'Twas the night before Christmas...

I had completed my diaysis treatment for the day and was in a taxi on my way to my support workers home where I had been invited to stay the night. The caring lady, by name of Roberta, thought I may like to share Christmas morning with her family by getting up early and watching her three young children open up the goodies Santa had brought them.

Upon arriving and being welcomed at her home, I settled in to watch a bit of TV with them. Dialysis treatment always leaves me feeling tired and today was no exception, but now there was a different feeling... I was shivering with cold and my whole body had the shakes! After a few minutes I had to ask my friends to excuse me as I felt I must go to bed straight away.

The next thing I knew I was awake in a darkened room, in a strange bed with rails all around me! Was I in prison? No, I felt the rails and realised that they were part of the bed and it began to dawn on me where I was... in my support workers home!

Apparently I had 'blacked out' from the time I asked to go to bed and, somehow, Roberta had managed to get my lifeless body out of my wheelchair and into bed for the night.

After a few hours of intermittent sleep, I heard the pitter-patter of little feet... Roberta's children had woken up and were eager to open their presents. They had been told they must wait until I was out of bed and ready to watch the excitement.

Having been up several times during the night to check on my condition, Roberta dragged herself out of bed and came into my room and - finding I was more or less back to 'normal' - popped me back in my chair and prepared me to face Christmas Day 2009.

Presents were opened, breakfast was consumed, Roberta's family and friends began to arrive to celebrate the day with her and I was happy to be part of the gathering.

At lunchtime, I left Roberta's and caught another taxi to the home of my daughter, Leanne's, where she, her husband Craig and their boys - my grandsons - Jack, Ryan and Harry, had arranged for me to share a Christmas meal with them and their friends.

Feeling extremely tired - and full of good food - after all this activity, I arrived back home on the late afternoon of Christmas Day. Bed time that night brought back the 'shakes' and another mini-blackout!

The following morning, Boxing Day, brought a visit from the district nurse who took one look at my swollen left leg and immediately ordered an ambulance to take me to Hospital, where I was diagnosed with severe cellulitis.

Thus began 18 days of pain, needles, anti-biotics, sleepless nights, tears and mixed emotions, ending two days ago when I returned home to the care of my team of support workers. I still have to take things easy and only get up for limited amounts of time each day... but it beats being in hospital!

And so, it was a very different Christmas for me this year. My sincere apologies to those of you who didn't receive a greeting from me and the many whose emails went unanswered - I had just under 900 emails waiting for me to open when I got home (most of them were spam, of course).

Thanks a million to those of you who sent me Christmas greetings and to those who contacted me in hospital... you are all precious gems and very special to me. A special mention here to my brother Geoff and his wife Meryl, who visited me in hospital on several occasions, to friends Ron Nancarrow, Vera & Geoff Higgs and Kaye Butler who also visited, also to my daughter Leanne for her daily phone calls... and, of course, to Roberta and the others in my support team.

Now, to a necessarily slow recuperation. It will take some time until I return to the 'old me', but I'll get there. My regular radio programmes, darts and other activities may have to take a back seat for a little while, but WATCH THIS SPACE!

MORE Trophies!

We won! Pictured is li'l ol' me trying to hide behind two trophies collected on darts presentation night... one for being a member of the winning team and the smaller one for Best Average Score and most number of wins.

Anyway, enough of my bragging! November saw me with a new Visa card and cutting back on my spending (including food!) in an effort to save some money for buying Christmas presents. The blowdarts demonstration went well and I took part in the groups one-day tournament losing in the end to the captain of the Colac team. The main objective was achieved, however, by showing how I compete by using my special blowdarts equipment.

A BBQ for my support workers was not the greatest of successes with only three of my team in attendance, but it was still a social success and I'll have another early in 2010. A pre-Christmas dinner with friends and family went very well... 26 of us enjoyed a meal and each others company on Dec. 6 at the Bendigo Club.

Over 30 years ago, when I first lived in Bendigo, I was a member of the local Chess Club. My greatest achievement was winning the B-Grade Trophy one year. A good friend by name of Alan Williams, who played in A-Grade at the time, still lives here and during a recent visit he asked if I would "still like a game". Being one who never knocks back a challenge, I took him up on his offer and we now meet on a regular basis on Wednesday mornings... and he still thrashes me. Given time, however, I reckon I'll beat him!!

Almost Christmas and my usual last minute rush to print out my Annual Christmas Newsletters (also known as 'cards'), gift wrapping, etc. One of my support team, Roberta, has invited me to spend Christmas Eve at her home, so I can wake up Christmas morning and see her three young children open their gifts from Santa. I will leave there at Noon and go to my daughter Leanne's for Christmas lunch with her husband and my three grandsons, twins Jack & Ryan and young Harry.

