My baptism testimony.

On what was probably the coldest day so far this year, I gave my testimony and was baptised at Grange beach earlier today. Many thanks to everyone who came, and all my family and friends who have supported and prayed for me over the years.

If you missed it, here is the transcript of my speech, complete with excessive punctuation and incorrect grammar, used in an effort to slow down my talking, and make it flow better for reading aloud.

Hi everyone, my name is Rohan, and today I would like to share with you some of what God has done in my life, and why I’ve chosen to be baptised. Along with several of our awesome youth kids; Jacinta, Tim & Kirstie, we have made the decision of taking a public step of commitment and faith in God by being baptised today; although they’re doing it a tad earlier than I am.

I’ve been coming to Grange since before I was born, brought up in strong, loving Christian family home with my parents, and two brothers. While I’d thought of myself as being a Christian since I was 6 or 7 years old, I didn’t fully understand who God was, or what being a Christian really meant.

This changed to a more serious faith at a Franklin Graham outreach event I attended when I was 13 years old. There wasn’t anything earth-shattering being said compared to what I’d heard for years at church, but God really spoke to me at that point, and I felt a strong push to go up the front, and declare my faith in Jesus as my saviour.

After struggling a with bullying and social exclusion in primary school, knowing that Jesus would always love and accept me, even if most people didn’t, was a great reassurance.  Now, I’d like to be able to say that my life since then has been amazing, happy and easy. However, after a couple of years of a regular life as a teenage boy, eating ten Weet-bix for breakfast, without much to challenge my faith in God’s goodness, I stumbled onto a rocky, difficult path of chronic illness, that has tested my faith to the breaking point time and time again, over the course of many years.

As some of you may be aware, I’ve struggled with some very debilitating and serious health problems for a long time. It all started in January 2000, with a chronic food poisoning infection in my digestive system which has prevented me from living a full life, being able study and work like everyone else my age. To give a very brief outline, this infection has caused the muscles in my stomach to become paralysed, and completely unable to digest any food or water.

 So as of today, I’ve been unable to eat even a mouthful of food or drink for the past 1,221 days, or 3 years and 4 months if you don’t have a calculator on you. Instead, I receive liquid nutrition for 13 hours a day, pumped by a machine through a feeding tube, which was surgically inserted into my intestinal tract, just below the stomach in November 2010, and is essentially what keeps me alive.

 At times, these symptoms have been so severe as to render me hospitalised, then bedridden, and completely unable to function for nearly a year at a time; namely during 2002, 2006 and 2010. Overall, there hasn’t been a single day since I was 15 years old where I’ve felt well and healthy, which has caused enormous struggles with my faith, healing, the effectiveness of prayer, and the concept of God’s kindness and mercy.

 How can suffering through so many years of debilitating illness be his great plan for my life? What kind of God just sits back and watches people suffering, when he could so easily heal them? It’s hard singing praise songs in church, when you’re feeling too sick to stand up and take part, and difficult to align God’s goodness, with being simply too ill to even go to church in the first place, month after month.

Perhaps one of the reasons I haven’t chosen to be baptized until now, is that while I’ve been a Christian for a long time, for much of the past 14 years, when I have prayed, cried out and begged God to heal my body, my prayers seemed to go unanswered, with no response, or even a feeling of God’s presence; just the torturous physical suffering, while feeling terribly alone and abandoned. 

And while baptism is a declaration of commitment, not warm fuzzy feelings, I feel that 5 years ago, I would have had to come up with a testimony that would be forced, and just something that I thought was what a testimony “should” sound like. But as I’ll explain, I think that now is the right time for me.

So clearly, I’ve had a very tough journey for the second half of my life. However, in the midst of all that suffering, there have been numerous examples of God stepping in as an answer to prayer, showing his love and care, and reassuring me that I’m not battling through this alone.

On March 16^th, 2012, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer; six weeks before I married my lovely wife Sally, and the day between her birthday and bridal shower; incredibly poor timing at best. Later that afternoon, we were also told that the house Sally had been renting, which we planned to move into following the wedding, had to be vacated a few weeks afterward. Obviously, the cancer diagnosis was some shocking news, and for a couple of days afterward, I was freaked out, tense, shaky and upset about what was going to happen to me. But after visiting a friend’s house with Sally, at first discussing, and then praying about the cancer and upcoming surgery with them and Sally, the feelings of terror and dread melted away.

