Prime Minister Julia Gillard – Australia 

Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. 

Separately, Gillard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying she supported spy agencies monitoring the nation’s mosques.

Quote: ‘IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT… Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.’ 

‘If you aren’t happy here then LEAVE. We didn’t force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.’ 

NOTE: IF we circulate this amongst ourselves in Canada &USA, WE will find the courage to start speaking and voicing the same truths. 

Well that ain’t bad.

I anticipate publishing most if not all of the notes I’ve been keeping over the next couple of months. I have been keeping the journal somewhat but did not wish to just publish depressing stuff. However, now that things have taken a different turn I will get caught up, fine tune the existing stuff with the benefit of hindsight and then proceed.

Now – where were we …?

In March 2011, I was informed that my cancer had returned and that I had 3-6 months to live. That was 5 months ago. Their advice to give me “a few more months” (actually to extend the 3 to 6) was immediate, intensive chemotherapy. I rejected this option as my previous experience indicated this was not a good choice. Instead (after spending about a 2 weeks in denial, shock and panic), I researched options, talked to my friends at Inspire Health and decided that I was not going to roll over but fight hard. As I result of my research I stopped drinking tea and coffee and stopped eating meat, fish and dairy and dropped sugar consumption; I am now 100% vegan and 50 pounds lighter.
I switched oncologists and started seeing a naturopathic oncologist as well. My plan was not to cure myself but to slow down the cancer and stop it — the curing would have to wait a while. 
 
My monthly visits to the oncologists are now a “life or death” situation — not much fun every month to walk in and wait for your Doctor to tell you whether you will live or die — every month. Now – I’m being a bit dramatic as that is not exactly what is said but, regardless of the politically correct, cover-my-ass, nothing in writing namby-pamby that usually passes for medical advice these days, the reality is that any month my situation could go from OK to really bad. At least, that’s the way it has been until now.
 
It has now been 5 months since my “death sentence”.
 
I have a new oncologist (my 3rd) who was the assistant of my second oncologist who retired just 3 months after I signed up. Dr. Klimo trained Dr. Sasha Smiljanic (I think that’s it) for the last 5 years or so and they have the same approach. When he looked at my test results, his mouth literally dropped open. The only lab test that is now abnormal is my CEA marker. All the other levels are normal or better than normal — all of them. To give you an idea of the significance of that lone, annoying CEA marker let me give you 3 numbers. Normal is below 4.0; people in treatment can be over 200,000 and still survive; my marker is at 10. In the last few months it has gone from 4.2 to 4.8 to 6.0 to 9.0 back down to 8.0 (in June) and now back to 10 after my UK trip and illness (actually that lab was when I was sickest). Dr. Klimo suggested that at a CEA of over 50 we should “start talking about how to deal with it when it gets more serious” (much higher numbers). As you can tell, I’m not there yet.
 
Now – the CEA marker is not the be all and the end all of diagnosis. When taken with the other tests such as liver and kidney functions, it is normally a fairly good indicator, and my consistently low levels coupled with the reversal of all the other critical markers indicate that while I may not yet have won this fight, I have definitely slowed the enemy down significantly and am slowly building my strength for a long, protracted battle. There is no doubt in my mind that my radical lifestyle change plus the PVF vaccine together with the anti-inflammatories from the naturopathic oncologist are what is helping — after all, none of my regular oncologists have actually treated me for over 2 years. The true lifesaver has been Inspire Health who have provided me with the support and accurate information to make informed choices (and you would be surprised just how rare that is – I didn’t know what I didn’t know). In addition, they have been supporting me in my somewhat unconventional therapy choices and discussing them at length with me. And of course, there’s Mary who has been tireless in her support and fierce in her defense of me – she is always there for me – always. Neither my GP nor my original oncologist has any room for opinions other than their own and seem to strongly resent questions about their advice. Basically if it’s not expensive and requires a prescription, it’s no good. 
 
So my vegan-hippie diet, meditation and exercise programme really didn’t really cut it …
 
Today things changed.

