Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

The Awkward In Between

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You remember the rules, right? Don’t blog about work – you can’t call out a client on your blog and not expect it to come back and bite you on the arse……and don’t blog about the family as each person’s story is theirs to tell, and not mine.

Well, I’m breaking the second rule today for one reason, and that’s the same one I’ve broken it for before, and that’s to emphasise the fact that you should take care of yourself, you should be aware of your family health histories and be smart, keep an eye on the signs.

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time you’ll have come across the Boob Checking Archives. I’ve kept you guys up to date from first mammogram, through Mum’s diagnosis and so on, and I know, you really don’t want to be thinking about my boobs, or your mum’s boobs at this moment… but take a deep breath, and let’s get this over with… because to NOT think about them with their health in mind, doesn’t bear thinking about (see what I did there?).

Anyway… a couple of weeks ago I missed a call from Lil’ Sis. Thinking nothing of it I texted her that I was out on a train, and promised that I’d call her in the morning.

I didn’t get a chance to… Mum called me first.

“Dee, just letting you know…*”

It was that call that had been in the back of my mind for years… the one that said, one day, our family history would catch up with my generation.

And it has.

Now this is kind of a kick in the guts, not just because, you know, the big C, but because our aunt, (the one the doctors thought would be the MOST likely to have the BC gene mutation) had been gene tested; the results of which had proven inconclusive…

So for whatever reasons, the doctors thought my grandmother’s and aunts’ (both of theirs) cancers were less likely to be genetic (oh, and did I mention my mother’s? The advanced age at which she was diagnosed (60) also meant ‘not genetic’) – so while the girls in my generation had remained vigilant… we felt like maybe the pressure was off a tiny bit… maybe our family history was just an anomaly restricted to two generations.

Not so.

For as disconcerting is Lil’ Sis’ news is… it is compounded by the news that our cousin is also staring down the same barrel, and is by all accounts further along this path. That’s two in our generation in the same month. It’s WTF worthy, to be sure.

So, given that at the behest of my new Melbourne GP, I’ve been under the care of a breast surgeon, I called their offices and asked their advice… basically saying “should the proposed MRI we’ve been talking about be moved up?”

To which they replied, “Absolutely.”

Now, the wonderful thing about private healthcare is absolute speed at which things get done… I called on the Friday, got the word back from the surgeon to go ahead on the Monday and had the MRI on Tuesday afternoon.

The procedure itself is less awkward than the old mammogram, certainly less invasive… but well, if you’re a claustrophobe and sensitive to loud noise, it isn’t exactly pleasant. However, it was over in 20mins and I was there and back without losing more than an hour and a half of the day. I hadn’t really thought anything of the procedure, nor anticipated results, just got on with the rest of the week. Until Thursday when I got a call from the surgeon herself…

“Hi Dee, just ringing to let you know, your boobs are fine… but there are a couple of other things we’d like to look at further.”

“[redacted]!!”

I was in the middle of teaching a class… so I awkwardly listened to the doctor, accepted her advice and asked her to proceed with booking the extra tests and went back to class.

It was rather difficult to concentrate.

The tests required were an ultrasound of my liver, and an x-ray of my right humerus. There was no mention of what they thought they were looking at, though the surgeon did say, “Don’t worry, it’s probably just a liver cyst” – but no mention of what they could/couldn’t see in my arm.

And so, after the final call back I was booked in for the ultra sound and x-ray today.

I went, I got the scans and as suspected, the sonographer advised that I was one of the population’s 5% that has a liver cyst (I’m so special, me!). It’s asymptomatic so I’ve never been bothered by it, and it will probably remain that way. Hurrah!

The x-ray however, is still up for grabs, I won’t have any further info on that until Thursday when I meet with the surgeon.

I guess that whole story was the preamble for the following; some thoughts about living in that state between “we have some uncertain news” and the certainty that it is, or isn’t ‘something’.

I had a choice at the point the surgeon’s nurse said “we need you to come back in”. I could choose to be terrified and play through all the possible outcomes over and over in my mind and let them make me fearful or depressed. Or I could chose to ‘deal with it when the time came’ and carry on with the week as planned.

