. He calmly sat through a haircut. Thus far, haircuts have been diabolical experiences and akin to torture for Charlie. He would howl and cry whilst Camilla physically restrained him for the duration. At the mere mention of the word he would shriek No Haircut! Yesterday, he quietly waited half an hour for the hairdresser to be ready, sat calmly in the chair in Camilla's lap and had his haircut. He even asked to paint his hair, having keenly watched the previous customer receive a colour. The hairdresser gave him a brush and, without pigment, he painted his hair. This was another fantastic step forwards. He is progressing so well and we are claiming great victories in the battle against autism.

Charlie is even engaging in some imaginative play and now has a baby doll called Bruce. He picked up the name when Camilla was talking about Dr Thomson. Bruce has his own bottle and stroller. He also has a pink headband. So another cool Bruce is born.

A couple of days ago, a new patient was fitted to a VAD, so my days of being the only VAD guy in Queensland were short lived. She is now living a few doors up from me. Her name is Mandy and she is a mere twenty years old. She is young; young enough to be my daughter had I led a dilettante adolescence. That's too young to bear this cross. Like me, Mandy had heart failure because she caught a virus. Noel and I are trying to give Mandy as much support and encouragement as we can.  She'll get there. She was a little scared by how long Noel and I had been in hospital. She said to me, "I really admire Noel. He's been here since May."

I replied (as is the case), "May! He's only been here since September or October!"

That Noel! There's a good reason I bought his stories. They're safer with me.


Until next time,

RIP Colonel Harlan

A lot of bad things happened to our family last year. Not least of them was the loss of our beloved little dog, Harlan. Harlan was a eight year old Cavalier King Charles spaniel. We adopted him in 2009 to be a companion for our other Cavvy, Jasper.

We had bought Jasper as a puppy from a breeder. Jasper was always Imogen's dog and she named him after a character in the Twilight books and movies. At the time, Immy was deeply into all things Twilight. She now denies any association with it. At twelve you are allowed such liberties.

We adopted Harlan from a family who was moving to Vietnam. Camilla learned of him through a Cavvy rescue website and his family brought him to our place to meet us and Jasper, so we could all determine whether it would be a feasible arrangement for all stakeholders.

It was clear from the outset that Harlan was a very different dog to Jasper. The drive made him carsick and he greeted us by vomiting on our tiles. Unlike Jasper, who was young, lean and energetic but stupid, Harlan was older and wiser. He was a little fat and a little slow getting around. Whilst Jasper had the orthodox good looks of a show dog, Harlan was funny looking and we suspected that he was well short of a purebred. He looked as if he could have easily had a wombat somewhere in the family tree. Jasper barely ate whilst Harlan was a true gourmand, looking to experience the many delicacies of people food as often as he could. The only athletic skill he possessed was an ability to leap onto a chair then a table, with astonishing speed and vigour, in order to access a plate of food that had been left for him to enjoy. Usually the meal was Charlie's.

Harlan enjoyed his moments of solitude and would find safe places in cupboards and under beds to savour being alone. He played with Jasper but only on his terms. He had no desire to be the dominant dog in our pack of two, and delighted in just being the beta male.

Harlan and I bonded. He invariably chose to sit with me on the couch or run to me for some roughhousing. He would howl with delight whenever I got home. A curious and endearing howl that was more of a yodel. Camilla joked that Harlan was my kindred spirit in dog form. We were great mates.

You may be thinking that a cavvy is hardly a man's dog. Well let's turn our mind to some real men who have owned cavvies. The starting point is of course Charles the First, who a man of profound influence with strongly held views in politics and philosophy. Charles the Second was a man's man of a king, who sowed his wild oats with gay abandon. Ronald Reagan owned cavvies, and he was the prototype conservative cold warrior President with a heart of iron. Robbie Farah owns cavvies and he packs into scrums in first grade Rugby League. My cousin Steve owns cavvies and he's a hard working tiler. Whilst not a man, my dear friend Emma has owned cavvies and she has always encouraged me to be more positive, an essential skill for getting through the long days and nights in hospital.  I understand that Chuck Norris owns three fierce cavvies with spiked collars, who can menace even Cerberus. Cavvies are cool and real men like them.

Harlan developed a liking for cane toads. For the benefit of foreign readers, cane toads are large ugly toads that were introduced into North Queensland to control the effect of cane beetles. As is often the case, the cure proved worse than the affliction and cane toads have since dominated most habitats, urban and non-urban, across the State and beyond. It is not uncommon to see and hear dozens and dozens of them lazing in a steamy suburban backyard during Summer. Part of growing up in Queensland involves learning to strike a cane toad with a nine iron.

Cane toads secrete poison from their backs so most native predators stay well away from them. Thus far, only the clever crow has learned how to successfully tackle a toad. The crow will flip the toad on its back and attack the non-toxic underbelly. Most dogs are smart enough to stay away from toads. Even Jasper could work it out. Harlan, however, was a different story. He loved them and developed a liking for the taste of toad poison.

Throughout the day, Harlan would dig around the yard, looking for toads. He would sniff around nooks and crannies, hoping to cause a toad to jump into licking range. Every night, we had to ensure he was locked indoors before dark. A few times, we had to rush him to the veterinary hospital after he'd overdosed on toad   poison. Camilla and I often said that one day the toads would get him. It was just a matter of time.


But it wasn't the toads that got him in the end. When our house became uninhabitable after the flood, Jasper and Harlan went to live with Shelley and Casey, and their dog Carlos. Carlos is a big white exuberant  labrador.  He and Jasper got on famously. Harlan, on the other hand, did not enjoy the new pack paradigm. He missed his toads and his best mate. After a few months in his new home, Harlan grew grumpy and tired. Then he got sick.

Ironically, Harlan developed cardiomyopathy, the same affliction I was to suffer a few months later. He got extremely sick and we started giving him expensive medication for his heart. Some of these drugs are part of the colourful cocktail I now take every day. We made arrangements for him to come and live with us at the townhouse, to see out his last few weeks with his family. We did what we could to make his last days happy ones and he became pleasant and endearing again.