As of today, my oncologist no longer wants to see me every month — he suggested January 2012 would be a good time to stop by — but only to check in. He even suggested that I no longer need the monthly lab tests — however, that is where I will NOT be following his advice and those will continue — those are part of my motivation and that has worked pretty well for me so far.
 
Let’s be clear — this could all turn around in a heartbeat — that’s one of the tricks of Cancer. It sometimes just flares up and kills you in a few weeks. However, the normal situation is that all those labs go pretty crazy before that happens and that there are some underlying disease characteristics that I simply do not have. So it seems that rather than checking the monthly specials at the undertaker prior to playing my monthly “Medical Jeopardy” game, now I have to manage this disease more as a chronic condition. If I’m careful and lucky I will be around for a few more years yet (my plan is for 40 at least). 
 
This is a major big deal for me and, quite frankly, it’s rather hard to digest – I’m not sure how to react. Not whether or not I’m happy but how this affects my plans for the short and medium term and, for the first time in 3 years, long-term plans; an unexpectedly delightful problem to have. For example – I just packed up all my winter clothes and I was going to give most of them away as I wasn’t going to need them again. Now – I’m not so sure. It feels like the clouds have parted (Vancouverites know how good that rare event feels) and that there are things ahead of me again instead of everything being behind me. It’s hard to explain but for the last year I have been cleaning up my past — putting my books in order as it were with no real thought of any future — it’s tough to live like that. I mean, I can put a brave face on it and never mention it but that fatal uncertainty is always there, sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear, affecting every decision I make. Today it’s still there but it weighs less and its influence is waning. Soon I plan to flick it off my shoulder and out of my consciousness like a troublesome bug.
 
I made the decision to retire just a few days ago and in fact have submitted my resignation. Despite this change in my circumstances, that decision will stand. It is best to make the move now  while I am in good health than to have to deal with it along with all the rest of the turmoil should my situation suddenly reverse — a potential turn events for which I must plan regardless of how unpleasant it might be to consider — especially in light of today’s turn of events.
 
So – life goes on – I really like the sound of those three words.
 
I have succeeded in my plan. I have dramatically slowed my cancer down. The next step is to get rid of it.
 
I’m going to go and have an organic carrot.
 
I’ll keep you posted.

I went to the doc today – my GP. She likes to see me every month or so during this “going back to work” phase. I keep a journal of how I feel, what I eat, energy etc. etc. as I am required to do. What I was suggesting was that, based on my not entirely successful forays into a couple of 4 day weeks, that I delay the 4 day week for another month. However, she has mandated that I continue on only three days per week until the end of May – 3 months. I’m not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, there is a certain relief as I have been slightly worried about my reaction to working four days in a row, but on the other, I feel a little thwarted as personal expectations have had to be reined in significantly. Now I realize full well that my expectations frequently exceed my grasp, but frankly, that doesn’t really help. I have to admit that I do somewhat resent someone else telling me what to do in an area where my decision should be final. At the same time, I have to accept that her perspective is both informed and objective and that my recent personal experience lends weight to her advice.

So, I will follow it, probably not graciously, but I will.

At least until it drives me crazy at which point I will probably be ready for that extra day.

—————

Today is not a good day.

I have written before about how once you have received a cancer diagnosis your life is forever changed. You have been joined to a club where the president is your mortal enemy. A club which is ever-present in your life, lurking behind every action, peering out from behind every event, affecting how you perceive every stomach ache, every muscle spasm, every headache. Your only escape from this involuntary membership is death, so you live within your new environs as best you can, always seeking escape, always hoping for someone to unlock the clubhouse gate and let you out, but no one ever comes. You know this, you live with it and you make the best life you can. Sometimes the shadow stays so far in the background that you can almost forget it was ever there — almost.

