CABG surgery minus one day

This afternoon at 2 p.m. I’m being admitted to hospital. Currently my world’s small. Focused in on myself. Which isn’t something I relish. But I suppose in the circumstances it’s inevitable. Beyond my solipsism, today’s Mother’s Day in Australia. So I’m especially thinking of my own mum, and the nearest and dearest mums to me. Not least Sweetheart Vivienne – who’s one of the best. Today’s also the first post Bin Laden Sunday. I can’t help but think our little planet’s a tad better off for that fact. Otherwise all else continues: football matches, political intrigue, celebrity worship, global warming, and more. Including the federal budget next Tuesday evening. But for me, it’s hospital. Speaking of which, I know that while hospitals are necessary institutions, it’s best to be a patient in one for as short a time as possible. Which is my aim in the days ahead. I don’t know when my next Farmdoc’s Blog post will go up. Hopefully soon. Stay tuned, folks.

Celebrating; and bearing witness

My late Aunt Clara, a sister of my maternal grandmother, was born in 1900. So her age went ‘with the years’. Darling Indigo was born in 2000. So her age goes with the years too. My darling sister Sue (pictured) comes half-way between Clara and Indi. Sue was born in 1950. On 22 December [1, 2]. So today’s her birthday. Her 60th birthday. And it was my privilege, honour and pleasure to help her celebrate. At two parties. One for family (52 of us) last Sunday evening. And the other (‘zumba followed by lunch’) yesterday for her friends (and closest family). (To my relief, Sweetheart Vivienne and I arrived after the zumba had ended.). Sue – one of the most organised people I know – themed her 60th birthday festivities: Life & Love, Family & Friends. The two parties personified this theme: both were expressions of Life and Love – on Sunday to/from her Family, and yesterday to/from her Friends. On both occasions the love, admiration, respect, delight and gratitude – and noise – were almost palpable. What a joy to behold. Of course I participated in the celebrations. But I saw myself in another role too: bearing witness, on behalf of our late parents. How proud they would’ve been of their darling daughter – whose important and valued role in the lives of so many people signifies what a fine person she is. And what a fine role model. I don’t know if our mum and dad were in some way present at Sue’s birthday celebrations, observing these things. If not, I was there. As their proxy. Sue’s the only sister I’ve ever had. And the only one I’ll ever have. As fate’s determined, she’s the best sister. The very best. For that I feel blessed. Thank you, darling sister Sue. Happy birthday to you.

Jessie Myers: my Nanna

In today’s post I’m winging it. I’ve no option. For, I’m ashamed to say, I know little of my subject. Much too little. Today I write of my maternal grandmother Jessie Myers (pictured) who was born Jessie Woolf on 19 April 1892, i.e. 118 years ago yesterday. I don’t know exactly where she was born, but it was in Victoria and probably Melbourne. I don’t know her parents’ names. She lived in Melbourne all her life. Her siblings were Connie, Jack and Bernie. I don’t know what year she married Samuel Joseph Myers (1888-1960). They had two daughters: my godmother Sadie Leah Myers (1918-99) and my mother Josie Patricia Myers (1922-95). My mother, and my father after they married in 1943, lived at 255 Beaconsfield Parade, Middle Park with my grandfather (Bampy) and my grandmother (Nanna) for many years. My darling sister Sue and I were born into, and grew up in, that extended household. Nanna was a large woman. But my main memory of her’s of illness. She’d had left breast cancer, and the resultant surgery and radiation produced left arm lymphedema (‘My big arm’, she called it.) She also had very unstable Type 1 diabetes, which despite insulin injections, seemed to me out of control most of the time. So she was frequently bedridden. I sat by her bedside a lot. After Bampy died, or maybe just before, Nanna began to have diabetic vascular complications. She was transferred to a nursing home in Brighton where she lived out her years. (After she left, my parents sold 255 and with Sue and me we moved to a Toorak apartment where we lived as a nuclear family.) I was in my early teens, so I had little medical knowledge then. But I think infections in Nanna’s foot developed into gangrene, and she underwent progressive amputations of toes, then foot, then leg. She also had had a stroke along the way, paralysing her (big) left arm and her left leg. I don’t know her year of death. It was in the mid 1960s – definitely after I’d begun to study Medicine in 1964, and before 1969 when my Dad died. Also I don’t know her cause of death. I reiterate I feel ashamed I know so little of an ancestor only two generations ahead of me. I hope to find out more over the next few years. Why am I ashamed? Because if it wasn’t for my Nanna, I wouldn’t be writing these words today. I owe you everything, Nan.