I chose a variation somewhere in between, there were moments especially early on when I’d wonder… I mean… when you’ve an issue in one place AND your liver, the first thing I think is… metastatic cancer… cancer of the arm… or, something.

I had a choice to take the surgeon at her word when she said “It’s probably just a cyst” or I could be the cynic, thinking instead that she was only telling me such a thing so that I’d feel ok for that ‘last week when I felt fine’ because everyone knows, you don’t actually start getting sick until you get that diagnosis…

I still have a choice; to believe that all will be well, even if all isn’t well. I can put my faith in the hands of the doctors and their wonderful sciences, and I can shore up my resources with my friends who have been standing in the gap and praying for good reports.

The truth is we don’t walk out our lives with any more or less certainty from one day to the next… it could be a diagnosis, it could be speeding car. We always think it isn’t going to be us, and frankly some days it just is.

So, I’m still in that ‘awkward in between’ – I have 50% less concern than I had this morning, and you know what? I feel like things are just fine. But there’s still that 50%… there’s still ‘something’ about my arm. And whatever it is, in the middle of all the potential fears, the best thing about this week has been the people around me who’ve checked in to make sure I’m ok, who’ve promised prayer from here, to Sydney and as far afield as the Eastern US. A significant few who would drop everything for me.

As I would for them.

You can say what you want about the church as an institution, but as a community. I’m glad for them, really glad.

So, I’ll keep you posted about any results on Thursday, and until then, your girls? When was the last time you checked them?

*About Lil’ Sis, I’m not telling her story here… any more than to say we’re as relaxed as you can be given that as she’s been as vigilant as the rest of us, it’s a very early catch by all accounts.

It was bound to happen sooner or later…

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I’ve been here in Melbourne nearly 3 months… can you believe that?

Before you read any of the following I’ll state for the record, I love it. The place is relaxed, the natives are friendly, the coffee is off the chain. And it’s all very new and exiting and fun. I mean, they have glow in the dark mini golf… what’s not to love, right? (Seriously, come visit, we’ll get drunk and go play mini golf (it’s the only way to play it, it’s so bad it’s amazing and even more so when you’re p*ssed (not that I’d know, or anything))).

In any case, things have been going well, I’ve got enough work, I’m plenty busy during the day, and all in all I love it here.

But there comes a point in any new situation like this when you really start to hanker for the kind of relationships you left behind, the kind of friends for whom no longer having you in their social circle is as big of a gut wrench as it is for me to no longer be in their social circle. And frankly, you do begin to wonder why on earth you thought it was a good idea to leave them all in the first place.

The reality kicked in, I can’t just call one of them up and say “It’s Friday, which pub are we hitting tonight?”, or “Hey, do you wanna go to a movie? What’s on? Is Tom Cruise in it? (If yes, let’s just cut straight to the Thai for dinner…”). This is about the time when not having someone to companionably spill my guts to starts to feel like about the worst thing in the world. This is about the time when that creeping depression that starts off like a smokey edge around my usually cheerful view rears its ugly head. We’re not close, that feeling and I, but we’ve had our run ins over the years and I wouldn’t have been unhappy if I never again had to roll over in the morning and not want to get out from under the covers.

So, colour me surprised that on the other end of that feeling, a weekend of actually putting myself out there in new situations rather than staying under the covers has left me feeling less plaintive and more positive that it’s only a question of time before there are people here who won’t mind me spilling my guts, or who might just say, “Hey Dee, let’s hit a movie, and no, Tom Cruise isn’t in it, but can we have Thai anyway?”

Game On

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Over the years I’ve made my peace with those quirks in my nature that out me completely as a ‘nerd’, or if you prefer a ‘geek’. The funny thing is, those qualities were  dormant for years, rearing their heads on occasion, but never firmly pushing me over the edge into that [previously scary] territory wherein being a geek/nerd/gamer was completely socially unacceptable.

I’m kinda glad that geek is chic these days. I feel less weird about the fact that I spent all day yesterday afternoon watching end to end episodes of ‘The Guild‘ while my nose was completely buried in ‘The Room‘.**

It’s on the basis that it’s the top game for iPad in 2012 that I downloaded the Room yesterday. And it’s worthy of the title. So worthy I played it all the way through over a number of hours yesterday afternoon, and loved it so much I reset it and played it all the way through again this morning.