This might sound a bit weird, but despite having already gone through so much with my stomach problems- only to have this dumped on top of it- the times surrounding my cancer diagnosis, surgery and recovery were accompanied by the strongest sense of God’s presence and comfort I’d ever felt in my life. This feeling was amazing, as well as surprising, considering how much I felt God had abandoned me in my times of need with my stomach problems, and that it would still be a while before we knew whether the cancer had spread, or if I would need further treatment.

For the first time, I finally experienced the emotions and calmness described in Philippians Chapter 4, Verse 7; “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Now, it’s not like my heart rate wasn’t a little elevated while lying in the hospital bed, waiting to go into surgery, particularly considering they were hacking through a fairly sensitive area to remove the tumour. But by praying, denouncing Satan and any power he tried to hold over me, and running praise songs through my head, I was at peace with what was about to happen to me, feeling safe in the knowledge that God had his hand over me, and that everything would be ok.

Not only was the strong sense of ‘peace beyond all understanding’ present, but God’s practical and material blessings were also abundant during this time. While trying to sort out living arrangements, it came up in conversation with my parents that a house owned by extended family had been empty for several years, and made the suggestion that couldn’t we live there for a year or so, until the property was sold?

In a humbling display of generosity from family, friends and strangers, hordes of people descended on the messy and overgrown house and jungle-like yards, putting in lots of hard work to transform it into a suitable home, where we could live rent-free for some time. This was an amazing blessing, with my health too poor to work much at all, allowing Sally to study full-time at TAFE and Bible College, as well as work 25 hours a week.

And just in case we hadn’t noticed this blatant display of God’s provision, he made sure of it with the house literally being a 30 second walk away from Sally’s work across the road. In addition, an internet car enthusiast community, which I’ve been a part of for many years, banded together after hearing about my health problems. A group of people, many of whom I've never met in person, threw $6000 in a hat as a wedding gift for us , and helped to clean up the house inside and out; the abundance of God’s blessings was even clearer. The only thing missing was God plonking a flashing neon sign on the front lawn, quoting the first part of Isaiah 41:10; ‘Fear not, for I am with you’.

On our wedding day in April 2012, we had to contend with a fairly significant number of problems compared to most newlyweds our age.  Such as me having a feeding tube plugged into the left side of my intestinal tract. A bag of antibiotics, liquid feed bottles, and enough medications to tranquilize a small herd of elephants. Recent surgery to remove a cancerous tumour, with a gaping wound that needed frequent dressing changes, and uncertainty about our ability to have kids following that. Unable to eat or drink, lugging around a feed machine instead.  Very little income besides a disability pension and occasional photography work. 

But God had blessed me with an incredibly generous, loving and understanding wife in Sally who was OK with all that! Well, apart from the wound dressing changes anyway, which I did myself. Apparently, it’s not considered ‘romantic’ to spend half an hour with a dressing kit, cleaning out a gory wound on your husband’s torso, while lying on your bed in the honeymoon suite.

Life has still continued to be very difficult since then, with almost permanent nausea and fatigue at various levels, and some days where the stress, frustration and anger at my dysfunctional body boils over, and I break down in tears. But again, when I settle down and think about it, God has quietly provided moments of mercy when needed in recent times, of which I’d like to give just one example.

While spending 2 months in hospital at the end of 2010, a skeletal 50kg and clinging on to life, the idea of going on an overseas holiday, or even a plane to another city, was far beyond something I would have comprehended as being possible, being barely able to muster the energy to sit up in bed. But, a couple of years later, not only was I able to spend three amazing weeks touring New Zealand, but was at the point where I even went skydiving and bungy jumping!

Another more recent example of God’s timely intervention was during a weekend trip on Peter and Vikki Hart’s houseboat a couple of months ago, with our small group. After mistakenly trying to get to Blanchetown via Murray Bridge, which while being a lovely drive, is NOT the fastest way to get there, I had already been feeling pretty awful the few days previous, with severe nausea and fatigue putting a dampener on things, that I would otherwise enjoy doing.

The first half an hour was rather unpleasant; my already high nausea levels exacerbated by the gentle rocking motion of the boat, as we putted down the river. While everyone else was sitting around on the front deck, chatting and laughing while tucking into a plate of cheese and crackers, I was pacing inside the kitchen area, trying to breathe slowly and settle the nausea, without much success; calculating and dreading the remaining hours of the weekend that I would have to spend feeling like this.