Then one day, he got too sick for it to continue. He was in pain and there was no prospect he would get any better. We took him to the vet, said our goodbyes and gave him a last cuddle. Camilla has a great photo of me and Harlan, taken that day,which she often uses as her screen saver. The vet put him to sleep and we were sad for weeks. He was a great dog and is sorely missed.

After a few weeks, we adopted a new cavvy. She is a ditsy pup called Bobbi. Bobbi is pure red and, like Jasper, show dog attractive. But she is dumb. Very dumb. She makes Jasper look smart. Nonetheless, she is sweet and affectionate and gets along famously with Jasper. Charlie and Imogen love her dearly.

I still miss Harlan and always will. He was different and special. It will be a wonderful event for me to get back home, eventually, but I wish my little mate could have been there to be a part of it.

Until next time,

Pinochet vanquished

Today I received some excellent news. My sternum wound, the evil Pinochet, will not require reconstructive surgery. The vacuum dressing has been removed and awarded a medal of valour. I now have a soft dressing in place, with no discomfort and no restrictions upon my arm and shoulder mobility. The wound is expected to fully heal of its own volition. The dictator is living in exile, a broken and powerless man.

On the down side, I got sick on painkillers again. I react very badly to many painkillers. They make me dizzy, nauseous and sweaty and induce horrendous vomiting. It's like getting badly drunk back in the student days, without the preceding good time. We have now tried Endone, Fentonil, Tramedol and Hydro Morphine. Each has caused the same reaction, to some degree. It is important that we find an effective painkiller before the transplant surgery. My delightful pharmacist, Suzanne, is assiduously working on the problem and I am confident she will come up with an answer.

Well done to my team at work for a resounding win in Court yesterday. They prepared the case quickly, clinically and thoroughly. They even indulged the old man to participate with a bit of strategy and research.

I am now back on antibiotics because my VAD wounds have been bleeding profusely. They required four dressings over 24 hours. I suspect that in the dying days of the regime, Pinochet sent a few troops across the border to wreck some mayhem. Nothing I haven't dealt with before so no biggie in the scheme of things.

Oh, I've been forgetting to mention the outcome of the Scrabble game with my mother in law. Please don't draw an adverse inference from my silence on the topic. I beat her by 99 points. She is a decent player so I was pretty chuffed and have now officially retired from the game. She can foist her contrived non-words upon the rookie crowd.

Until next time,

Odds and Ends

It's time to give a general update as to the State of the Union here on Desolation Row.

I managed to get home each afternoon for the four days which comprised the Easter break. This was exhausting but very worthwhile. There is no place like home. There really isn't.

I managed to catch up with many family and a few friends, including Camilla's brother in law and nephew on holiday from England. Many thanks to the crew who assembled the new trampoline. Charlie loves it and Camilla has told me that he will often go out onto the deck just to check that it is still there.

Imogen is enjoying the school holidays and is spending much time with friends on shopping trips and sleepovers. She still make time for her Dad.

Charlie enjoyed his first Easter egg hunt, organised by his cousins. It was exhilarating to watch him participate in a structured game he understood, played with other children. He even chose to sit with the kids for lunch, rather than his Mummy. Giant strides.

Thanks to my parents for bringing down to Brisbane some of the traditional Lebanese food we eat over Easter. Each Good Friday, my Auntie Marie cooks a dish called kibbet rawhab. It is a bitter soup containing beans, chickpeas, onions, lemon and vinegar which the Maronites believe was given to Christ on the Cross. For as long as I can remember, my grandmother made the dish each year. Since her death, Marie has assumed the role. The dish is meant to be endured, rather than enjoyed, to remind the faithful of Christ's suffering. Personally, I find it delicious and eat it by the bowlful. 

I could not see my sister Danielle because she is recovering from whooping cough. Hopefully I will be able to catch up very soon.

Noel is recovering well and is expected to return to the Ward very shortly. It has been deathly quiet in his absence.

Pinochet continues to heal well and there is no talk of any pecs surgery. It has not been ruled out, but is no longer being discussed. This is progress.

The VAD wounds continue to bleed heavily and lightly on and off for no apparent reason. I have suggested stigmata but my doctors are skeptical.

All the while, I continue to wait. And wait. And wait. Some things just have to be toughed out.


Until next time,

Noah Part Two

.... continued from previous post.

Alone and anxious, I sloshed through the mud pile that covered my driveway and entered the garage. Slippery mud was everywhere and everything stank. The street was a war zone. Misplaced objects littered our yard, and the rest of the neighbourhood, covered in mud. I tried to open the door to the house but it was heavy with water and had warped out of shape. Eventually, I got it open and tentatively looked inside to take in the sights and smells of our personal Armageddon.

It was as bad as I had expected. Furniture and objects were strewn everywhere, covered in mud. Some things, like an outdoor table and chairs, had apparently been gently lifted up and gently placed down in their correct positions. Other things were lying about randomly. The smell was unbearable and I will never forget it. Our beautiful home was a gruesome and chaotic parody.

I did not know where to start or what to do. This called for serious physical labour with tools and skills. This was not a problem that called for drafting Court documents or succinctly articulating the potential liability of a receiver in effecting the sale of a particular development site. This task was beyond me. Well beyond me.

Then people started to arrive. Some were friends like Abigail and Steven Viller and Trish and Philip Stevenson. Some were neighbours, like the Uni students who had just moved into the house next door a few days before the deluge. Many were strangers. They were just everyday people who were roaming the affected suburbs with mops and brooms looking to help anyone they could. We worked all day and cleaned up much of the mess. The Brisbane City Council organised a kerbside collection where trucks would regularly stop and collect the latest piles of rubbish. Strangers dropped in with cakes and drinks. We photographed and catalogued all lost items, to support the insurance claim.

The Villers even took in Camilla's mother as a house guest for more than a week. I believe the Pope is considering sainthood.

The next day, a large group of my workmates arrived at the house with brooms and buckets. There were partners, employed lawyers, trainees and secretaries. They just wanted to work, because their mate needed a hand. Hopgood Ganim is that sort of place. We had so many helping hands already that we turned away many offers of help from passing strangers.

