2 down and 31 to go

 Today David had his second radiation session. And rather than my driving him in as I did yesterday, he went in by train and bus.

Some changes from yesterday were sorted today:

As he isn't eating in the morning prior to his treatment, his last meal is dinner the night before. Yesterday in the car, so he wouldn't starve before we got home, I took:

• a small thermos of Thai pumpkin soup
• carrot sticks
• homemade hummus
• 5 seed crackers
• a banana

Today, because he had to carry it all, he didn't take the carrot sticks

• the verdict this afternoon was that soup on the train is not do-able.

Tomorrow, the soup will be replaced with a container of mixed nuts. And the hummus, crackers, and banana will still be part of the care package. He can eat soup when he gets home.

We both noticed yesterday how lovely the staff are, and also how much chatting goes on between the patients who are waiting. It does increase the camaraderie and lower the sense of loneliness. 

All of the men were having radiation for prostate cancer and they all have had adjustments to make about how much water to drink to fill the bladder so that the small intestine lifts out of the way, but not too soon so they need to pee before the treatment. It is a finely judged and often misjudged art, I gather.

David drank too early yesterday, and then had to start again. Multiple pee stops required on the way home ...

Today however he judged it better and did not have to break the train journey for a pit stop as he had thought he may need to.

When I picked him up from the station, we went down to Bruce and Gary's so he could have a bath in a solution of salt and Epsom salts. We no longer have a bath at our place - we took it out when we changed the bathroom so we had a family ensuite. 

I can hear him yawning now - I think he will be early to bed tonight. One of the effects of drinking lots of water early in the day is the need to pee lots overnight too. Altogether now: Poor David!

I didn't drink lots of water, so why was I awake a lot last night then?

It is now the beginning of July

 and we have been home from our hols since just before Easter - where has that time gone, and why haven't I blogged about it? About the last few weeks of the South Island sojourn and the time since we have been home, I mean.

Good question. And the only truthful answer is that I have been writing blogposts, or snippets thereof in my head but not committing them to the keyboard. And the reason for that is needing a lie down when I think about sorting and choosing and uploading the photos... How lazy is that, I ask? Answer: VERY!!

And of course, life has moved on since we were in the South Island and if I leave it any longer in doing a catch up, it'll be irrelevant, or it'll be so far out of date that it won't be worth my keeping on with blogging. And I am not yet ready to give that up.

So, a quick word snapshot of the remainder of our SI holiday, starting from our time in Wanaka:

• we took a drive over the Crown Range to Arrowtown and stayed the night in a motel there, explored the old Chinese settlement which was very moving - a part of NZ history that the government officially apologised for a few years ago because of its racism and exclusion policies.
• we had about 2 hours in Queenstown:
• the good part was having falafel burgers at FergBurgers - yummy, and they have been recreated here at home since (I make falafels, and recreated the sauces that FergBurgers had; aioli, lemon yoghurt, chipotle chilli sauce ...  Look up their menu www.fergburger.com and do your own versions without having to go to Queenstown - much cheaper!)
  