 Noticing my distress, Sally brought Vikki over to pray for me. In a frustrated and angry mood, I was not expecting anything to happen, like so many other times when people have prayed for healing for me. But over the next few minutes, after the heartfelt request to God for healing, the nausea gradually dissipated until it was at a low enough level where I could actually enjoy the weekend, rather than being forced to endure it. Not only that, but I was able to jump on a jet-ski, and went knee-boarding behind a speedboat, albeit in a somewhat uncoordinated fashion for the most part.

So while my body is still stricken with illness, preventing me from living a ‘normal’ life, which can at times be frustrating, scary, upsetting and depressing, God has still blessed me many times in the midst of all my times of trouble. These blessings are not full physical healings, and certainly not a complete return to good health. But, these ‘small mercies’ have allowed me to experience hope, joy, love, peace, and fulfilment in what can be very trying circumstances; keeping my hope, and faith in God, and helping me to appreciate what I do have. So whatever the future may hold, with this public declaration of faith and commitment, I trust that God will guide my amazing wife Sally and I in making the most of our lives, working for his glory.

You will more than likely have experienced some incredibly difficult circumstances in your own lives, be it through illness, family difficulties, death, or loss. But I would like to leave you with this thought. If you sit down and really think about it- and maybe even write out a list of them- what are some of the many blessings God has shown you in your life, or in the lives of others? Does it change the way you feel about His mercy and grace?

It doesn’t mean your life will be easy; or that God will fix all your problems for good. Two weeks ago, I had to leave the church service after about 20 minutes, because simply standing, then even just sitting up, was more than I could physically tolerate. I almost fainted while trying to drive home, swapping seats with Sally halfway there, before spending several hours curled up in the foetal position on our couch. Writing this testimony made me feel so sick; I couldn’t even look at my first draft for a week.

 But, God is always there, carrying you through your troubles, even if it doesn’t feel like it at times. And if you haven’t made a commitment to follow Jesus, I hope that my story has helped give you some understanding of what he is capable of doing in your life, no matter how trying the circumstances, if you will just open your hearts and minds to him. And, for those of you still awake at this point, thanks for listening, and I’ll see you down at the beach!

Rohan Phillips Photography website

Hello and welcome to everyone visiting from the Chase Jarvis blog! It's still under construction, but you can check out more of my work on my official portfolio site here: http://rohanphillips.ccutter.com/home

To read more about my shooting and editing process with the Australian Truck Driver series, have a look at this blog post: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/editing-process-australian-truck.html

For a brief run-down of my cancer diagnosis, check out the post here:
http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/so-six-weeks-before-i-get-married.html

I've detailed some of my experiences with gastroparesis here:
http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/my-story-hospital-2010-1.html
http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/my-jejunostomy-tube-swap-1-back-story.html

If you're interested in buying or licencing any of the images you see, or have any questions you would like to ask, feel free to contact me at email@rohanphillips.com, I would love to hear from you.

Hope you have a great day, and thanks for dropping by!

Cheers Rohan

                                         

Battle scars.

My torso is looking rather mutilated after the surgery.

Lots of fluid started seeping out for the first time last night, which was a little unsettling. The wound was ok overnight with some gauze dressing just in case, but mid-morning after replacing the tape and gauze with tissues, they looked like this after 5-10 mins,

So six weeks before I get married, a doctor tells me I have cancer...

* I wrote the bulk of this post yesterday afternoon, Monday 19/3/12. As it stands now, I'll be going in to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital tomorrow morning at 7am, for surgery to remove a tumor which is 98% likely to be a malignant cancerous growth.

Just when I thought things were relatively stable with my health, despite today being Day #528 since I've been able to eat, this bombshell was dropped on me last week.

I'd noticed my right testicle was a bit swollen and hard over the past couple of weeks, so went to see a GP about it last Wednesday. After poking around he said he was quite concerned about it, and ordered an ultrasound the next day, which just happened to be my amazing fiance Sally's 23rd birthday.

The radiologist looked quite concerned during the scan, mentioning that with the last few younger guys with similar symptoms she'd had come in, the lump turned out to be something nasty. From the expression on her face I could tell what she was thinking...I've noticed even doctors seem very hesitant to use the 'C' word.

Went straight back up to the GP after the ultrasound with results and report, where he used terms like 'prepare for the worst', 'cancer' and 'sorry', before calling a urologist to organise a specialist appointment ASAP. All this was not part of the birthday surprise I'd planned.

So on Friday afternoon I went in to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital with my dad and Sally to see a couple of urologists.