May God be kind to us all for another twelve months and enrich our lives with good health, lots of love and peace in abundance.

As Christmas Approaches...

Well, I did it! I crammed as much activity into the past few weeks as I could and - as I write - am feeling a little better for it.


For example: I attended/did the following...

• church with one of my carers and her children
• a concert at the RSL Club that same evening to hear a band from Queensland which featured Sylvia, the drummer from one of my old bands
• two dinners with my singles' social club (which I am trying to revive)
• a picnic at the park across the road with one of my carers and her family (after which I had a stomach upset and had to get another carer to stay the night - just in case!)
• caught a bus to the shopping centre where my daughter works, had a chat with her and met her work mates
• accepted an invitation to give a blowdarts demonstration at the Colac Darts Club (three hours drive each way with one of my carers and her husband).

Still on the subject of darts, on November 19 the darts team I play for will contest the Grand Final... and, I feel, we have a good chance of winning. I have been happy with my form in having gone through the season undefeated. I lost my first singles game in the semi-final (best of three), however, but recovered to win 2 - 1.

I had two overnight visits from my Melbourne friend Barbara. She came with me to my community radio program on Phoenix FM... also a visit from Lisa, one of my ex-Geelong carers. She brought me some irish stew and I have always LOVED Lisa's irish stew!

Incidentally, Phoenix FM is streamed all over the world through the internet, so my program can be heard live by anyone with a computer. I have a number of listeners in Ireland who have sent me CD's and DVD's of some of their top artists which makes it all worthwhile. It would be great to 'spread the word' even further, so if you - or anyone you know - are interested.

I am on air every second Monday night from 8 to 10 p.m. (Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time). Just login to http://www.phoenixfm.org/ and click on the Phoenix FM logo. My on-air dates to the end of this year are Mondays, Nov. 16, 30 and Dec. 14, 28.

I enjoy the challenge of trying to track down requests from my listeners. These are open to any genre of music and are usually played in the first hour of my programme. If you would like me to play any of your favourite songs please get in touch. My email address is coljames@bigpond.com.au.

All of the above and then... a new experience. I went absolutely broke! For the first time I owed the bank money... and began living from week to week on my disability pension. I even had to borrow from my carers to buy lunch!

And so, a new goal in my life... to claw my way back financially in time for Christmas! To make this task a little harder I went shopping for groceries yesterday and looked in my wallet to find my Visa card had gone missing. A thorough search proved fruitless, so I had no alternative but to cancel my old card and order a new one.

Ned Kelly was right... "such is life"!

Time to take my own advice!

I'm not sure why I am writing this particular blog. Maybe it's because I feel particularly alone today and that's when blogs can help to fill a void... someone to talk to when there's no one to talk to! I'm not trying to hide the fact that I am still wishing, hoping and praying for someone to enter my life as a friend, lover and soulmate. I simply don't feel 'complete' as I am.

All the emails I receive from people I rarely (if ever) see are welcome, but they are not the same as communicating in flesh and blood and my greatest fear at these times appears more and more likely of eventuating - that of ending my days alone.

Apart from emails, my most immediate contacts are my support workers... most have become good friends. They tell me I should be satisfied with my life as I have had three good marriages. I can't agree with that though because, for a start, if they were so good I would not be on my own right now, would I? Also, there is little value living in the past... it's the FUTURE I want to look forward to, not the past. I'd like to feel I still have a future.

I always tell others that they have to make things happen in their lives... create things or events... so I guess it's time I took my own advice. Watch this space!

THIEVES IN THE NIGHT!

As I go through a period of sleepless nights (don't know why... just a combination of itches and a restless mind, I think) I am usually awake until mid morning. So it was a couple of weeks ago when, at 3 a.m., I heard a woman and a man chatting nearby, followed by the closing of a car door, the revving of a motor and the departure of a vehicle. Little did I know until 8 a.m. when the police knocked at my door that I had been listening to the theft of my neighbours car!

The police wanted to know if I had heard anything during the night, so I gave them the above information. A little later in the morning I spoke to my neighbour who was obviously upset, not only by the loss of his car, but by the fact that the police had since found it burnt out in a nearby rubbish tip! Add to this that he was blaming himself for leaving the keys in the ignition, also that he was not insured, and one can understand how bad he was feeling.

The dawning of Spring...