By this stage, the Brisbane City Council had repaired most essential services and the Premier had organised a donation fund for those victims who were uninsured. The speed of the recovery was breathtaking. It was well organised and well led by the Labor State Premier and the Liberal Lord Mayor. The people of Queensland showed the world how to quickly, efficiently and effectively deal with a major natural disaster. I felt guilty for my cynical thoughts towards the hoarders and spectators a few days earlier. As a man who assumes mediocrity in those who don't prove otherwise, I was pleasantly surprised by the communal display of generosity. It was both refreshing and uplifting.

We continued to liaise with our insurer, Suncorp. They were an absolute pleasure to deal with. They quickly approved a short term lease for a nearby townhouse and we moved ourselves and our belonging into our new temporary home. Not long before the flood, Imogen had been in hospital for surgery to remove her appendix. In true Imogen style, she never complained and simply made the best of it. She made friends with kids from other flood refugee families in the complex. We even had neighbours called Kramer!

We were fair with Suncorp and they were fair with us. We did not claim a lost Van Gogh or a case of Dom Perignon and they did not pennypinch what we did claim. Suncorp promptly engaged a builder to repair the damage and he did a pretty good job. Around many affected suburbs, residents displayed makeshift signs on their construction sites. Some praised the insurers like Suncorp who had done them good. Others criticised the many other insurers whom they felt had done them wrong.

Charlie struggled to adapt to his new routine and surroundings. It was a big ask for an autistic boy who had just started full time at AEIOU. The Centre was brilliant and provided us and Charlie with a great deal of practical support. We knew that he was in the right place.

After around six months, the construction work was over and we moved home. Even though the water level had not reached the upstairs floorboards, there was much damage to our upper level. The walls had sucked in copious amounts of floodwater and all of the upstairs carpets, curtains, mattresses and soft furnishing were covered in mildew and damaged beyond repair. Suncorp paid to replace the lot, without protest.

A few weeks after moving home, I caught a virus and got sick. The virus then attacked my heart and put my in hospital for seven months on a VAD waiting for a heart transplant. Perhaps the virus was borne upon those apocalyptic flood waters. Perhaps not. It really does not matter.

I am now less cynical and genuinely proud of Brisbane and its people. Last year, my family was pummelled by three cataclysmic events. Brisbane responded with a world class Early Intervention Centre for Charlie's autism, a world class repair and recovery effort following the flood and a world class transplant hospital to deal with my heart failure. Can any other city on the planet boast that? We have reason to have great civic pride in what we have built in this hot and steamy little corner of the globe.

I still can't bring myself to support the Brisbane Broncos. But I hate them a little less now. Mind you, not when they play Souths. This road to Damascus epiphany only goes so far.


Until next time,

God said to Noah, build me an ark.

In January 2011, South East Queensland experienced a flood of biblical proportions. Many lives were lost, towns were destroyed and a significant portion of Brisbane itself was under water. It made headlines around the globe.

The disaster was of a scale not previously seen in Australian history, because it decimated a very densely populated urban area. Greater Brisbane is a large, modern, highly developed metropolis and this made it particularly vulnerable to the colossal volume of water that spilled out of Wivenhoe dam over the course of several dramatic days. The scale of the devastation was not unlike that wrought upon New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, or the damage sustained to Fukushima by the tsunami.. A big city and a lot of water are a catastrophic combination.

Our home got hit hard by the flood. At its peak, our block was under seven feet of smelly brown water. Our downstairs rooms were completely submerged - the water level stopped about a foot from the ceiling. Our upper storey, which fortunately contained most of our living areas, sat overlooking an enormous lake on all sides. It was the ultimate in riverfront living.

We were well aware that our property was at risk of flooding. At the time we bought the property, there were media reports speculating the possible effect of a one in a hundred year flood similar to that which Brisbane experienced in 1974.  We knew from the outset that, every summer, there was a one in a hundred chance that the block would get a little wet. We even engaged a valuer to determine whether we had paid a fair price for the property in view of this risk. However, as best we could predict it a one in a hundred year flood would be expected to dump a foot or two of water onto the block, and probably fall short of the level of the house itself.

For each of the first few years after we bought the property, we took out flood insurance. The premiums were pretty expensive even though the risk of flood was very low at the time. Queensland was in the grip of a prolonged drought and dam levels were dangerously low. The meteorologists called the weather pattern El Nino.  All households and businesses were subject to austere water restrictions and the prospect of a flood was far from front of mind. Some young motorists were yet to experience driving on a wet road, years after getting their driver's licence. Camilla and I made a tactical decision to drop our flood cover and save some money on our insurance premiums.

By late 2009, El Nino was gone and his sister La Nina was taking charge. The rains came. Summer was again monsoon season and many young Queenslanders witnessed their first real tropical storm. Queensland storms are spectacular displays of lightening, thunder and hail. They are as magical as they are dangerous.

In October 2010, Camilla and I reviewed our position and turned our minds to whether we should resume our flood insurance. The meteorologists were predicting a very wet Summer. We vacillated. We agonised. We decided that prudence was the better play and took out flood insurance. The premium was high, so we put it on the credit card.

For the next twelve weeks it rained almost continually. Dams filled and young drivers quickly learned how to safely manoeuvre a car on a wet road through blinding rain and hail. Children marvelled at nature's fireworks display, played encore almost every night. But Camilla and I grew worried. We checked the level of Witton Creek, about a hundred metres from our home, every time the rain got particularly heavy. It showed us that it could grow from a trickle to a torrent with alarming speed.

Then one fateful day in January 2011, it really, really began to rain. It all started in my home town of Toowoomba, which sits in the middle of an ancient volcanic crater atop the Great Dividing Range. The rain flooded the city's two gentle creeks, one of which passes through the Central Business District. They became an inland tsunami. Cars were tossed like toys and buildings destroyed. Footage of the event was beamed across the globe. We have frequently seen news vision of my cousin, Mark Fitzpatrick, pulling a victim from the thundering floodwaters. That's typical of the Fitzpatricks. Mark would not hesitate to modestly pull a stranger from peril because that's just the decent thing to do. That's the way he was raised.