After a look at the ultrasound images, the report and a brief physical examination, they sat me down and said there's a 98% chance that the lump is a malignant tumour...testicular cancer, to be precise.

For a little bit of context, Sally lost her mum to brain and lung cancer when she was only 15 years old, so hearing doctors telling her that I now have cancer was obviously enormously distressing. I'm not sure all this has sunk in for me yet...it's a lot to take in. I've been waking up hoping the events of the past few days were just a bad dream...it's a bit surreal.

Either way, they said it needs to be surgically removed as soon as possible, biopsied to see what they're dealing with, and then work out if I need any more treatments like chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Hopefully I've caught it early enough that it hasn't spread anywhere else, and surgery is all I need. Since I'm already too sick to eat and drink, anything more than surgery would probably finish me off, so hoping and praying the operation gets it all in one hit.

After briefing me on what would happen moving towards surgery, they sent me down to the IMVS to get some blood taken to test for cancer/tumour markers.



   I was impressed with the blood collection guy, as he actually tapped one of my veins successfully on his first attempt, something few people have been able to achieve over the years.

 Besides the unfortunate timing of the diagnosis in relation to our wedding, as mentioned above, Thursday was Sally's 23rd birthday, and she had her bridal shower on Saturday...so this news fell neatly in between those two events. And in another unhelpful twist, that night we discovered that the house that we had been planning to live in, which one of my friends had been renting for nearly 5 years, is going to be put on the market as the owner wants to sell. It was pretty much perfect for us with the size, location and cost...but now it needs to be vacated by June 1st. The wedding is April 28th.

I've been getting a disability pension for a couple of years now, but this will get cut in at least half once I get married, despite living costs going from minimal to a lot. With the ability to be well enough to work constantly up in the air, I'm getting pretty concerned about the financial side of things. So that's quite a few curve balls to be thrown in such a short time, things were already going to be tough with my gastroparesis and related issues, and getting this news weeks out from my wedding seems a bit rough. Here's a recent post I wrote about the events leading up to my surgery to install a jejunostomy feeding tube in November 2010: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/my-jejunostomy-tube-swap-1-back-story.html

On the upside, I hear it's one of the most treatable cancers, and it's relatively common for surgery to be the only treatment needed for testicular cancer, so I have much better odds of coming through this ok, as opposed to something like bowel cancer. I got a call from one of the specialists about an hour ago telling me to come in at 1:50 this afternoon for a pre-op appointment with doctors, surgeons, anesthetist, pharmacist etc.

The surgery will be Wednesday morning, where they will make an incision near my hip and pull the tumour up and out through there...which for whatever reason strikes me as preferable compared to slicing me open from the bottom. I will stay in hospital at least overnight, and if the pain has settled down enough I can go home Thursday, and wait for results on the biopsy, blood and urine tests.

*Back to present tense*

I'll be having a CAT scan after the surgery tomorrow to determine if the cancer has spread, and if so, how far and where it has gone. The tumour itself will be sent to a lab and subjected to a range of tests, to work out what type of cancer it is, how aggressive the growth is, and if I need any further treatment in the way of radiotherapy or chemotherapy.

But the results from the biopsy will take another week or two, as if the few weeks leading up to the wedding weren't stressful enough. I'm mostly concerned that some of the nasty cells have made their way elsewhere, that idea scares me a lot more than going under the knife to cut a lump out.

I would strongly recommend you steer clear of a google image search for this topic, however the Australian Cancer Council website has some good information about symptoms, diagnosis, treatment and recovery: http://www.cancer.org.au/aboutcancer/cancertypes/testicularcancer.htm

If you're a little braver, the wikipedia page has a couple of pictures along with loads of detailed information about the disease: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testicular_cancer

So after spending several hours in a waiting room at the QEH yesterday going through the pre-admission process, which involved seeing a nurse, the anesthetist, my urology specialist doctor and a pharmacist, I'm all ready to go under the knife tomorrow. I have faith that whatever happens, God will help give me the courage and strength to get over this hurdle, along with support from lots of family and friends. Your kind words, encouragement and prayers are very much appreciated.

And for the guys reading this, if any of the symptoms I've described ever come up, get to a doctor as soon as possible; because the faster you can get a diagnosis and treatment, the better your chances of beating this nasty disease.

I think my experience so far in this specific instance shows how well the Australian public health system can work sometimes; considering that I went to see a GP on Wednesday about the lump, had an ultrasound with results Thursday, urology specialist appointment on Friday, pre-op admission on Monday, with surgery on Wednesday morning. Can't get much faster than that.

