Back from The Foundation

I am home again. Back from, not of course The Foundation of the epic Foundation Series of novels by Isaac Asimov, but The Gawler Foundation in the Yarra Valley, Victoria where I have just completed the 10-day residential program for people affected by cancer.

Much restored and invigorated – I hope to post a slightly more detailed account within the next few days.

Keating!

Last night we had the pleasure of seeing Keating! (the musical we had to have). The season has sold out so we settled for standing room and were lucky enough to be upgraded by the vigilant house staff to some very prime centre front seats for the second half of the show.

As much as the show lampoons Keating himself, the character does seem to hold at least some sense of noble purpose in his pursuit of the prime ministership of the country. Other characters in the show such as Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot are much more completely clown like. Alexander Downer, played by Eddie Perfect, is a complete scream as he struts his stuff in hot pants and explains how he is “too freaky” to lead the opposition.

The characterisation of John Winston Howard is quite chilling and only his character suggests a sense of outright evil in the story. He sings of his lust for power and costumes himself in the various guises of sports lover, soldier and bush farmer in his plan to win popular appeal.

In the context of today’s federal political scene, the show is quite nostalgic for what seem now to have been a brief moment of noble purpose, colour and fun. However flawed Keating and his times may have been, those years now seem as a lost utopian dream.

CT scan shows no change

The full text of today’s CT scan report appears below. It is essentially characterised by the doctors as being no change since the last scan. The plan is to have an x-ray in 2 months and then re-evaluate. A neutral result like this definately falls on the good news side of the equation.

CT SCAN CHEST

A multislice scan of the chest and upper abdomen has been obtained following intravenous contrast. The history of non-small cell lung cancer on the right is noted.

The previously demonstrated right upper lobe neoplasm medially is again seen and is essentially unchanged since 24/4/07. It measures 27 x 22 x 32 mm.

Once again there is evidence of centrilobular emphysema in both upper lobes with some left apical fibrosis as well.

Non-enlarged hilar mediastinal nodes are seen.

There is no other lung lesion seen. There are no pleural or pericardial effusions.

The previously demonstrated metastasis in the head and neck of the right 12th rib is a little more scierotic than previosuly but is otherwise unaltered. Below the diaphragm several liver cysts are again seen and are unchanged. No adrenal lesion is seen. There is a 2.6 cm hypodense lesion in the mid to lower pole of the right kidney which is also essentially unchanged. Where this represents a complex cystic lesion or solid lesion is uncertain but it is stable. Several further renal cysts are also evident. There is no other lesion.

CONCLUSION:

The previously demonstrated neoplasm in the right uppper lobe is unchanged since 24/4/07. There is no new lesion and there has been no overall change since the last examintation

Melbourne slide show

I’ve assembled a little collection of snaps from my visit to Melbourne in a slide show (see below). It provides a simple souvenir of the trip and also provided an interesting exercise in multimedia production. It took an extraordinary number of hours to put the thing together which was all done with open source software.

We spent five nights in Melbourne spending much time visiting various commercial and public art galleries. Notable was the Australian Impressionism exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Federation Square. Also at Federation Square we attended an evening of animation as part of the Melbourne International Animation Festival. We squeezed in another trip to the cinema to see The U.S. vs John Lennon.

Of course, various meal excursions at the budget end of the scale were also enjoyed. In particular, a tasty and hearty meal at Lentil as Anything at St. Kilda. A small shabby restaurant where the menu does not include prices and patrons assess the worth of their meal and pay accordingly. The tucker was good. We had three dishes: a curry, an asian style salad and a Japanese pancake plus two drinks and paid $45. A little weak Melbourne sun mitigated against the cold sea breeze. Also enjoyable was a lunch at a restaurant at the National Gallery with views of a sculpture garden. Here at least we could afford the soup and a salad while enjoying the genteel service and atmosphere.

Generally the weather in Melbourne was cold and grey but not too wet. I am not sure that I have ever visited in mid-winter before but I enjoyed visiting this city as much as ever. Other parts of the trip remain undocumented here but all up I had a great time although this tempered by my somewhat sombre underlying mood.

The slide show music is from cdk at ccMixter.org.