The water caused substantial damage to Camilla's mother's unit, and many other properties across the City. All that water had to go somewhere, so it cascaded down the Toowoomba range and into the Lockyer Valley. It devastated Murphy's Creek, the town where my mother was born and raised. It demolished the small town of Grantham, where nearly one hundred lives were lost. The Lockyer Creek and Bremer River became walls of water. The City of Ipswich was inundated and suburbs were submerged. My cousin, Anna Costello, watched her house drown. The waters approached the roof line, I think.

The waters flowed into Wivenhoe Dam, a massive facility that had been constructed after the 1974 floods to dam the Brisbane River. The primary purpose of the dam was flood mitigation. It was to ensure that down river, in Brisbane itself, the river levels would not rise during extreme rain events to the extent they did in 1974.

Camilla and I grew nervous and we followed the news updates by the hour. The dam level at Wivenhoe exceeded the "safe" capacity of 100% and quickly filled the backup capacity such that it was approaching 200%.  It became apparent that the river was going to rise, and rise high. As was little Witton Creek. It was just a question of how high and when.

Whilst the dam was rising, nervous engineers made controlled releases of water. Just how much they released, and when, is a matter of conjecture. As is how much they should have released, and when, in compliance with the dam's operating manual and best practice. The Queensland Government has since conducted a formal flood inquiry where lawyers have spent many days presenting evidence to the Commissioner, a Supreme Court Judge, as to what actually happened, what should have happened and how it can be prevented in the future. The Commissioner has concluded that the engineers essentially collaborated and prepared documents to suggest the releases had complied with the manual, when they had not. Her Honour has accepted, however, that they still achieved close to the best practical result that the circumstances allowed.

On Tuesday, 11 January 2011, I nervously went to work. However, I spent little time working. I sat on the computer monitoring the rising floodwaters. On the basis of what I read, I still believed that we were a good chance of avoiding water on our block. By late morning, the managers of our office tower decided to evacuate the building. I was well and truly ready to leave myself, so I returned home.

By early afternoon, the signs were bad and Camilla and I began to prepare for the worst. Charlie was our priority. We were conscious of evacuating earlier, rather than later, because his autism would potentially make an evacuation difficult. Our neighbours were already loading their possessions onto trucks and Witton Creek had burst its banks and spilled across the roadway.

I walked up to the local shop to buy supplies for a few days. The shelves were nearly empty. People had panicked. Residents who were nowhere near the danger zone had raided the stores just in case. Everyone wants to personalise a drama. I was livid and bought what I could.

We made arrangements to evacuate the family to my sister's house. Shelley and her husband, Casey, live in a high part of the next suburb. Their home was well and truly safe and they graciously insisted that we stay with them. I dropped off our dogs and Camilla evacuated Imogen and Charlie.

Casey and I then set about moving some things upstairs, in case our block flooded. Neither of us thought that the residence itself would flood much, if at all. We moved the television and stereo from the rumpus room, my golf clubs and most of my wine cellar. Got to ensure the important stuff is safe!

By early evening, Witton Creek was a lake and that lake was lapping our driveway. I started to think that the residence was going to suffer some damage. The worst case scenario was becoming a reality.

I slept little that night and every few hours drove to the house to watch the waters rise. Every few hours, the waters rose a few more feet. My vantage point was pushed steadily further up the slight gradient of our street. By morning, a small crowd had gathered at the edge of the lake to watch the show. To watch my home slowly fall more deeply into the floodwaters. I hated them.

The waters rose through the day and curious objects floated around the neighbourhood. All sorts of objects. A blowup sex doll was floating in my back yard. It was incredulous and provided some light relief. I wondered whether she was local. I assure you, she is not mine!

One of my neighbours paddled a canoe across our back fence to inspect the damage at close range. All the while the waters kept rising and the news services were trying to predict the peak. The coverage of the disaster was constantly played out on every television channel in the nation. The world watched Brisbane as the drama played out minute by minute.

The next day was Wednesday. That morning, Camilla and I prayed for a small miracle. We prayed that the waters would peak just short of our upstairs floorboards. And that morning they did. By a foot. At a level about two feet below where the experts were predicting. We felt lucky. We were safe and insured.

By Thursday the waters had begun to recede and by Friday I was able to return to our home on foot.

What happened next was truly wonderful. It's a great story but you'll have to wait until my next post. It's getting late and I have a little legal stuff to do. Not that my team back of the firm really need my input. They're doing a great job without me and I now accept that, so far as our jobs are concerned, we are all expendable. Nonetheless, they appear happy to tolerate my ill-informed meddling and understand that it allows me to escape Desolation Row every now and then for a little holiday to the real world.

Until next time,

Let it bleed

Life on a VAD is precarious. There are many things that can and do go wrong, and I have had my share of them during the time the Impaler and I have been joined at the hip.

The nurses need to ensure that I am constantly monitored, so that any potential complications are identified as soon as possible. Every four hours whilst I am awake, my temperature, blood pressure, pulse and blood saturation are each checked and recorded. Several times a day, the Impaler is checked and a note is made of the flow rate and the fill rate. Every day, I am examined by a cardiologist.

The hospital staff need to know where I am at all times and I cannot ever be more than 30 minutes from the hospital.

The worldwide statistics for VAD patients are not pretty. Around half do not live long enough to obtain a transplant. That is, however, quite misleading to my own situation. In many countries, notably the States, VADs are widely used as destination therapy. A small VAD is implanted and attached to the patient and it is not contemplated that the patient will ever undergo a heart transplant. The patient is intended to live with the VAD for the duration of their life. For me, the Impaler is intended to be a bridge to transplant. My doctors are looking to keep me healthy and minimize the effect of complications until a suitable donor organ becomes available. Given that I am young and strong, and on the transplant list, there is a low likelihood that I will die on the waiting list prior to transplant. Nonetheless, the risk is a very real one and my patient management practices reflect that.

The most nefarious complications which a VAD patient can experience are clotting, infection, bleeding and machine failure.