• the crap part was trying to find a park for longer than 15 minutes for the car. Even though there were only NZ tourists around, the place seemed jammed to us. Not so apparently, but not pleasant to be in. And it poured down with rain as we were leaving Fergburgers, so instead of going back to the car to get coats, we bailed and headed away and back over the Crown Range to Wanaka. Much relieved to leave ... Sad in a way, as our last trip to Queenstown was back in 1994 with my mum and my aunt Molly - and we all loved it. But now it is so much more built up and so much less attractive.
• we took a cruise across to Stephenson Island in Lake Wanaka on a lovely sunny day. That was a really good thing to do. The lake is so much larger than it looks from the town and it is not long before the boat takes you away from many signs of habitation. And the views were wonderful from the summit on Stephenson Island. I will post photos later ...
• The A&P show was on in Wanaka and we had been told it was well worth attending, so we did - interesting and huge. Nothing we wanted to buy except there was a display on water wheels that I was nostalgic about - my dad had planned to build a water wheel for us at our old house, making use of the overflow/header tank that collected the water off the roof and supplied the pressure to drive the water upwards on its path in the stormwater pipes out to the street. Dad never did build it, and I have kept it on his list of tasks for if he returns from the dead - that'll be a bit of a struggle as he was cremated...
• the highlight of the A&P show for us was a jack russell race: a regular event that some dogs are trained for apparently. The winner was clearly a well trained dog - he had won it six times before. It was hilarious as the dogs ran all over the place, some were focused on the finish line but many just enjoyed being able to bound all over the race paddock.
• I had managed to destroy the screen on my phone in Wanaka - by dropping it twice, once screen-down on to the roadway (static shock as I got out of the hire car made me drop the phone ...), and once on the cruise from the top deck of the boat to the bottom deck. The screen was munted and using the phone was an exercise in remembering where things were on the display, because the top half of it could not be seen at all - a lovely tartan pattern emerged... I did keep taking photos and surprisingly they were mostly okay, given I could really only point and shoot - with hope in my heart...
• When we left Wanaka in the afternoon after attending the A&P show, we headed towards Haast and that trip is just chock full of wonderful vistas - lakes, ranges and hills, and it was an absolutely beautiful day. It was a day to feel extremely lucky to be living in New Zealand, and a day to feel privileged to be able to travel around and enjoy it. 
• We stopped for the night at the Makarora Country Cafe, only about 55kms out of Wanaka, but we were sated with views and stopping to take photos and admire and saying goodbye to what is one of our most loved places to visit. The Country Cafe was a good stop off - a peaceful place, and a good place to be when the wind started that evening! I made dinner and then blobbed while David went for a walk down towards the lake. So the next morning we both did the walk - there is something about the peace and stillness of being in the valleys between the hills and ranges, and knowing that there is such a plethora of them - the landscape is truly awe-inspiring. 
• On our way to Haast, we stopped at the Blue Pools and did the walk there - mostly downhill, which of course means the inevitable for the return. And I conquered a fear. Well, not quite conquered it, but I did keep it under control to a large extent. On the way to the Blue Pools there was a swing bridge and I hate them, fear them, have avoided them - and in NZ that is quite hard to do when out exploring! So this one I decided I would do. David asked other walkers to wait until I was off it, so I didn't have to cope with it moving more than necessary. Brave person, aren't I? Not really, I know, but it was a bit of an achievement for me. The last one I went on was at Hokitika Gorge back in 2016, and I really struggled. Anyway, the walk and the bridge crossings were well worth it - a beautiful blue pool at the end of the track and there were even a few hardy people swimming - I love it when people take on that kind of challenge because I can experience it vicariously. I did thank them for doing it on my behalf ...
• We stopped overnight at Haast and went out for breakfast to a place Sandra of NB Are and Are had posted about - the Hard Antler. Good food, lovely people, interesting decor - a bit of a challenge to eat while being watched over by heads of deer and multiple sets of antlers!
• We headed on up the West Coast and had our first stop not very far on at Ship Creek. What a fabulous place! In spite of the heavy rain, we did the walk through the kahikatea forest. And then we started the walk out to and along the dunes. Alas, the rain was too heavy out in the exposed dune area, so it was back to the motorhome to change - what absolute bliss to be able to change in a vehicle - standing up, and to be able to hang your clothes to drip in the shower. And to put on clean dry warm ones, and then make a cup of tea to warm up your insides. Imagine having to change by undressing in a car, writhing out of clothes, struggling to dry yourself, getting dry clothes on over a still damp and cold body. WE LOVE THE MOTORHOME!!
• We intended to take a few days to get to Hokitika. However because the rain was pelting down in buckets and 40 gallon drums and monsoon buckets, and the road was looking like it would flood - and there are more than a few rivers between Haast and Hokitika and they are prone to flooding - we decided to head straight for Ross and come back down the West Coast and explore in better weather next year or later this year. So on we drove, stopping at Fox for lunch - in the motorhome: left-over soup, and home made bread - no need to go out and get wet...
• At Ross we stayed at the very rumpty Empire Hotel in their very rumpty building site grounds and went in for dinner. The food was nothing special but the service and kindness was exemplary. They made a salad and raw veg platter for David which was very kind. 
• The next day, after a peaceful night, once one of the guests managed to stop the alarm on their van from continuing to go off, we headed for Hokitika - yay!!
• We stayed at the new Kiwi Holiday Park there - what a great place it is. I went in to the DOC offices with cheese scones and lemonade scones that I made in the camp kitchen - excellent facilities. We will definitely go there again. Fiona kindly came and collected me complete with the scone mountain, butter, jam and cream. It was lovely to see the team again - I do miss that place and those people.