My jejunostomy tube swap #1: The back story

After having a fairly lengthy tube attached to the inside of my jejunum since November 2010, I finally had the feeding tube changed over to a very small and low profile 'button' version on February 21st.

*Just as a warning, there will be some mildly graphic medical photos of the tubes and stoma in this post.*

Here's what it looked like just after the initial surgery to install the tube in November 2010. It hurt way more than it looks here for something small...pretty much any movement at all was excruciating for the first couple of weeks, even on heavy doses of Panamax 3 times a day.

This post recalls some of the events leading up to the lengthy hospital stay in September/October/November 2010: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/my-story-hospital-2010-1.html

You may notice I wrote that quite a while ago now. I want to tell the rest of the story, but recalling such horrific memories about what happened and focusing on them is quite distressing. 

I started writing this blog post on the 23rd of February while the tube swap experience was still fresh, but due to the writing process unearthing more nasty memories, it's taken me a little while to get back to finishing off this part.

However, I will cover some more ground as I split this up into several different posts.

This post about my car has some photos and descriptions of what was happening around that time as well as my very slow road to recovery:

http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/my-cefiro-10-gathering-cobwebs-in.html

But anyway, back to the tube stuff. It had been suggested for the past few months, by my doctor, parents, fiance Sally and friends Daniel & Emily that I should get a low-profile version of the roughly 20cm long feeding tube that had been hanging from my abdomen since the surgery.

Despite keeping me nourished and alive, having a tube dangling around was pretty inconvenient for a lot of things. Because it would easily catch and tug on the stoma site, for the vast majority of the time I had it safety-pinned to my boxers. While stopping it from going all over the place, it also meant that the open wound of the tube site was being constantly rubbed and stretched, as I moved around doing normal daily activities like walking, driving and sitting down. This led it it getting very red, sore and irritated at times, as well as a couple of infections early on. It was also liable to get caught or hooked on something fairly easily.

At first, in December 2010, I was pinning it to the front of the lower end of my t-shirt. Sally suggested it wasn't the best spot, but I apparently needed to find that out the hard way myself. Going into the bathroom one afternoon, the loop of feeding tube caught the door handle as I tried to walk past. I wasn't moving very fast, but when you hook and yank a tube even gently on such a sensitive area, a mild tug can be pretty nasty.

I got pretty freaked out that I'd torn the tube out of my body for about a second, immediately stopping and removing the tube from around the doorknob. The stoma started bleeding a little bit, and feeling extremely weak and sick at this time anyway, I started to feel weak and shaky, and lay down on the bathroom floor, hoping it would be ok. In hindsight it wasn't a big deal, but it could've been pretty nasty if the tube had come out.

As I would discover when having the tube swap a few weeks ago, I really didn't need to have been worried about the tube coming out like that.

Despite knowing how much more convenient a small feeding tube attachment would be, the process of what had to happen put me off doing it for quite a while. To the extent that when I saw my gastroenterologist Dr. Rayner and he talked about changing the long tube over to a button version, I said that after what happened last time, I'd really rather not go through it again.

While my entire hospital stay in late 2010 was awful, there were a couple of procedures related to the feeding tubes which still haunt me in my dreams, and rate up there with some of the nastiest medical procedures I've been through...and I've had a lot.

 Fairly early on in my stay, I was able to eat only very marginal amounts of food...barely enough to keep me alive in the long run. With no end to that situation in sight, it was decided within a week that I would need have a naso-gastric feeding tube inserted to give me some nutrition. At this point my weight had plummeted from 64.5kg in early 2010, to just over 50kg in October 2010. With my stomach muscles paralysed and completely unable to process and digest food, I was literally beginning to starve to death.

Here's a comparison of how drastically bad things had gotten in a relatively short space of time; the first photo was taken in January 2010, at my older brother Drew's wedding.

And this was taken at the Royal Adelaide Hospital on October 6th, 2010.

In an unfortunate turn of events and timing, Sally's dad was getting married on Flinders Island (near Tasmania) on October 1st, so she was away when I first went in, which was very tough for both of us. In an odd coincidence, the nurse who looked after me at first was called Sally too.

I couldn't eat any food the first full day as it was, and couldn't even face drinking water, but I think even a healthy person without life-threatening levels of nausea would struggle to get these 'scrambled eggs' down and keep them there. Makes me feel worse just looking at the pictures of it now. And this was despite the fact I'd specifically written down that I was allergic to eggs- which didn't stop them from bringing me eggs for breakfast the next 4 days in a row. 