It is imperative for the blood of a VAD patient to be significantly thinned, to allow it to properly flow through the plastic tubes going to and from the pump chamber. This means I must take blood thinning medication every day. One of these, Warfarin, was once used to kill rats. If the blood of a VAD patient is not thin enough, it can clot and cause a stroke. This happened to me about a week into the coma. Dr Thomson was required to perform emergency surgery at my hospital bed to remove the clot, which I believe was near my heart. Fortunately, I have not experienced any further clotting issues since then.

VAD patients are at increased risk of infection. The pump chamber is connected to two plastic tubes which are inserted into the abdomen. One is connected to the left ventrical of the heart and the other to the aorta. This creates a portal between the organs and the outside world. It also creates an environment that is conducive to bacteria and viruses. They love to live on the tubes. It is like purpose built apartment living for them. I have had at least three infections since the Impaler was inserted into my belly. The first was a nasty fungal infection which ravaged my body and very nearly killed me. I think it was called Candida Liberata. It took weeks for the Infectious Diseases doctors to identify and treat. The other infections have been much less serious, and have responded well to oral and IV antibiotics.

Because my blood is thin, I tend to bleed. I bleed badly from the VAD wounds. The nurses must redress them every day and often twice daily. I bleed from the sternum wound. I bleed from shaving cuts. I bleed from the nose. I am not squeamish at the sight of blood. I have seen enough of it to last a lifetime.

A VAD is just a machine and machines fail. I must take a backup VAD with me everywhere I go, in case the Impaler malfunctions. Further, I need to carry hand pumps in case both machines fail. I have had a few mechanical problems with the VADs I have been connected to. Some have been minor and a couple more serious. Nonetheless, each problem has been identified and dealt with, calmly and confidently.

I have now  got through seven months with the Impaler. It has done well to keep me alive and keep me on the transplant list. It is extremely restrictive to living life and I often get frustrated that I cannot easily perform the basic functions I previously took for granted. However, it is significantly better than the alternative.

Until next time,

The fourteenth post

I am hurriedly pushing through a short fourteenth post because I don't want to be stuck on thirteen.

One of my cardiologists saw Pinochet today and was impressed that the wound continues to heal nicely. He is a young Doogie Howser type doctor who must be almost ready to start shaving. Nonetheless, he is very good and I have complete trust and confidence in him.

Souths won again on Thursday. A good omen, but a few of our superstars have now sustained serious long term injuries.

I am in the middle of a brutal game of computer Scrabble with my mother in law. I will get home this afternoon to finish her off. I tabled an eight letter word on my second go and had formed another using all my letters on my fourth - reunions. It hung off chin to form chino. It straddled a triple word score and would have netted me over a hundred points. She objected and the computer upheld her objection. After it had allowed her footle and eek. Is chino a fair word in Scrabble? Gerard, please help me out here, buddy. I'm miles ahead of her but anything short of a bloodbath will be unacceptable.

I make the compelling submission that chino raised no concern with my spell checker this morning. Footle however did not make muster. I rest my case.

Until next time,

Glad tidings from Chermside

I never thought I'd still be waiting for a heart at Easter. Back at the outset of my long, long stint in hospital, I had envisaged getting a heart before my fortieth birthday in late February, a quiet Easter recuperating at home and a triumphant return to work by 1 July.  I have learned that this thing does not respond to my deadlines and is very much my boss. My sadistic, capricious, selfish and relentless boss.

I was awoken very early this morning, before six in fact, by the sight of a large woman in a bonnet and Easter garb hovering over my bed. At least this is what I thought I saw in the semi-darkness and my semi-consciousness. It could well have been a psycho killer. I yelled and sat up bolt upright, the latter being an ill-advised manoeuvre when attached to a machine. She dropped two tiny chocolate Easter eggs on my tray. I smiled and thanked her and then violently killed her in my mind.

I later learned, with little surprise, that she was a member of the Hospital kitchen staff. One of the people who wheel around the trolley that delivers to patients a substance the Hospital ambitiously calls food. I have donned it the Slops Trolley. The food here is truly abysmal.

You can probably sense that I have been a little grumpy of late. I suppose I have, a little. It's especially hard to be in hospital over the holiday season. This year, I had planned to pop down to Bluesfest at Byron Bay with my best mate, Rhino. Rhino and I have been good buddies since our school days. He is now a country lawyer with  a large family. Rhino was my best man at our wedding and is Imogen's godfather. He is a clever and decent bloke and we have shared countless great times together over many years. His only shortcoming is an inability to properly charge for his services. His clients would be well aware that they get a big city brain for a very country price.

 Last year Rhino and I camped out at Bluesfest to see Dylan. We have seen Bob a number of times together. Rhino brought his son, Ben, to see the man. Bob was in good form and we saw some other first rate acts, including Elvis Costello and Michelle Shocked. I am not a natural camper. The only stars I usually sleep under are the five little stars from the hotel guide. But I was happy to rough it for Bob and we had such a good time that we declared it an annual pilgrimage.

This year, I missed seeing the Pogues. They are playing today. The Pogues are, for the uninitiated, a rowdy drunken Irish rock band who grew to infamy in the Eighties. They are my all time favourite group, eclipsing even the Waterboys, the Stones, the Floyd and the Clash. Their frontman, Shane MacGowan, is to my mind the only lyricist who could give Dylan a shake. As a young man I grew to love the Pogues, and Irish music in general, because I would often frequent the Toowoomba Irish Club to listen to a legendary covers band called the Cornerboys. They played all the old classics and newer material from the likes of the Dubliners, the Pogues, Christy Moore and the Saw Doctors. The crowded room was packed with young people, middle aged people and the older crowd, all drinking Guinness and Jamesons and singing along to standards like Whiskey in the Jar, the Auld Triangle and the Leaving of Liverpool.


I first met Camilla at the Irish Club. Well sort of. I had known her vaguely a few years back when we had both worked at Hannas, a clothing shop owned by my cousins. I was only sixteen or seventeen at the time, but I was Lebanese and family so I was allowed to use the till. Some employees had been there for twenty years and could not do that! Anyway, we did not know each other well as workmates and at the time of our meeting at the Irish Club we were essentially strangers.