OK, more later... And photos will follow, I promise - once David has sent off his insurance claim, I will set him the task of finding photos to be posted. So don't hold your breath!

More about David

 Still no desire for dusting has manifested itself, dammit!

However he has received his start date for radiation treatment and it is Monday 5 July. We are a mix of pleased, relieved and trepidatious**!

** The Shorter OED says there is no such word, but I don't care - I have invented it just now. Feel free to use it - there will be no copyright fee!

And the other milestone is that he is within a day or two of sending in his insurance claim for the expenses to do with the surgery for the anterior capsular phimosis in his right eye. It is just over 2 years since the surgery at the Birmingham Medical Eye Centre (BMEC). If you look in the archive of this blog there are posts about his eye adventures starting in late May 2019. 

Note to self: do not employ David in any role where adherence to deadlines is critical...

And a new word I learned yesterday is turbidity - I am doing a piece of work setting up a project regarding achieving compliance with legislation about new standards for water supplies in NZ. The Dept of Conservation water asset guys tell me that turbidity refers to the amount of silt in water and therefore its lack of transparency. Cloudy or opaque with suspended matter says the Shorter OED re turbid. It also means being confused, so I am going to use it in that context. I will have plenty of relevant opportunities, I think.

Don't you just love new words?

I had guessed turbidity had something to do with the movement of water - and I now realise why. I associated turbulent with turbidity. Not so silly after all. But still not correct, dammit!

A David update

 I have avoided blogging lately - as you will have seen, it is ages since I posted about our being in Wanaka - and we were there back in March and I didn't post about it until late April or early May ... And lots has happened since then.

I haven't written about David's post operative prostate status much in the last few months, but he has been having monthly PSA tests and after a couple of months early on where the reading went down microscopically, it has since then risen microscopically but steadily.

His first test after his operation was 0.15 when it should have been about 0.03 or 0.05. So it was between 3 and 5 times higher than it should have been.

Since then it went up once and then down a couple of months in a row. But in the last 5 or 6 months it has risen to 0.33 - so it has more than doubled since his first test. While that seems very low to men who still have their prostates in situ, for someone whose prostate has been removed, such a reading is a sign that there is residual cancer.

So I think it was back in November that David had a PSMA PET scan, when the reading had hit 0.20 - the trigger for further investigation. And once it had reached 0.29 in May, we decided it was time to act. So we had another appointment with the radiation oncologist, Han Kim, and a further PSMA PET scan was scheduled for 10 days later. They can only be done on Thursdays because that is the only day that the radioactive isotopes are available... I am not sure if they are imported or what, but Thursday is the day!

Han told us that the avidity of the lymph node that had shown up on the first scan had not increased in size or brightness on the second scan, which was very good news. However he recommended that David go ahead with both hormone suppression therapy and with radiation. His rationale was that once the PSA gets up to 0.5 in a man without a prostate, it is very hard to reverse the spread of cancer to other organs - the bones especially.

So David is now in Week 3 (nearly 4) of the ADT (Androgen Deprivation [??] Therapy). For the first two weeks he was on tablets with one drug, and in the second week he started a monthly injection of another drug. That is administered with a large needle as it is an ampoule that sits under the skin of the belly and the drug is absorbed into the body over the month.

The worst of the possible side effects was likely to be a sense of lowered mood similar to menopause. Another was hot flushes. AAARRRGGGHHH!!! The latter hasn't occurred, and the former is not manifesting itself either. We had discussed that David needs to be open with me about if he is feeling low so we can take care of that - magnesium, B vitamins or CBD oil if required.

I have regularly been checking if he feels the urge to do dusting yet - that would be a possible sign of feminisation. But alas, no dusting mania has yet manifested itself ... 😜😜😈😈 However I live in hope!