The amount of mistakes the hospital made in regards to food allergies, medications and general care was actually quite scary during both my 2010 hospital visits, I was very lucky to have my fiance Sally and parents looking out for me. I would hate to think how badly things could go wrong if you weren't able to fend for yourself.

 

I am in no way being sarcastic when I say I would much rather eat the plastic, paper or cardboard instead. I think this is the epitome of bad hospital food....an almost unidentifiable yellowy-grey congealed mush sitting in a pool of tepid water.

Coming into hospital I was seriously dehydrated and malnourished, and constantly had IV saline and glucose fluids running through a drip to keep me hydrated.

Less confronting than the eggs were these high calorie pseudo fruit flavoured drinks, which were delivered 3 times a day. They're thick, sickly sweet and you can almost feel your teeth melting when drinking them. I'd had them at home the previous few months, but whenever I drank them, I just felt even worse.

With my circumstances fairly dire at this point, even something as simple as watching the Simpons in my hospital bed posed some difficult questions.

Having been tested and diagnosed with a severe yeast allergy in 2002, I hadn't actually had any more than a few pieces of bread between 2002-2010. So the image above of Homer and Bart eating sandwiches is already something that was off-limits for me. With my body not even able to orally take fluids without problems, it made me wonder if this innocuous scene of a father and son eating sandwiches together was something I would ever actually be able to do. Not the sitting on the roof part, but just eating food with your kid, which is a perfectly mundane, boring thing to do that happens hundreds of millions of times a day worldwide...unless you can't eat, and don't see a way out of being bedridden and half-starved.

The 'proposed discharge' dates on these patient information sheets are almost just a technicality for the hospital system bureaucracy, but the date shown here, September 29th, was a very long way off. As I discovered over the weeks to come, I wouldn't be leaving until November 17th.

The nights were hard. Mum and Dad would alternately stay with me during the day, but obviously had to be home as well. Hospitals are terrible to try and sleep in at the best of times, and coupled with horrendous nausea and weakness of being extremely malnourished, there was a sense of impending doom as darkness fell.

While I was lucky to have my own room for the first couple of nights on the ward, I soon had to be moved into one of the general six-bed wards in the Colo-rectal Surgical Unit. As the name suggests, most people are in there for various digestive system related illnesses and surgeries. There are patients suffering from a variety of ailments like bowel cancer, diverticulitis, Crohn's Disease, and in one young guy's case, accidental ingestion of a cleaning product that was placed in a soft drink bottle.

Just feeling as nauseated and weak as I did was bad, but with the added stress of having other sick people around, and the smells, sight and sounds of gagging, coughing, snoring and frequently vomiting, all within a few metres of my bed  made it so much worse. Any chance I had of maybe being able to eat a little bit of food was severely reduced by the situation I was placed in, and again, not exactly a place where a normal person would want to sit down for a meal, accompanied by the sights, sounds and smells of someone emptying their stomach contents close by.

That ward was where I had to be, but realistically, it was probably one of the worst wards to be in, given the symptoms and side-effects of gastrointestinal disorders and surgeries. Which sounds a bit selfish, but that didn't stop it from being an awful place to feel sick. I have a nearly phobic aversion to seeing and hearing people vomiting, and will try and avoid it at almost any cost, so trying to think of a worse place to be in with my health problems, I'm struggling to come up with any examples, short of a public toilet or sewage treatment plant.

On the upside, I was placed near a window, which overlooked the eastern side of the hospital grounds, as well as part of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. Which was a little nicer to look at than the plain white curtains.

In another bout of unfortunate timing, my admission was only a few days before my 26th birthday. My gastroenterologist came by every morning to see how I was doing. After a few days of me unable to eat any more than a few mouthfuls of pureed chicken and steamed vegetables, it was fairly strongly suggested that I should have a naso-gastric feeding tube to actually get some level of nutrition in. The way I was going, my situation was just going to get worse if it was put off any longer.

In previous years of hospital visits, the feeding tube had always been suggested as an option. Very reluctant to have something like that done, I'd always somehow managed to force myself to eat, although that led to me feeling so horrifically and permanently nauseated, that I couldn't even justify a visit a friend's house for around 8 months in 2006. And I'm used to doing things when I feel awful.