At times, like today, it can become debilitating, overwhelming. Those times can be triggered by a chance comment or even an errant thought and they almost always catch you unawares. This is not a nice place to be. In this place joy disappears and you stand eye-to-eye with your mortality. The club president is calling you out. You stare your death in the eye once again and you hope death looks away first for you dare not. You have to muster up all your strength and realize that your life will never again be easy or carefree; that is gone now, gone forever. The shadow will be your unwelcome companion now. We rise to the challenge and live to fight another day. We hold the stare for there is nothing else to do, there is nowhere else to go. For what we know is that if we succumb, if we look away first, something fundamental changes and we will never get back to this place again, cursed as it may be. There are no second chances here. If you give up there is no “best two out of three” for there will never be a return match. Every hand of this game is “all in”. Once you look away, that spark that lights even the darkest days will be gone. It is that spark that keeps us going, that allows us to hope that the gate will open, that a breakthrough will occur, that our membership will be cancelled. It lights our way forward and bolsters our spirit so that we do not just survive but can prosper and thrive. So we hold our gaze and refuse to surrender and hope that our opponent will fail to call our bluff, fail to see that we have only so much strength to fight, and fold first. I’m still winning but sometimes it’s close.

And so it goes.

Tomorrow will be better. It always is.

As you may have guessed, this thought does not come unbidden to this page. Alas, yes, last night I was again a guest of St. Paul’s for a few panic stricken hours (panic stricken on my part, not theirs).

I am having some dental repairs done and I have to have a bridge installed. This is one of the unadvertised, long-term benefits of chemotherapy – your teeth rot.

Last week my dentist ground down my teeth and installed 2 temporary crowns and a bridge across the gap from a recently extracted molar. This coming week the custom-made permanent bridge will be installed. That was the plan but Mr. Murphy determined a different outcome.

Early Saturday evening (I note that my health emergencies only occur on weekends and holidays and this was no exception), I drank a glass of water and reacted with shock at the cold impact on my teeth. An exploratory tongue probe determined that the recently installed bridgework was no longer in evidence. Since I had recently cleaned my teeth and had only eaten an apple and drunk said glass of water in the interim I was 90% sure I hadn’t spit it out which meant… Oh shit – I’ve swallowed it.

A quick google on “swallowing dental bridgework” revealed that this was far from a trivial occurrence and could lead to a punctured gut, peritonitis and death – in fairly rapid order. I took me to the Emergency Room and within an hour had been X-rayed and had determined that yes, indeed, I had swallowed the damned thing. I was beginning to feel a dull pain at the site of my colon resection – there is scar tissue there that narrows the aperture thus reminding me not to eat things like well-done steak or other indigestible stuff. Sure enough, the bridgework was indigestible and I now knew exactly where it was. The problem was that it was made out of stainless steel wire (in the shape of a staple) and plastic and from the X-ray they were unable to tell how sharp the exposed ends of the bridgework were or how far they protruded from the plastic. I hadn’t swallowed the whole thing it seems. One of the caps had remained in place but one cap and the bridge had come away leaving the stainless steel pointy bits on one end of the bridgework exposed. This is not good, not good at all.

The on duty surgeon paged the chief surgeon who arrived in due course along with a gastrointestinal specialist. They were not happy (I wasn’t particularly overjoyed myself). I had two choices. I could wait to see if it passed through or I could have emergency surgery – right now – they had a room prepped. The GI guy thought he may be able to snake an endoscope through my mouth, down through my stomach and into my intestines if it hadn’t gone too far. He would then try to snag it and drag it back. If that failed they would cut me open, try and find it in my 300 miles of intestines, pull it out and sew me back up again. Odds of survival in the latter course of action – not very good. Odds of long-term problems – almost 100%. They did not want to do the surgery (despite being paged out on a snowy and unpleasant Saturday night) and I concurred. I then explained that I am on a very high fibre diet and that beans and salad (plus that goddamned apple) were the only things I had eaten and that I “cycle” (the interval between eating and, um, disposing of the evidence) very quickly – about 12 hours. Based on that they decided I should go home and sleep (Oh yeah – as if) and come back in the morning and, if the pain didn’t get worse, they would monitor the progress via X-ray and as long as kept moving they would allow nature to take its course.