Camilla asked me to dance with her. I was stunned. I lacked a great deal of confidence with the ladies and thought I was a little odd looking, to put it diplomatically. Pretty girls never asked me to dance. She was either very drunk or looking to win a bet. As it turned it, she was neither.

Camilla has always been an independent woman. One of her friends thought that she was mad to approach me because I looked shifty. She warned Camilla to watch her bag. Camilla took no heed and we danced, badly but merrily.

I knew that night that I was on to something good. We danced and sang many songs together. She has later told me that her only moment of uncertainty arose when I raucously sung the "Big Chest" refrain to Big Strong Man. She thought I may have had something else in mind. Such vanity!

After the Irish Club closed, we walked the streets together and talked. About everything. Two weeks later I proposed to her.   

I have never seen the Pogues live and for many reasons it was important to me that I see them when they toured Australia. My disappointment prompted me to place a post on their website, explaining my non-attendance and asking them to tour again in the near future. I have never done such a thing before but many long weeks in hospital makes a man act a little strange. To my surprise, I received a response from Phil Chevron, a member of the band. Phil wrote a great song about Irish immigration to the States called Thousands are Sailing. It's worth checking out.


Phil wished me well for the transplant. I was chuffed. Project Heart can only be enhanced by having the Pogues behind it in spirit.

So I wish a very happy Easter to my growing legion of readers and well-wishers. Hopefully that new life concept which is inherent in the season will trickle down to a new heart in the very near future.


Until next time,

The first noel

The other bloke at the hospital who has been on a VAD awaiting a heart transplant is a chap called Noel Tacey. Since late January, Noel and I have been the only people on VADs in Queensland.

Noel is a tall and lanky boilermaker, aged in his mid fifties. He runs his own business manufacturing water treatment plants. The business employs his two sons, who are also his best mates.

Noel is a classic Aussie larrikan. He is loud and cheeky and makes friends readily. He's a great story-teller, but not a reader. He likes motorbikes and rock music. He has no time for rules or politics. He's the sort of bloke that would frequent Moe's Tavern. He is good with tools and I suspect that he owns many guns. In the States, you'd call him him Alabama Man. In Britain, you'd call him Essex Man. In the context of this blog, I guess you could call him Bellbowrie Man.

Noel and I are polar opposites in both personality and appearance. You could not imagine two more different men. Yet we became firm friends and conversation has always flowed easily between us. We would walk around the hospital together with our VADs, looking like the two guys from Midnight Cowboy.

Noel calls me Norman Gunstan, because my VAD wounds tend to bleed. That's an in-joke for the older Australians amongst us. Those who remember the Seventies. I really cannot properly describe Norman Gunstan to those who have never seen him. Suffice to say, he is an intense mock-journalist who cuts himself shaving a lot, necessitating pieces of tissue being placed on his many shaving cuts. The joke was funny the first few times Noel told it. On the sixty seventh time, it was a little tired.

Noel and I have rooms close to each other and he often appears at the door, Kramer style, for a chat. There is a lot of Kramer in Noel. He even looks a little like him. Noel has a wonderful back catalogue of anecdotes which he is very adept at spinning. I suspect that some are true.

I am very fond of Noel, as are our nurses. He is decent, kind, and excellent company.

Noel has been enjoying this blog. A few days ago, I asked him whether I could buy his stories. I was conscious of the value in keeping my little rag fresh and interesting and was concerned that I would eventually run out of material.

I was not clever enough to come up with this idea myself. The genius behind the idea was Camilla's. She reminded me of the classic Seinfeld episode where Jay Peterman had bought Kramer's stories for use in his memoirs. I love Peterman. This was a chance to do something Peterman would do.

My erstwhile trainee lawyer, Anna, prepared a formal deed of assignment and Noel signed it. The intellectual property in and to his stories now belongs to my me, or more correctly a shelf company I acquired to hold the asset.

So in future blogs, you will read of how I visited East Timor as a young boilermaker and lifted a tribal chief onto my shoulders. You will read how I injured myself and the Impaler horseplaying with my sons. You will hear about my father being nicknamed Crowbar because he is short and dark and good in a fight. You will read about me dirtbiking through the scrub and welding in my workshop.

Yesterday, Noel received a new heart. He had been waiting in hospital for over six months, I think.  I am delighted for him and wish him the very best for his recovery.

So now it's just me and the Impaler. In the timeless words of Billy Bragg we are waiting for the great leap forwards. We can wait a little longer.


Until next time,

They said I gotta go to rehab

Back in early November, I think, I was brought out of a long induced coma. I cannot recall the precise moment I woke up. There was no distinct transfer from being asleep to being awake. It was a slow and gradual process over a few days.

My body had been put through the wringer, ravaged by a malevolent infection. I think it was calledCandida Liberata. Happy for any medico to correct this if need be.

The infection had made me very, very sick. I am told that I was the sickest man in Queensland at the time. At once stage I was attached to around a dozen machines, including a respirator, a dialysis machine and the Impaler. It took around ten staff to move me and my paraphernalia to obtain a scan. I was barely alive. Dr Thomson has told me that he has only ever seen two other patients survive from such a poor state. A few times, he told Camilla that I would not pull through.

Somehow my body clung to life and with the assistance of a powerful arsenal of drugs warded off the infection. Camilla and my parents kept a bedside vigil. They experienced an unimaginable hell, as did Imogen. As did my other friends, relatives and workmates. I sincerely wish that my near and dear could have been spared that experience. It was a supersized sh*t sandwich with all the trimmings.

Coming out of the coma, I can vaguely recall being in a room somewhere (it didn't feel like a hospital) where parts of the walls and furniture would morph into twisted, animated creatures. It felt like the nurses were constantly trying to restrain me and were yelling at me to cease screaming. I thought that I was howling like a banshee, but unsure if I was thinking it or doing it. It must have been the sort of hallucinogenic drug haze that was the firmament for Dylan to craft his greatest albums like Highway Sixty One Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. Bob can have that stuff all to himself. Why anyone would want to voluntarily subject their consciousness to such a state is something I will never understand. Kids, don't do drugs.