 I really don't know how I was able to keep force feeding myself back in those days. Again, it was barely enough basic pureed turkey and steamed vegetables to keep me going, but I could hardly move out of the fetal position in bed or on the lounge in front of the TV, hoping and praying the torture would stop. Fortunately I was able to very slowly recover from that situation, at least partially, to the extent where I had some semblance of a life over 2007, 2008 and 2009.

However, having enjoyed a higher level of health the few years before late 2010, I just could not get myself back to the self-destructive frame of mind needed to keep eating under those circumstances. Which may sound a little backwards, but constantly undertaking an activity that caused me to regret that fact that I was even alive, was in no way a healthy or sane thing to be doing. For those 8 or 9 months, I literally had no break, anywhere, at any point where I was happy to be conscious, or simply not hoping to die so the torture would stop.

One of the most confronting aspects of a chronic illness like this, and something 'normal' people can't really comprehend, is that there is no guaranteed end to it, if any. While people who catch a flu or stomach bug feel awful for a little while, there's always the soft cushion of 'It'll be over soon' in the back of the mind for acute illnesses like that. 

Which is easily viewable by looking at some people's facebook status updates about a mild head cold, along the lines of "I feel like crap, I've been in bed for TWO DAYS, I'm so sick of being sick," which is ridiculous from my point of view. While having the flu can actually be nasty, I literally don't include a normal cold under the definition of 'being sick'. It's a sore throat and runny nose for a few days; nothing more than a brief, mild annoyance, which will never make so much as a blip on the radar in life events.

With me, and other people suffering from gastroparesis, it's the opposite. While I might be able to force feed myself a few meals over a day, feeling too sick to move and losing the will to live, the knowledge that the situation may never end was just too much for me to take. I simply could not justify making myself do that with no relief in sight.

On October 3rd, I ended up agreeing to have the feeding tube inserted, incredibly apprehensive about it, but as I said before, having had a day's worth or less of food in the past week, I was starting to starve to death, with my muscles being eaten away for energy in the absence of food. Since it was my birthday the next day, it was decided that the doctors would leave the procedure until the morning of the 5th.

Happy birthday cards and wishes have never felt more ironic.

Coming up in Post #2: the feeding tube insertions and subsequent surgery.

The 2012 Ben Simpson Memorial Cruise

Some photos from a cruise last weekend, held every year as tribute to the organiser's son Ben, who tragically took his own life in February 2005 at just 19 years of age.

His parents, Mark and Julie, have a website offering help for anyone struggling with  depression and suicidal thoughts, and work hard to raise awareness about depression, mental illness and youth suicide. http://youthsuicideawareness.com/index.html. 

They have another website directed at people who have lost a loved one, about dealing with grief: http://www.livingwithgrief.info/index.html

Here's the obituary from their site.

 Benjamin Marcus Ross Simpson
(Ben, Benny, Simo, Bruce)

 Born:  6th April 1985
Died:  1st February 2005

 RIP dr1ft_pig13 (Ben) - Always Remembered

 On the 1st February 2005 Ben aka (dr1ft_pig13) decided to leave this world forever.
He was a healthy, happy, fit 19yr old. In any Australian state, you may see his memorial stickers on the back of imported/drift cars, they say:

 (RIP dr1ft_pig13 always remembered)

More than 2900 of these free RIP stickers have been distributed.

 Ben had a passion for imported cars (esp Nissan) and drifting.

This was the love of Ben's life; his Nissan Silvia S13 modified, kitted and "of course" Black

Here is the thread posted on the Nissan Silvia forums, of which Ben was an active member, following his death:  http://www.nissansilvia.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=74557/RIP-dr1ft-pig13-t74557.html

I don't think I actually met Ben in person, but it's a very moving thread to read.

The cruise raises money for The Compassionate Friends, a group for parents who have lost a child or loved one to suicide: http://www.compassionatefriendssa.org.au/

Depression can be a largely 'invisible illness', with no obvious symptoms in many cases. At the same time, people who have something obvious like the flu get a lot more attention and sympathy, because the effects are clear for all to see, despite being a very brief and minor ailment, in comparison to crippling depression and anxiety disorders. Every case is different, but males tend to show less, or even no signs of being suicidal and chronically depressed.

For more information, the Beyond Blue website has an excellent range of materials covering all aspects of the disease: http://www.beyondblue.org.au/index.aspx? Reading some of the helpful suggestions, as well as stories from people of all ages, could be helpful in knowing what some of the warning signs are, or understanding how a severely depressed mind works.