Well – the pain got a little worse but enough to panic (I’m used to dealing with occasional irritation there) and subsided after and hour and I actually did sleep. In the morning I had a few double espressos and answered nature’s inevitable call. After assaying the high fiber deposits (yes, it was at least as disgusting as it sounds – you can say “Eeeewwww!” now), I discovered the rogue bridgework nestled comfortably in some sweet corn. It was retrieved, cleaned, soaked in bleach (as per instructions from the internet) and now is safely ensconced in a glass bottle on my desk.

As to whether the dentist will reinstall it (Eeewww again!), I shall await his response to the string of voicemails that I left him over the last 24 hours.

I wonder what I’ll do next weekend…

The attachments are not displayed here but you can guess what they were.

UPDATE: Canada Post will not accept written complaints. You can only (a) call them – I did and was on hold for 35 minutes or (b) submit a web form that conveniently limits what you can complain about. I couldn’t use it as my complaint wasn’t listed.
What a way to ensure you don’t get complaints about your service – prevent people from complaining!!!!

The Head Local Guy
Canada Post
Georgia Street
Vancouver

February 25, 2011

Hello:

My name is Stephen Elliott and I live at 929 Richards Street in Vancouver and I would like you to please fix my mail service as it is broken. I would like to start receiving mail again. So would my wife, Mary Sparacio and my son, Michael.

I do not recall asking you to stop delivering my mail but that appears to be what has happened. I have noticed that instead of my mail, you do fairly regularly deliver other people’s mail to me (as you can see from the attached received today – far from the first such gifts). Since the letters contain checks, I will take them over tonight.

Last month I received no credit card statements at all – they were all “returned to sender” with various messages on them. Usually I get at least half of them (but recently never all). Some had the same “Tom Lee?” query scrawled on them (see attached) by, I assume, the Postal Carrier whilst others simply had “Incomplete Address” as per one of the copies enclosed. I note that Tom Lee is a music store on Granville Street whose address is not even close to mine. What’s more, they haven’t heard of me, I know because I went in and asked.
As you can imagine, the returned mail prompted a yet another flurry of panic-stricken phone calls from my many friends at the various financial institutions who seemed to feel I might have disappeared without telling them (or paying them). This is now a fairly regular occurrence (one even has “Canada Post refuses to deliver” on my file) so once they were assured that (a) I was actually still here and that (b) they still had the correct address for my first-born they were somewhat mollified but the relationship has definitely deteriorated – they no longer regularly offer to reduce my interest rate for 6 months; the love has gone.

I have attached a picture of the Canada Post poster in the lobby of my building describing how to address my mail. As you can see from the enclosed examples, all were addressed clearly and correctly and according to the Canada Post rules.

Now – a little bit about where I live since perhaps there is some confusion.

I live in a townhouse attached to a couple of large towers. The addresses of the towers are 969 and 989 Richards; collectively, we are “The Mondrian”. My address is 929 Richards (I know this for a fact because it is inscribed in large, clearly visible numerals on my front door). I hate to keep repeating that but it doesn’t seem to be getting through to you fine folks at Canada Post. The mailbox for my townhouse (and 10 of the 18 other townhouses) is inside the building at 969 Richards where it has been for 8 years; we haven’t moved it, we haven’t repainted it and we haven’t shuffled the mail boxes around to see what would happen. Really – it’s just the same as it always was. I must admit that I don’t understand why we don’t have individual mailboxes like the other townhouses in other developments on Richards Street which would be far more convenient and also probably less confusing for postal workers but there you are, I’m sure there is a good reason for such regulatory inconsistency – but I digress.

I can report that no other delivery service has problems with my address, whether it be FedExed baubles from eBay or Pizza from Dominos, it always arrives correctly with nary a stumble. Heck, even the ever changing kaleidoscope of recently-immigrated delivery people (some with suitcases still in the back of their delivery vehicles) who bring me my Kung Pao chicken every Thursday evening arrive at my door with my food piping hot, despite a complete absence of English language skills – actually a complete lack of knowledge of the existence of the English language would be a better description.

It strikes me that perhaps there are issues of which I am unaware and that I will gladly address as required as I really would like you to deliver my mail again – please, pretty please.