On Wednesday last week, we went to Wellington Hospital for his assessment interview to prepare for the radiation treatment. He now sports three tattoos - I had mistakenly thought they were for aiming the radiation and was distressed to see there was one on each hip and one below his navel. Doh!! No, they are for the radiation therapists to line him up with the right spots on the table below the radiation treatment zapper. 

He had to drink a litre of clear fluid before we got there, then pee and then drink 500ml so his bladder was suitably distended to lift the small intestine out of the way. However he needed at least another 200ml before he felt any pressure in his bladder. So he was getting a bit stressed that he would miss his assessment time - not so. They just waited. We now know that 700ml does it for him!

Radiation treatment is likely to commence in a three weeks or so, and will be Mon to Fri for 6.5 weeks, i.e. 33 sessions.

David plans to catch the train and bus in and out of town each day apart from Wednesdays when I will take him in because that is the day he will see Han each week for a check on progress. And I would like to be there for that.

It is likely he will get very tired towards the end of the treatments, so I may end up driving him in each day, but we will see.

We also stopped in to look at a hotel across the road from the hospital - if push comes to shove, he can stay over on the odd night if he feels too tired to come home.

I am going to find out what things he needs to do/eat/modify to lessen the impact of the radiation on his system, and we will put those in place. He will continue with the vegan diet and the juice which both Han and the urologist said will have been helping to keep the cancer cells from growing rampantly.

We didn't want David to have to have radiation, but faced with the choice of the cancer spreading or being demolished at this early stage, demolition seemed the most sensible option. Of course, we know radiation comes with its own risks, but they will hopefully not manifest themselves until some years down the track. Whereas a PSA rate that doubled within 9 months is too risky to leave to its own devices.

In terms of his state of mind - he is in really good shape. Almost always upbeat and stoic, if those two things go together. He's had a couple of times where he has said he feels a bit low, but each time it has been situational rather than hormonal. I do check each time if he feels the urge to dust yet, and he always laughs delightedly.

And by the way, I am probably doing enough stressing for both of us ...

Wanaka - Part One

I have a lot to write and lots of photos about Wanaka, but I have been too flat out to post recently. I have to get that photo of the cockroach off my front page as it looks disgusting! So I am going to post just part of my Wanaka post - incomplete but it will have to be finished off later.

So  here's Part One - severely truncated ...

We really like Wanaka - it is a beautiful part of the country - scenic, a small-ish (but growing quite fast) town, mainly focused on tourism but with our borders closed, it was not as busy as it usually is. Not a tour bus to be seen ... I think the tour operators were doing it a bit hard, but there did seem to be plenty of people eating in and outside the lakefront restaurants and cafes. We sampled some of them over our several days there for various meals: brekkie, lunch and dinner. Some very yummy food and some quite ordinary, but very acceptable.

On the day after we arrived, we had hired a car in Wanaka so that we could explore the surrounding area without moving the motorhome. So not only did we drive around but we did a fair bit of walking too.

There are mountains everywhere!

Juicing with a view

Concentration is key...

We went out for a drive after we picked up the car and I thought I was heading back on the route we had travelled in on the previous day. But no! I had taken a wrong turning and we arrived at this place instead: Lake Hawea - we stopped here to do a very brief exploration, i.e. just of the little parking area, not the township across the bridge over the narrow bit of the lake.

Mountains, Lakes:  Lake Hawea at the Lake Hawea Dam control area ...

Same lake with a little neck of land with more mountains from a different perspective...

More wee flowers for Lisa

I won't tell you that all the mountains and lakes end up looking the same, because they don't at all. But I am aware for readers, because my photos do not show the grandeur and beauty, that the lakes and mountains can and probably do blend into each other in my posts. Sorry about that!

So you can see everything that I saw ... As you see, the lake disappears up into the valleys and there appears to be a feed between the lakes.

Then it was back to Wanaka and the campsite for blobbing in the sunshine. Catching up with the laundry and several bouts of juicing, if I remember rightly. Sometimes it is important to stop moving and soak up the atmosphere and just enjoy being where we are.