An uneventful few weeks have passed since my last blog. The only real change in my life has been the long awaited installation of ceiling hoists in my bedroom and bathroom (I can now take an occasional bath!). This is a real asset to my team of support workers who, until now, have had to manoeuvre my portable hoist through doorways and around obstacles in the bedroom in order to get me in/out of my wheelchair.

I have actually started on the final chapters of my autobiography... making notes from Christmas newsletters I have written over the past few years in order to bring the book to an updated conclusion. This has been a sad task in many ways as it has revived painful memories of my broken marriage, the passing of much loved pets and numerous health-related issues but, of course, mercifully twixt the gloomy times are sandwiched a lot of happy memories.

I spent three days in hospital recently for diagnosis and treatment of staphylococcus aureus (a bug in the blood)... not a pleasant experience but, thankfully, it was soon cleared through the anti-biotics administered by dialysis.

May your Spring be filled with happy days of love, warmth and sunshine!

Mid-Winter Blues???

OK folks, be prepared for this 'open minded, hearts'n flowers, tissue filling tears'n all,' blog as I get a few things off my chest... and a bra isn't one of them!

I recently sorted through lots of memorabilia with the intention of getting rid of stacks of seldom used, no longer needed, items at my garage sale. The day in question greeted us with threats of rain, cold and gusty winds and the sort of weather one would expect at the north (or south - whichever is coldest) pole... certainly not condusive to attracting the masses to a garage sale.

A few friends and I braved the elements for a few hours as we waited patiently to make our fortunes (one man's trash is another man's treasure sort of thing), but the few bargain hunting souls who came through the gate turned up their coat collars (and noses), did a quick 'about turn' and exited, muttering things like "who'd want that junk anyway". We sold a couple of items which were 'real bargains' at $2 or $3 only to be asked if we would accept $1.50 - which we did!

So, about three hours later and $5 richer, we gave up and retreated indoors to the heater... undaunted but determined to "try again" later in the year when at least the weather should be a little kinder. In the meantime I'll forget all thoughts of saving for a holiday in Christchurch!

Amongst the old VCR's I re-discovered a lot of home movies which, thanks to my brother Geoff, I have had copied on to discs. This gives them a longer life and makes them more convenient for viewing. On the negative side however, came looking back at happier times, such as my 50th birthday celebrated with old friends - most of whom (for various reasons) are no longer around, together with the holidays in America and Europe shared with my wife Diane... well, those times now seem too good to be real.

Not forgetting those thirteen wonderful months when Diane and I lived in Paschendale (western Victoria) with our pet dogs Tess & Ollie, cats Claude & Mintie and our darling pet goat, Sybil... all happy memories - sadly missed - which will live on in my mind forever (can you hear those violins in the background?).

Then, just two weeks ago, came the much anticipated reunion of my old band, "Insight". Approx. 50 invitations were mailed out and a similar number of emails were despatched to old friends and fans of the group asking them all to 'get in early' as this may be the last time we will be holding one of these functions. I printed several posters and circulated these as widely as possible, initiated some radio and newspaper advertising, conservatively booked 60 'afternoon teas' for our anticipated guests and waited for the bookings to roll in.

Four days before 'show time', we cancelled the event and advised the THREE people who had booked that we had more in the band than there would be seated at tables! Undaunted (again) we are thinking of re-scheduling what we will advertise as the "Final Insight Reunion" in September or October.

Most mornings of my life I have awoken to positive thoughts of how much I intend to do and eargerly looking forward to the brand new day. Over recent weeks, however, after an average of 3 - 4 hours of interrupted sleep each night broken by lengthy bouts of scratching skin irritations (diagnosed as dermatitis) and the after effects of prescribed sleeping tablets (which only work in the latter hours) I awake feeling - and looking - like a "mumbie" (a cross between a mummie and a zombie).

On non-dialysis days (Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) I spend much of my time gazing out the window with eyes half-closed or in front of the computer contemplating what to do next! Perhaps it's a reaction to my sleeplessness or the cold weather, but the needles penetrating my arm at dialysis time seem to be more painful than ever and the nurses are having more difficulty finding the right spots to 'jab'.

Each dialysis treatment takes four hours laying on my back while the machine I'm attached to does its work. Those four hours I usually spend trying to catch up on some sleep or thinking of how I could be putting all those hours to better use. I even do maths in my head! For example, at two needles per dialysis three times a week I worked out I have a minimum of 260 needles in my arm each year... riveting stuff!

The only really bright spots in recent weeks were brief visits from friends Harry & Glenda Wilkinson (Wangaratta) and Barbara (Melbourne)... bright spots on otherwise cold, wet and gloomy days!