This page has a big list of links to articles and other sites: http://www.beyondblue.org.au/index.aspx?link_id=7.980#General

There are plenty of other chronic illnesses and diseases which do not manifest in a physically obvious manner as well. For instance, due to my gastroparesis, I've been unable to eat any food whatsoever since early October 2010. But apart from looking rather thin, it's unlikely that strangers would pick up that I have a pretty catastrophic medical condition. One which would put me in hospital within a day if I stopped receiving water and liquid nutrient feed through my jejunostomy tube, which I get pumped through my intestinal tract for 20 hours a day, every day.

However, I have a relatively mild version of gastroparesis compared to other sufferers; some of whom need multiple organ transplants, and can only be fed via TPN, which puts nutrients directly into the bloodstream. This video, made by a young American gastroparesis patient Megan, shows the variety of people affected, some in much more obvious ways than others.

Moving on to the car photos...

With the front suspension in Daniel's Pintara on the way out, we spent a bit of time swapping the coilovers in preparation for the cruise that afternoon.

Our cars mid-afternoon, before the cruise.

With the cruise leaving West Lakes Mall at 7:30, we headed out around 7:15,  underneath some rather ominous looking dark clouds.

I was pretty excited about going on this cruise, as it's always a big one. Since buying my Ceffy in April 2010, I'd never been well enough at the right time to go on a proper cruise in it, so I was very much looking forward to partaking in the event.

Rolling up into the car park was an awesome sight, with tons of cool cars lined up row after row. The majority were Japanese imports, with everything from old Datsuns to new RX8s turning up, and even a Lamborghini Gallardo and old Volvo with airbag suspension for something a little different.

This is one of the nicer R31s I've seen, looks very tough with the dished meshies and sizable front mount.

I think I need to work on my reverse parking skills.

Clean JZX100s are always nice. Prach has one, but it was at a workshop being partially resprayed.

Since there were so many awesome cars and we arrived late, I passed off my D90 to Prach to take some photos from the upper level car park, while I hurriedly rattled off shots of the other cars.

This scene would usually make any import driver soil themselves, but there was some great co-operation with the police for this cruise; basically going on the premise that if people drove sensibly and didn't have mods too ridiculous, they would refrain from handing out defect stickers.

Cefiros are pretty thin on the ground these days as street cars, so it was cool to see a couple of other ones besides mine.

I've always had a thing for R34 sedans, and this was a very tidy example.

This Ceffy looked good with a nice kit and rims.

Not long after we arrived, organiser Mark Simpson called all the participants around to give a brief rundown of where the cruise was going, how long it would be, and how the horde of police bikes would be escorting us the whole way.

It was time to head off, and everyone headed back to their cars. It was pretty cool hearing so many different engines cranking and firing, as everyone slowly filed out of West Lakes.

While the clouds had been threatening for a while, as soon as I started up my car, it began to rain.

One of the motorbike cops had the road blocked to allow everyone to drive out as quickly as possible. I was driving so Prach took some photos as we made our way onto Tapleys Hill Road and headed south.

This clean blue S15 was sitting just right.

This particular R31 sees a lot of track time, with numerous battle scars to show for it.

Fortunately the rain didn't last too long, and dried up as we headed further south towards Meadows. We were probably driving in the middle of the pack, and by the time we got to the main street of the town, there were already parked cars lining both sides of the road for hundreds of metres, which was a cool sight.

I managed to squeeze in behind Daniel's Pintara, which was parked behind a white S15 and Stagea.

With a planned 20 minute stopover, there was a bit of time to walk down the street, enjoying the sights and sounds as loads of cars burbled past.

Stageas are getting pretty popular these days, and this late model example looked nice and tough.

Jumping back into the car, we continued on a big loop of the Adelaide Hills, passing through various townships including Macclesfield and Mount Barker before making another short stop in Birdwood. With such a huge number of cars attending, winding through the hills roads was pretty spectacular, with headlights and tail-lights stretching out as far as the eye could see in both directions.

 After burning through a substantial portion of my petrol over the 3 hour cruise, we pulled up in the St. Agnes shopping centre car park. Although some cars didn't stop at the end point, there were still heaps of cool rides to look at.

After hanging around for a while taking photos and chatting to people, I headed home, worn out but happy with how the night went.

The cruise ended up raising $1292.70 for the Compassionate Friends. A big thank you to Mark for organising a great cruise for such an important cause.