We interrupt this broadcast of the South Island Odessey

to show you this:

This beast, a native NZ cockroach dammit, had got inside the house. It crawled/fell on to the chair I was sitting on in the sunroom yesterday, and then crawled up to the neckline of my jersey and down my neck, down my shoulder and on to my clavicle. I felt it and yelled loudly (shrieked, more like it). I stripped off my jersey and shook it out but didn't see the beast escape. Off into the bedroom I went to find a different top. I thought I had better check it had left my body, so I took off my bra - OH  F*CK!! There it was, on the side of my breast having settled in the bra. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

I shook it off hurriedly and noted that I had flung it down near the armchair. Out to the kitchen, barechested, to find the insect spray and I sprayed the living sh*t out of any insect in that corner of the bedroom.

Didn't see the beast though.

Tonight, as I was lowering the blinds, I noticed a shiny thing by the skirting board. I was extremely brave and picked it up with a tissue. Sure enough it was the beast - much bigger than it looked yesterday as I flung it away from me. At least 4cm, including feelers, with body length of at least 2cm - AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

It has now been unceremoniously flushed down the dunny. I hope that is a lesson to its extended family not to get familiar with me and my torso! Or my house ...

Duntroon and on to Wanaka

Before we left Oamaru, we had to buy a new bucket for David to use when he empties the grey water tank - instead of having me park near the dumpstation and using the hose, David prefers to empty the tank manually almost every day, using a bucket. Don't ask me why except that it means we don't have to move the motorhome when the tank has water in it when we are not heading away anywhere. However David had commandeered my collapsible silicone bucket for decanting the contents of the tank into the dumpstation. I had bought the bucket way back when we first bought the motorhome and it had been used often for putting small bits of laundry (mine, not his) in - I fill it with water, add soap powder and place it in the shower tray and then the laundry gets jiggled around as we travel along and is pretty clean by the time we reach our destination. All that's left to do is rinse, wring out and hang up. I always left the bucket in its extended position. However once waste-man got hold of it, it kept being extended/contracted/extended almost every day - did I tell you that waste-man likes to make sure the tank is always emptied? And did I tell you that he keeps the bucket in the garage and it needs to be contracted so it doesn't take up much room? So, the inevitable happens - the folds weaken through excessive use, and splits occur. Hence new bucket required, dammit... So a trip to Mitre 10 and then a grocery top up at New World before we headed away.

Not far out of Oamaru, on SH 83 were parts of the Vanished World that we had read about at Moeraki on the DOC interp there - so we had a stop at Duntroon both for lunch and for seeing just a bit of what was there. In the information centre was a raft of history, artefacts and models of what had been in and around the area - check out the link here: Vanished World It is clear to me from looking at that link, that David and I need to go back again and spend much more than a couple of hours in the area! I foresee at least a couple of full days exploring.

If you compare David's height and the height of the fully grown pines above with the caves in the rock cliff, even allowing for distance and perspective, you can see that the caves are quite substantial.

Because some people cannot help but vandalise or steal, the rock drawings are now separated from the public by sturdy metal caging. There is signage to explain what the drawings represented - apparently they represent people and taniwha, mythical water creatures.

The real thing - I can see people being pursued by taniwha, I think.

Wind and weather have done their work on the cliff.

It was a bit spooky walking underneath this ...

I am a bit paranoid about overhanging rocks etc, and just to prove that rockfalls do happen, here's one that nature prepared earlier ...

The fencing around the site has been built using Maori methods and materials. The pole at the right is a pou, a land post.

 

These distinctive rock formations show the dramatic effects of weather

There is more and better information here about the Maori rock drawings that we went to see: https://www.heritage.org.nz/the-list/details/5653 - I'm not so good on describing the historical aspects, so it's best I provide you with links instead.

The geographic nature of the countryside changes dramatically once the coast is left behind. The braided Waitaki River with wide river flats, a lake dammed to create the Aviemore Power Station, and ranges and mountains in the distance.

 

We stopped just off the side of the road to see the Aviemore Dam and the artefacts - this baby weighs 17 tonnes! It is a turbine runner and was first used to drive one of the generators at the Waitaki Power Station in 1941. It is made of cast steel and was manufactured in the UK. It has NOT come from this power station which was built in 1962.

Looking towards the dam with the Aviemore powerhouse building to the right

Read more about Aviemore here  Its turbines and output are ENORMOUS!!