farmdoc's blog post number 620

The last day of each year’s never a happy day for me. Because on this date, my darling Mum died. Fourteen years later, I still miss her dreadfully. To my shame, I didn’t mention her in last year’s 31 December blog post. I resolved not to do that again. So far, so good. Also each 31 December I’m conscious, increasingly so each year, that my own end nears. I don’t know how many years I have left. But I’m always glad to make it to the end of another one. The big year-end topic that’s fascinated me this year, is whether or not tonight’s moon is a blue moon. Wikipedia mentions several definitions of a blue moon. Colour has nothing to do with any of them. One definition is two full moons in the same calendar month. The previous full moon was on 2 December. The question is whether there’s another one tonight. Last Monday’s Age said yes. But Tuesday’s SMH said no. The SMH is correct: Geoscience Australia’s website tells us the full moon’s on 31 December at 7:13 p.m. UTC (i.e. Greenwich Mean Time) which equates to 6:13 a.m. on 1 January eastern Australia daylight saving time. Anyway that’s for the purists. I can tell you two things: first, when you look at the New Year’s Eve sky tonight you’ll see a full moon; and second, only once in a blue moon is someone lucky enough to have a Mum as wonderful as mine.

farmdoc's blog post number 256

Today’s blog post is a day late. I’m ashamed, and sorry, to admit I’d forgotten that yesterday marked 13 years since Josie Patricia Ulman, my darling mother, died. Fortunately my sister Sue’s phone call to wish me long life, brought me to my senses. Mum was born in 1922, in her aunt and uncle’s house in Middle Park in Melbourne. Her parents were Sam and Jessie Myers. Her older sister was Sadie Leah. She attended Middle Park School, as I did, then MacRobertson Girls High School. Her only paid work, that I know of anyway, was as a comptometrist for Myer Melbourne. In her mid teens she accompanied her parents and sister on a ‘grand tour’ of Europe where they witnessed, and she diarised, the darkening thunderheads of fascism. She and my father were married in 1943. She was 24-years-old when I was born. She was ambidextrous. She had a favourite party trick of holding two pens side-by-side, one in each hand, and then writing left-to-right with her right hand, and mirror image right-to-left with her left hand. She was very musical. She played the piano. She adored opera. Also Broadway musicals. She was quite a good golfer. Naturally she barracked for South Melbourne and then the Sydney Swans. But she loved all sports. She could hold her own in any discussion about any sport. She loved telling how as kids she and a neighbourhood lad named Ian Johnson played backyard cricket; and he went on to captain Australia. She was devoted to her parents. Both had chronic illnesses – my grandfather (‘Bampy’) colon cancer and my grandmother (‘Nanna’) unstable diabetes. Mum cared for them during the years when Sue and I were growing up and we were living in Middle Park in a 3-generation household. By the mid 1960s my grandparents had died, and we were a 2-generation household. Then in 1969, suddenly, my father died. Mum was then nearly 47-years-old. Subsequently she had some men friends, but no serious relationships. For her last 26 years she lived alone, and she was desperately lonely. She blossomed into a lawn bowls champion. She won many competitions, she represented Australia in the Maccabiah Games in Israel, and she represented Victoria in open national competition. She was an enthusiastic voluntary worker for several organisations, mainly Jewish ones, and especially Temple Beth Israel Women’s Guild and the Montefiore Homes for the Aged. Also she was a frequent visitor to many people whom she termed ‘the sick, sad and lonely’. She adored her seven grandchildren. And they her. In her heyday she was renowned for her cooking. Her food, though not fancy, was always delicious and plentiful. In her grandchildren’s eyes she was a legend for her jelly with fruit pieces in it. And they gobbled her frozen grapes. She developed vascular disease, and her later years were punctuated by operations on her coronary and carotid arteries. I think that under the anaesthetic for her last carotid artery operation, she had an hypoxic episode which affected her brain function – especially her balance, but also her handwriting of which she had been so proud. Despite this, she continued to attend the opera with Sweetheart Vivienne and me. She’d bring her little red book and read us the plot synopsis of the opera we were seeing. And she’d bring more than enough lollies and other treats. They were joyous occasions for us all. On Saturday 30 December 1995 she and Sadie and others went to the Elsternwick Hotel for an early dinner. She was walking up a ramp into the hotel when she fell, perhaps due to diminished balance, and struck her head, causing bleeding into the brain. She was taken unconscious to Alfred Hospital where tests showed brain damage too massive for surgical treatment. She remained in a coma, and she died the next day – 13 years ago yesterday. At the time I was devastated her death had been so precipitate. But as the years have passed, I’ve come to believe it was a blessing. She was a proud woman who wouldn’t have tolerated the loss of independence and dignity that would undoubtedly have been her lot had she not died suddenly when she did. She lived independently and with dignity until the second-last day of her life. And that’s how I remember her. But I’m ashamed, and sorry, that I’d forgotten yesterday. I won’t forget again.