I then recall being immobile in a hospital bed unable to move or speak. I was just too weak to lift a hand. I slept most of the day and night but was becoming increasingly aware of my surroundings and able to understand what people were telling me. I was in the Intensive Care Unit with a nurse rostered to care for me one on one twenty four seven. I saw dozens of doctors.

I can recall Melbourne Cup day, early in November. I was aware that the race was coming up and I recall my father handing me a form guide, asking me to select a horse so he could back it for me. By this stage I could lift my arms a bit, but could not read or properly manoeuvre my hands. I gave him my shaky hand and we caused my finger to sort of fall on a horse's name. I can't remember the name of the horse, but it was a pretty average one and was paying long odds. Dad popped down to the TAB and backed the horse for me. I then sort of watched the race on a television. I cannot recall much as my vision was very poor. I really just knew that it was on. Anyway, my horse did well. Very well. He hit the line in a photo finish. It took quite a while for the stewards to review the footage, and I remember the suspense. As it transpired, my horse was beaten by a nose. A fair effort really. Not the most scientific way I have been known to bet on a horse but commendable in the circumstances.

Then started my long and difficult rehabilitation. All the muscles in my body were completely wasted for lack of use. It is amazing how quickly and completely the muscles atrophy when they are not used. My nurses told me that I would need three to five days of recovery for every day in the coma for my body to completely heal itself. This was a best case scenario of six months.

We started with the basics. I still had a trachea fitted so I needed to learn to speak again. My nurses were able to insert a speaking valve whenever I gave them a shaky hand signal and, for short periods at a time, I used it to speak. I could only manage a few words or, more accurately, word type sounds. My brain was very slow and it was difficult to get them out.

My speech and cognitive function improved quickly. The trachea was removed and I was able to engage in conversation. I was still slow to think and my speech was slurred. Two of my partners, Bruce and Darrell, came to visit me. They have since told me that they left the hospital gravely concerned that I would never recover full intellectual function. I am normally pretty sharp and reasonably articulate. The man they spoke to that day was neither.

I started speech therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy. I was frustrated with my feeble body but more frustrated that my mind was slow. To me, this was far worse than any physical impairment. I could not imagine myself living and working in a manner that did not challenge me to think. When formally tested, I struggled to count back from one hundred in multiples of seven. I could not recall names or events. I confused reality with the alternative reality I had dreamed in the coma. I thought my sister Shelley had had twins and I asked her about them. Thankfully, not least of all to her, she had only had one baby. A gorgeous boy called Ben. He was born the day I first went into surgery, I think. He and the Impaler are therefore almost the same age. Ben is much nicer and causes fewer problems.

The mind came back first. Pretty quickly, in hindsight but agonisingly slowly at the time. A few weeks post coma, I was thinking and speaking clearly and my vision was good. I could have easily come out of the coma blind, mentally impaired or physically impaired. It was a blessing that I recovered complete mind and sight. The nurses called me their miracle man. It was a miracle indeed.

The body was much slower to heal and the physios had their work cut out for them. We were starting from a zero base and it took weeks for me to learn how to stand for a few seconds. I then started walking with a frame. First to the door. Then about ten metres. Then a little more. These tasks completely exhausted me, but I was determined to one day walk like a man again. It seemed light years away.

By early December, I had made sufficient progress to leave ICU to be taken to a ward. I then took up domicile in Ward 1B, where I still remain. Domicile, not residency. Ward 1B is not home, even a temporary one. Home remains in Indooroopilly.

The physios kept pushing my body and I was able to ditch the frame and start pushing around the Impaler. This was a terrific moment for me. There were two other VAD patients on the Ward, Noel and Catherine, who were confidently pushing their VADs in front of them like shopping trolleys. They were walking around like real people. I did not think I'd ever be able to reach that point and I was envious of them. I could barely manage pushing the Impaler for twenty metres.

The physio who became my primary therapist is a delightful lady called Lisa Moore. Lisa is amazing. Over the last few months she has assisted my to rebuild my wreckage of a body to the point where I am walking the treadmill for thirty continuous minutes with incline intervals.I am leaving the hospital for regular outing home and elsewhere. I attend barbeques and go to restaurants. I have never been at all interested in personal fitness and the like and it was difficult to accept the treadmill as a new friend. I could not see how it would ever get along with my other good mates like the television, the wine cabinet, the bookshelf and the stereo. It just was not me. However, necessity creates strange bedfellows and I am now committed to a new life that ensures I make time for regular exercise. We've even bought our own treadmill for when I return home.

My rehab is still ongoing and my body is far from recovered. The Impaler uses energy as quickly as a Chevy Impala guzzles petrol. I get exhausted easily. I still have some residual numbness in the right shin and foot and occasionally in my right hand. However, I am now strong in mind and reasonably strong in body, such that I am ready for transplant surgery.

Until next time,

Pinochet

My sternum wound is long and jagged. It looks remarkably like a map of Chile, covered in blood. Hence I have dubbed it Pinochet.

This morning, my medical team gathered around Pinochet as we took down the vacuum dressing and he revealed himself in his gory glory. There were present two cardiac surgeons, a cardiologist and four nurses. Pinochet snarled at them in a guttural Hispanic accent, and told them to vamoose. They ignored him and pressed on with their examination.

In short, the wound continues to heal well. The team will review it in a few days' time. In lawyerworld it's a bit like adjourning the trial for the parties to engage in settlement discussions. For now, the reconstructive surgery is on hold to allow the wound to continue to heal.

Pinochet is inherently evil, just like his namesake. The regime is shaky, but still clinging to power. I remain ready for the pecs surgery, if it must happen, but am looking forward to some time at home at Easter. Precious time I thought I wouldn't get. Thank you, St Charbel. I judged you too harshly. Thank you, Greg Inglis. Buy of the Century.

This Friday is Good Friday. In the morning, my medicos will review Pinochet. In the afternoon, Souths play the Bulldogs. Let's hope it is indeed a good Friday.


Until next time,

Why do Lebanese men wear gold chains?