At Omarama, we turned on to SH 8, and aimed for the Longslip Station camping area which is only open to NZMCA members. I had decided I had to overcome my fear of camping out in the wilds and Longslip Station was obviously the place to do it. On arrival we had to go through the gate that has a coded padlock and it then had to be locked behind us. As I drive, David has to do any gate duty - it seems only fair ...

Here he is opening the gate for me to drive through.

And here he is closing the gate after I have gone through it.

 

I took the second photo of the view from the rear view camera. What is wrong with what is happening - remembering I have already driven through the gate??? Sometimes I do wonder what goes on in his mind ... I am pleased that the photo is as clear as it is because I was laughing very loudly! So loudly that I didn't watch him climb over the fence.

Fast forward to the next morning - remember I said I had decided to overcome my fear of freedom camping in the wilds and this was the place to do it because the gate was locked? Well, no it wasn't: David discovered as we left the site that he hadn't closed the hasp. So not only needn't he have climbed over the fence, but I shouldn't have felt so secure ...

It was such a beautiful place to be - the wind came up, and as we had parked facing the mountain range in front of us, we were able to watch the clouds and the rain roll in early in the evening and felt very snug and warm. 

There we are in splendid isolation with mountain ranges in front of us, the river off to our right, and hills on either side

We were a little early for the lupins to be in full bloom, but they were on their way. The clouds were approaching by the minute and the wind was rising.

The white rocks are the demarcation of the campsite - you can see there is plenty of room. The owners have placed a limit of 10 vehicles at a time - even if that limit was reached the sense of privacy and space would not be breached.

 

And we felt smug about being as snug as a bug in a rug with the quite wild weather outside - until about 4am when the alarm went off indicating that the leisure battery was low. Not a good idea apparently to leave phones and laptops charging overnight using the little inverter when there's no solar power being generated (darkness ...) and we weren't hooked up to the national grid. That meant we could not turn on the gas heating because it needs battery power to fire it up, dammit. Fortunately the electric striker on the stovetop was able to work otherwise the technical manager may have been in very deep trouble if no tea could be brewed in the morning! Matches were a rapid addition to the shopping list and a new rule instituted that no charging or use of the little inverter when not on power. We think though that we may need a new battery, an additional battery as well as an additional solar panel.

The weather had cleared overnight and it got quite a lot colder, and in the morning we woke to a fabulous cloudless blue sky. 

A chilly morning at Longslip Station in early March!

But look at that sky and that mountain that was covered with cloud the night before!

 

A wider view up the valley with the sun and shade on the contours of the hills

Recycle and reuse: the old fridge used as a book exchange and a visitor registration office. Complete with instructions on how to pay online as some miserable thieves had previously cleaned out the cash box - bastards.

 The sunny weather that day was perfect for our drive up to and over the Lindis Pass. What an amazing piece of road in stunning scenery. I am always struck by the forethought that goes into the planning and engineering - not only is the road wide and in excellent condition, there are rest areas for people to pull over into to be able to get out, walk to a viewing area and see the countryside in safety. And there's also quite a number of places wide enough for motorhomers to pull over and let faster traffic pass - always a kindness, I think.

The road ahead of us

And the road behind.

These flowers made me think of Lisa from nb What a Life because she posts pictures of what she calls pretties. And I was very impressed with this high country bee toiling away!

Now in to tussock country

Once through the Lindis Pass, travelling to Wanaka does require careful map reading or assiduous following of the signs - the whole area is mountainous so the roads follow the valleys. And while you might think that places on the map look quite close by as those pesky crows fly, they actually require quite long journeys. Next time, we will spend more time exploring those other byways and highways because it is such a beautiful area to be.

The blue marks our route, the white are the mountains and the green shows the high country - it's pretty much all mountain ranges! No wonder the place is such a magnet for tourists!

We do like Wanaka - it is touristy but not over the top like Queenstown. Of course, no tourists were present while we were travelling around this time. While I recognise that is a bummer for tourism operators, it is a boon for NZers who can often feel overwhelmed because we are not really comfortable with large numbers of people around us, to be honest.

We stayed at the Mt Aspiring Holiday Park on the outskirts of Wanaka (on the way to Glendhu). It was just wonderful. This is the view from our site.

And the view when we stepped a few paces to the left. Look at those amazing ranges and how the light falls on them!

Bliss!