If the only prayer you say in your life is ‘thank you,’ that should suffice.

Gratitude shifts your focus from what your life lacks, to the abundance that is already present, someone reminded me of this today. The same person also impressed on me that I should refocus and start thinking about what I want in life. I think we get caught up with so much emotional noise and clutter in this rat race, that we forget what is important to us. Our family, children and ourselves. In my case and particularly with the cancer, I really do need to direct most of my energy to self healing. I need to surround myself with support people who are inherently positive and view life through a different set of googles. Mr Magoo had cool glasses. Non functional but cool, hey that’s what being young in 2012 is about, right? This could be the door to a new direction for me. No yellow ribbons tied around the old oak tree, or the gold path to the Wizard of Oz … no sirree, this the 1st step at the base of Mt Everest, and I’ll be making hot chocolate with marshmallow along the way.

Well, that bit of arse kissing didn’t work yesterday. I still got hit with a bill of almost $500 to configure a modem router to the Internet. I was reminded that if I don’t use one of the more run of the mill popular brands then it’s a bit of a challenge to work through the menu options to get the ports opened for email (internal and remote) working. I was mesmerized by my new TP-LINK modem’s claim that I was not buying any ordinary modem, but a very fast F1 racing car, and I was impressed! The earlier Netgear and Link Sys Models that i had been carrying fall well short with what I have now. Personally, I’m not a big fan of the big brand name equipment because upgrades and improvements occur so quickly you should budget to replace an entire system within 3 or 4 years (small business). Believe me I’ve seen my fair share of supposed reliable items packing up prematurely. The worst example was 4 server grade hard drives in a RAID system, over a space of 6 months, and then I had to buy a replacement server because the old server just crashed too often.

No, literally … my mind is blank. Usually I would find something to grumble about or make some comment on, but today I just don’t want to think at all. It’s a conscience effort so that I only have to react to stimuli that prompts me to action. I was hoping I could sit still and everything simply revolved around me, and I just a silent observer. The plan didn’t work this way at all. I came into work and nothing is more distressing for a internet telecommunication business than to have it’s internet and communications out of action. The internets back up, but the emails are only sending, not receiving. I have my trusty Chilean IT friend helping me out on this one. Well, not before he reminded me that his rates somewhat doubled for DIY’ers. He was right, I solved one problem but inadvertantly created another. Here’s a plug for his business hoping that the words “mates rates” ring in his ears while he’s writing out the invoice a little later this evening. Metronix Computer Support – Call me for great computer support, hardware and software, and I’ll give my mate David free IT services!

If I were a car, even I wouldn’t buy me.

There just seems to be too many missing or broken parts, lets see, no appendix, no gall bladder, broken shoulder, no prostate, barely remembers things, and the blood is tainted with cancer. Did you say, you’ll pay me to remove this body off the block? I came home last Wednesday (ANZAC day), spent a couple of hours at work, and a couple more on Thursday and Friday. Next thing I know, those who love me gave me a good old fashioned ear bashing. Nothing like being pushed further below the water line when you’re trying to get on top of things. I counted 5 (female) nurses who adored my pyjama pants when I was at hospital, I’m now contemplating wearing them out to the shops. For some reason they recognised some dude whose name appeared on my jammy’s called Peter Alexander, just hope he’s not some gay icon. Everyone knows I’m not gay, right? Nothing against gay people, but I can do without the unwanted attention particularly as I’m a bit of a pretty boy and muscular! Here’s a pic of me suffering in front of the television screen. I’m of higher and better spirits in the last couple of days because I’ve self diagnosed a double dose of sleeping tabs. I’m sleeping almost as soon as I hit the pillow and then struggle to get out of bed by 8:30am. Problem however is that I’m still drowsy during the remainder of the day. If there are any credible persons reading this with a Medical background can you leave a comment below please. I’ve changed to 2 x 5mg Diazepam? If this dosage is not causing the tiredness then I may need to worry once again. Crap!

I could hardly take credit to finally waking up and discovering I survived the operation, as I’d been woken up about a hundred times during the course of the day. If it’s not the physio who wants me to give 3 almighty huffs followed by a cough, 2 laps down the hallway (it dawned on me why my mum called me turtle) … and then 3 deep breathes every hour … or the nurse who needed to refuel the drip … or the food delivery service guy … or the pair of nurses where one reads my wristlet band while the other hands me a dose of pills … I could possibly give sleeping a go. My son Ben, bless his heart texted me from downstairs to let me know that he had purchased a Cappuccino. Great, the very last thing I want right at this moment. So I chugged it down with appreciation. Thank you son. Later tonight the surgeon came in to evaluate my condition and suggested I could be home tomorrow. I just knew the extra lap would pay off, no pain no gain, yup that’s me. He also left me with a couple of Polaroid shots of my chest cavity, explaining in detail the story behind each picture. I accepted his version that the foaming gue was infection, but did he have to burst it while it was still inside me with his soldering iron. I was seriously wondering if that was an ‘oopsy’ moment. The white sausage like piece of meat is the Gall Bladder and apparently the shape and size of this one suggests it’s filled with explosive devices, so the surgeon is careful positioning it for the right camera shot. Immediately below it and surprisingly, that’s my liver, the surgeon said that it looks very healthy. I feel sad that the months of alcohol abstinance must have turned it into a monastery. Cheer up old fellow, I’ll have a glass of wine after this. I wanted to upload another groovy pic of the gall bladder oozing all of it’s bubbly goodness, but the family jeered and boo’ed at this proposal so I was left to battle my conscience. Do I upload it for the shock value or for educational purposes? I’ll sneak it onto the blog at a later time [insert evil laugh here].