My father, Ronnie Betros, was born in a small village called Kfarsghab in the mountains of North Lebanon. Please don't attempt to pronounce it if you aren't Lebanese. It requires deft manoeuvres of the tongue involving copious amounts of spit. Let's just call it the Village.

Dad immigrated to Australia just after the end of the Second World War when he was a young boy. He was raised within the small, tight Lebanese community of Toowoomba. Whilst the family were devout Maronite Christians, they became active members of the local Catholic Church. Rome is OK with the Maronites, even though they are an Eastern sect. The Maronites gave a lot of help to the Crusaders in the course of their jolly jaunts to the Near East and the two Churches have been in communion ever since.

Dad wasn't christened Ronald. Few Lebanese boys are. He was actually christened Elias. The milkman decided to call him Ronnie and the name stuck. It now appears on his passport and driver's licence. Personally I prefer Elias, and Charlie's middle names are William and Elias, after his two grandfathers. Camilla's late father, William Dent, was a well known and widely respected gentleman in his own right and I will deal with him in later posts.

Dad must have been a quiet radical of sorts because he married a white girl. My mother, Margaret Costello, was from a hard working decent Irish Catholic family who raised cattle on the land at the foot of the Toowoomba range.

Mum and Dad have always enjoyed a happy and prosperous marriage. They did a wonderful job raising me and my two sisters, Michelle and Danielle. Recent events arising from my illness have shaken them to their foundations, but they are stronger than they think and like the rest of our family will somehow get through.

My sisters and I are proud Lebanese Australians. The Lebanese have had some bad press in Australia in recent times. Much has been said and written about the problems caused by gangs of young, violent men of Middle Eastern appearance who roam the streets of suburban Sydney and Melbourne. This is, I emphasise, completely at odds with the experiences I have had with my extended family. My family, like many other Lebanese families, has been wiling to embrace  the Australian way of life and integrate into the broader society, whilst retaining its own identity, history and tradition.

The Lebanese community has produced some outstanding Australian achievers.

The most outstanding of them, to me anyway, is Jacques Nasser, who rose through the ranks to become the CEO of the Ford Motor Company in the States. He is presently the global Chairman of BHP Billiton and has been awarded both the Order of Australia Medal and the Order of Ellis Island Medal. Not a bad effort.

We have produced many great sportsmen, like Nick Shehadie who captained the National Rugby Union side and went on to become Lord Mayor of Sydney. Other sportsmen we claim include Ben Elias, Hazem el-Masri, Tim Mannah and Robbie Farah, all great Rugby League players. Benny is a boy from the Village, like my father.

We have produced a great writer in David Malouf, a State Premier in Steve Bracks and a State Governor in Marie Bashir. A controversial and fiercely independent member of the lower house of the Australian Parliament, Bob Katter, is of Lebanese ancestry.

We have produced some fine Australian businessmen, like John Symonds (the founder of Aussie Home Loans), Ron Bakir (who founded the Crazy Ron's mobile phone chain) and Steve Ackerie  (whose Stefan hair salons are a true Queensland icon). Other less savoury businessmen who are Aussie Lebs include Tony Mokbel and John Ibrahim.

One of our own, Joe Hachem, became a world champion poker player.

In my own extended family, we boast two members of the judiciary and a Macquarie Street specialist doctor.

Another notable Aussie Leb who profoundly changed my own life is a colourful Brisbane lawyer called Joe Ganim. Many years ago, Joe and his best mate, Paul Hopgood, started a legal firm as brash young men. That firm grew and prospered quickly and is now a major player in the Australian legal market, employing over a hundred lawyers.

A little over five years ago,  I ran into Joe in the street. It was obscenely early in the morning and I was grabbing a coffee on the way to work. I was with another legal firm at the time.

Joe was dressed in expensive running gear and was covered in sweat. It appeared that he had been jogging, or at least walking pretty fast. His chunky gold chains were swaying and clinking and a rug of luxuriant chest hair refused to be contained by his tight, white jogging shirt.

Joe asked me, "When are you going to join my firm? I've asked you a couple of times before and I'm going to try again."

At least I thought that is what he said. He was puffing so hard that I was contemplating calling an ambulance.

I told Joe that I was interested and he smiled and flashed a gold tooth. A few weeks later I started working for Hopgood Ganim. I am now one of two Australian Lebanese partners of the firm. My dear mate Freda Wigan is the other. She practises in Family Law so she is ipso facto clinically insane. Joe has now semi-retired (ie he now does only eighty hour weeks) and remains a consultant to the firm.

Hopgood Ganim has been very good to me and Camilla whilst I have been holed up in hospital. The firm philosophy is Business Mateship and it's not just a slogan. The people in the firm make sure they try to live it every day. My partners and colleagues often visit me and help out Camilla whenever they can. Our General Manager cut her lawn one day whilst I was in the coma. Not that I would have otherwise cut it myself. The only tool I can successfully use around the house is the chequebook. To me, manual labour is a Spanish bricklayer.

When I get well, my father is going to take me to Lebanon. I want to see the Village. Or villages, more correctly. There are actually two. The higher village in covered in snow over winter so everyone relocates to the lower village down in the valley. Everyone moves twice a year. Like they have done for centuries.

Lebanese people are clever and tough. Our forebears invented the alphabet and modern sailing.  I really want to see the country of my fathers before I die of old, old, old age. I want to see Byblos, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. I want to see the towering Roman ruins of Baalbek. I want to play blackjack at Jounieh. I want to see the port cities of Sidon and Tyre, mentioned frequently in the Bible. I want to see the cedars at Becharre, a few miles from the Village. I want to visit wineries in the Bekaa Valley.  I want to see the catacombs and churches used by ancient maronite monks like St Charbel. I've said a few prayers to St Charbel but he's proven to be quite useless at getting me a heart so I'm switching to St Jude.

For now, it's matter of staying in hospital and waiting. No choice, really. I suppose it's a chance to live the pure life of a monk for a while. Mind you, I did not even vaguely consider the monastic option when making my career choice.

The title of today's blog poses a question: Why do Lebanese men wear gold chains? Ten points for the answer. It's hidden in the text.


Until next time,