And so we begin

My name is Paul Betros. I have decided to create this blog for two reasons. Firstly, I am an unspeakably good writer. Secondly, I have a hell of a story to tell.


A few introductions. Allow me to be pompous and announce my dramatis personae.


I myself am a middle aged middle class lawyer in Brisbane, Australia. I am a partner of a large law firm called HopgoodGanim. When at work, I do commercial litigation with a focus on insolvency. Basically I am a commercial vulture who gets paid to feed off corporate carrion. But I am nonetheless a pretty decent guy. You can work that out yourself should you decide to read along whenever I have the self indulgence to write something.

I am married to Camilla, who is the most wonderful wife one could have. Seriously. I proposed to her two weeks after we met (as a 24 year old kid, mind you!) and we have had three fights in nearly sixteen years of marriage. The least rational, and best, decision I have ever made.

I have two children. My daughter, Imogen, is twelve and has just started high school. She is clever and gregarious. She is also stunningly pretty in a way that makes a father want to buy a shotgun. She's a good kid and the poster girl for good parenting. She goes to a posh school on a hill called Stuartholme. The school charges a fee which feels like half a million dollars a term, or close to it. Immy says she us happy so it's a fair price.


My son, Charlie, is four and he has autism. He is delightful. He goes to an early intervention centre called AEIOU and has been there a little over a year. It is a wonderful place and he is doing very well. He didn't speak before he started, and now speaks in basic sentences. The Centre charges a fee which feels like around three million dollars a term, or close to it. Charlie can now say that he likes school so it's an incredibly fair price.

By the way, I don't earn enough money to pay these school fees so I sell drugs and extort small countries to ransom to get by.


I am presently lying in a bed in a hospital ward at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane, Australia, waiting for a heart transplant. I caught a virus mid last year that caused me to have severe pneumonia and (unbeknownst to anyone) started attacking my heart. The heart was otherwise healthy and I was in pretty good shape for a slightly pudgy 39 year old lawyer. Anyway, the virus brought about cardiomyopathy and caused heart failure. Just bad luck. Not lifestyle related or hereditary. Just a nasty little airborne bullet with my name on it. They found it days before I would have died. So I guess I am lucky!

I am now hooked up 24/7 to an artificial heart pump called a Ventricular Assistance Device, or VAD. I call it the Impaler. It keeps me alive so I am very fond of it. I need to have a back up machine with me at all times, in case it fails. Camilla calls the VAD William and the back up machine Harry, as in the heir and the spare. She is pretty witty for a mum.

The Impaler is on a trolley and I push it around. I can get away from hospital for short outings. It's about the size of a carryon bag. It ticks like a grandfather clock and alarms if it's feeling neglected or thinks I am going to die.


I am on a special list of poor bastards waiting for a heart transplant. When a donor heart becomes available my doctors will, on a few hours' notice, get me into surgery, remove the Impaler and put a dead person's heart into me. Until I get the call, I have to stay in hospital and wait it out.

I have a team of doctors who manage the project. A big team of clever people. They are very good and I am confident that they will get me well and back to work and family one day. Everyone says his doctor is the best. Seinfeld once did a pretty funny funny rant about how everyone says that - no one says that my guy was the bottom of his class at med school and majored in beer. Well my guys are the best. They really are.

I've had a turbulent ride in the nearly seven months I've been in hospital. I was in a coma for two months after the initial surgery and nearly died several times. Camilla had to tell Immy more than once that I was going to die, and I am alive against some pretty long odds. I hope some of you put some money on me at Ladbrokes. You would have been paid big.

I have experienced every VAD complication in the book, and there are many more to come. If I remain lucky, I get to contend with all the transplant complications. However, I have make a good living defying the transplant statistics and will continue to do so. This will not beat me. I've told the Reaper to sod off and he actually listened!

I expect you remember the world famous Brisbane floods early last year. Well, we got seven feet of water through the house and were in temporary accommodation for six months. We got back home a few weeks before I got pneumonia.

I guess you could say I'm rewriting the Book of Job. Heart transplant, autism, floods. And my dog died.  Job had it pretty good really. Anyway, it all makes for a good story so tell your friends to tune in (or whatever you do with a blog). As you've probably gathered, I am a not so repressed writer and doing this is actually pretty therapeutic. I'm also a Luddite so bear with me on that front.

The more perceptive among you will note that I've titled this blog in honour of a classic Dylan tune. Bob is cool. I'll refer to him occasionally in future posts. He has helped me out a lot over many a long day in hospital. I don't look for messages or the meaning of life in his music. He just does good music and clever lyrics. That's enough for me.

Anyway, hope you liked the intro. Jump on board and join the road trip!