kjp

The past five days have pretty very much out of the ordinary. Bits of this post were written at different times, so it may not read smoothly!

Saturday morning
I caught a cab to the (domestic) airport, and got on a plane to Canberra. It was my first flight on Virgin Blue. They seemed pretty good: but they don't have free food on board. Do'h. Well, I knew this before hand, so it wasn't a surprise… The flight was boring - just read and slept a bit. Looking at Canberra from the air it was fairly dry, but nice, pretty and well laid out - the usual. My little sister C picked me up from the airport: we got home a bit after J did: he had gotten the rest of the day out on a day pass.

It was great to come back to the family home. It's probably the most significant place in my life so far. Minus a few bits here and there, I've lived there from mid 1985 until the start of this year - 2004 - ie: 18.5 years or so. Wow. I was feeling a little anxious but very happy to return. It was weird how I noticed bits and pieces:

Things haven't changed at all:

• The mailbox still doesn't open easily / properly
• The front ""garden"" (yes - that is double double quotes...) still looks weird / stupid
• The same stairs and floor-boards downstairs still creak
• The shower head in the bathroom is still a bit iffy - keeps falling / put too low
• The white round table is still centre stage in the family room
• The house still needs to be heated in winter a fair bit
• There's still not enough ventilation in the upstairs toilet...

Then some things are completely different:

• There's a funny musty / old person / book smell throughout the entire place
• A new roof is being put on the house
• There's a new fancy schmancy BBQ out on the back deck
• There's some art at the end of the upstairs hallway
• I'm now a guest at my home! This was a daunting / strange feeling - I was in the guest room, not "my" room. This was very understandable, but emphasised to me the fact that I was - in some ways at least - a guest. The other thing it indicated to me is that I should be "grown up" - which I'm not: I long for my childhood, I think. But I'll sort that out later...

Saturday lunch
Was spent with family: me, J, S, W, L, C and an old family friend D. It was great to see J, S, C and D again. Especially (although unfortunately) J. It was just like old times - everyone around the table. It was easy to be really happy with the situation - I was with all my family again. But then all of a sudden I'd realise why I was there: dodgy.

Afterwards we just sat around, talked, etc. Then everyone went back to the hospital while J ate his dinner. I drove S home.

Sunday morning
Drove to the hospital with S, picked up J at brought him back - he was on another day pass. He went to church. I went with S and C for a walk up along the backtrack. Again, like when I first arrived home, there were some things that were the same, some things that had obviously changed: it was easy to pick out which houses had been done up, etc.

A BBQ lunch (cooked on the new fancy cooker) followed. I can't remember what happened in the afternoon - probably more talking etc. In the late afternoon / early evening I dropped J back at the hospital, and stayed with him for a while. A doctor took 3 goes to get a cannula in - vaguely worrying.

Sunday night
Driving back on the way home was the first time that I had to myself: alone. Instead of focussing on making sure other people were struggling along ok, I allowed myself to think about the situation. And then I realised then how upset I was (and am) at the whole situation. The potential severity of the worse case scenario hit me - and I lost it. I was just completely sad - nothing else.

After dinner at home, the 4 youngins went out to Civic - to the Pancake Parlour for dessert. Remarkably enough(!) there was hardly anyone around, being a Sunday night in the middle of winter in Canberra.

Monday
First went to Belconnen Mall. We didn't have time to cruise around the mall - just got my hair cut and we got a few other small jobs done. You now have to pay for parking at Belco! Yikes. (Although they were introducing it when I left…). Then to the hospital. Most of the day was spent waiting around: waiting for tests, waiting for test results. The results of today should come tomorrow, with more tests tomorrow. Hopefully all of the news will be good. Fingers crossed - thinking positive thoughts, etc. It's hard not to worry. I just want everything to be ok - everything to be how it was before Thursday.

It's amazing how tiring a day can be, when you're not doing anything physically or mentally strenuous: just emotionally.

Tuesday
In the morning went to ANU with C. I gate crashed a lecture on Psychology of Health: was vaguely interesting. Prior to that we cruised around the ANU for a bit - was good to reminisce about my 5 years here. They've made the union building pretty dodgy by partitioning up the main eating hall. Oh well. Then onto the hospital. More waiting and waiting. J had an MRI scan in the morning. Waiting around all day (boring). Talked to a guy in the bed next to J - an engineer - interesting. In the evening - news from the main doctor who looked over the MRI results. They were not as good as we hoped. And this is very worrying, sad, and hurts a lot. There will be a full body MRI scan in the next few days which will help determine the extent of the situation. Then there maybe some surgery… I'm pretty upset at the whole situation.

Wednesday
Did some jobs in the morning, packed up, went over to the hospital. Had a coffee with me, J, S, W and L. Then C picked us up and took us to the airport. The flight was pretty boring. Train back to home from the airport. Didn't get the best train connections (just missed the train at the airport and the connection at Bowen Hills).

There maybe some photos of Canberra up on this site if I get around to it in the next few days.

OK, overall, a few effects from the events of the past couple of days:

• It hurts
• I'll probably become a frequent flier on the Brisbane / Canberra flight route.
• Housing will be an issue for me. It seems that the place I'm in will be taken from under me in a couple of weeks. There's almost certainly not enough time to buy a place. So it looks like I'll be renting somewhere. I worry about this: I've really enjoyed the company of W since the start of the year (and L when he has been around). Living with them was, in some ways, dangerous: it's meant that there has been less of a driver on me to meet new people in Brisbane... And this means that I'm probably going to be (initially at least) lonely. Sigh.

I remember reading a quote / phrase / part of a poem somewhere that basically said something along the lines of "love changes life - it makes life fantastic when it is good; the problem is when things go badly, it makes you hurt even more". Of course, it was a tad more eloquent than that, but that was the general gist.

I just want life to be like it was last Wednesday: life was better back then.

There's a few things I should do:

• Live life to the full - now

Actually, that's just one thing... Probably should work on that. But I think it's a good start.