I have been racking my brain to come up with possible scenarios and have come up with possible scenarios and solutions, which I will run by you.

1. It seems that in Argentina you have to regularly bribe the mailman in order to receive your mail at all. The bigger your bribe, the better your service. The rate for the “Mordita” varies from getting your mail once a week, through daily and they will even pick up your outgoing mail if the levy is sufficient (though I feel compelled to point out that the US postal service does that for free even on Saturdays). 
Has Canada Post instituted a similar policy here? Please advise if so and also how payment is to be made – should I just leave it in an unmarked envelope in the mailbox? (If so, how would the delivery person find it?) How much for daily delivery? If I pay extra will you lose all my credit card bills? (If so, please let me move aforementioned first-born to an undisclosed location first; hostage negotiations are particularly troublesome without a working VISA card).

2. Do Postal workers now navigate using Google Earth via an iPhone rather than postal addresses? Should I provide NAD83 coordinates or does Canada use the new NAD system? Do I have to convert to metric? Should it be bilingual?
3. Does my townhouse occasionally slip through a portal in the space-time continuum and actually not physically exist in this reality at the precise moments of mail delivery. This would explain a number of oddities such as no mail on Fridays and double junk mail on Mondays but frankly I find it unlikely as no misdirected mail from the future containing confirmed lottery jackpot winnings has arrived – yet.
4. Am I supposed to take the mis-delivered mail to the correct recipient and in exchange I will receive my mail in addition to some fabulous prizes. The whole thing is an elaborate Reality Show combining Candid Camera with Wheel Of Fortune and sponsored by the Conservative Party of Canada. My only question is, if I win the weekend getaway with Stephen Harper can we at least get separate rooms? I hear he snores.
5. Are you are doing this to encourage townhouse owners at The Mondrian to install mailboxes in their front doors? Alright, I admit this is a forlorn hope since this is what we all want and have been requesting for years but, what the heck, I’ll throw it in there.
6. Is the Canadian Government testing a pilot programme in Vancouver whereby they still sell stamps but gradually withhold the delivery part of mail service. Once fully implemented they can reduce the overhead of the post office significantly by eliminating all delivery personnel and only hiring people to sell stamps. They will then replace those people with automated machines and close all the post offices “for your convenience” similar to what the banks have done. The potential success of this programme will depend on how apathetic Canadians are and how they respond to no actual mail deliveries (judged by the number of complaints received – hence my interest in writing this one).
7. Is the government experimenting with combining the lottery system with the postal system. They will reduce the number of mail carriers by 90% and will deliver all mail to a random mailbox every day in each city. The lucky recipient can then keep any gifts, cash and drugs and auction off the remaining items on eBay; all for the price of a postage stamp! Throw in the occasional free box of Tim-Bits and this one could be a winner.

There are other possibilities but they do become less and less plausible.

Please advise on what I can do to assist you in resolving this matter. Until it is resolved, every time I see the lucky recipient of the Publisher’s Clearing House jackpot check I’ll always have the feeling that it was just another piece of my mail ending up in the wrong hands and that just isn’t fair.

I hope you will not be too displeased that I chose to deliver this letter in person rather than sending it through the mail. Under the circumstances I hope you will understand.

Yours truly,

Stephen Elliott

I really should get out more.

I’m looking forward to the next few days off before I go back to work next week. Next week will be just two days a week but the following week I will be ramping up to 3 days. I hope that will go well.

I thought it went pretty well. Boss was sick so disappeared after the first half day.

We got a good deal of stuff accomplished and tried out some new stuff which seemed to go down OK.

I’m completely bagged though. All those extra hours are being keenly felt.

I really notice my focus slipping when I get tired so I must be careful. Instead of 2 days a week a worked every day last week and the weekend too.

I am now very aware that I don’t yet have the mental stamina to do that. I’m not sure whether it’s chemo brain or simply a normal readjustment. I don’t even know how long chemo-brain is supposed to last – some information I’ve seen says forever to a greater or lesser extent. That would definitely suck. All I know is that the neuropathy in my hands is still inhibiting me a lot but my feet less so (though jogging or running is out).