I love it because it takes me right back to those early days of computer gaming that first pegged me as a nerd/geek/gamer way back in the early 90s. It has puzzles, teasers and all the tricks that are completely absorbing (not to mention stunningly beautiful graphics that blow you away on the retina iPad) and is absolutely my favourite kind of computer game. Which leads me to reminisce for a minute or two about those other computer games that have captured me over the years…

Initially it was those early DOS games… such 8bit goodness in video and sound!! Aaaah, the memories…

hugo1The first one I came across (read fell in love with was) Hugo’s House of Horrors, followed by Hugo 3 Jungle of Doom (Suzy, I remember playing that with you for some reason…). It wasn’t until much later that I found Hugo 2:Whodunnit and played it on some DOS emulator… well and truly after its first release… still very clever even when it was long passed over as archaic!

where_in_the_world_is_carmen_sandiego-showWhere in the World is Carmen San Diego was one of the first games I played on Windows. Very early Windows and it was the highlight of one of my babysitting gigs… the kids I looked after owned it so it was a great day when I got to go over and hang out with them… playing Carmen well and truly into the night hours after they’d gone to bed! My favourite things.. mystery and international travel… all in one wee game. I’ve never seen it in the years since.. is it still out there??

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I was introduced to the Neverhood (I think it was my brother-in-law who found it).  Gosh, whenever I pull this disc out I get nostalgic for all the kids I’ve introduced it to over the years, it’s another game that could use an outing on the iPad. It’s just so flipping awesome… if only because it’s completely built in claymation and follows an everyman hero through a journey to save his world.  It’s perfect for adults and children and if you have a chance, and the right equipment, you should definitely try and get your hands on it.

I think I hit a bit of a lull after that, I moved north, didn’t have access to games or a computer other than in the context of work so I didn’t pick up any kind of games again until 2000 when I was introduced to the LucasArts games by the geek I was nannying for.  He hooked me up with some great games that his kids and I played through (not sure who was the bigger kid at that point) and through them I fell in love with the Myst, the Monkey Island Series and with Grim Fandango (see below). They introduced me to this whole genre of adventure games and I was hooked and for as long as I have had a computer… (which he generously hooked me up with as well (nerd, built one for me from spare parts. Genius)) these have been my games of choice.  None of this First Person Shooter malarkey, just good old fashioned brain bending puzzles!!!

Once I had a machine of my own I picked up the early Monkey Island games, Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s revenge, The Curse of Monkey Island, the aforementioned kids and I played Monkey Island 4: Escape from Monkey Island together, and my nephews and I are slowly working our way through Monkey Island 5: Tales of Monkey Island whenever I go back to NZ.

I’m doing my best to turn them into game nerds too… much to their parent’s chagrin.

[as an aside… I also got into SimCity and Caesar IV – but only lasted as long as it took to build a city that would then need strategic defense… Then it got boring.]

Grim Fandango would pretty much be my hands down favourite of that era, as much as the Monkeys are cool, Grim just tickled my sense of humour and my style.  It’s another adventure game but one whose look and feel is straight out of film noir though is set with themes, figures and motifs from Aztec belief in the afterlife (underworld, day of the dead… sounds dreadful… really is awesome – geek much?).  The game play is set around Manny Calavera, a courier who shuttles people from death into the afterlife, the class of the journey determined by the deeds of the deceased while in the land of the living.  You kinda have to be there, but I have an old windows machine and a copy of Grim that I pull out every couple of years, just for the hell of it. It really is a great game!! Wonder if it, like the monkeys, will get another life on the iPad… (fingers crossed).

The other game series I was introduced to in those nannying years was MYST, an absolute classic of the genre and still really highly regarded as one of the better puzzle adventure series out there.

I played MYST 1 with those aforementioned kids and went on to play Riven, Exile, Revelation and End of Ages (still haven’t finished that one). They’re incredibly challenging and these days, due to time constraints I never really can sit down and just play through, even with a walkthrough to speed things up. But they are beautiful to look at and so, so cleverly put together.

There are elements of the Room that remind me of playing that first MYST game, the puzzles are challenging but accessible, there is no need to be jumping back and forth to guides to get where you need to go, just a bit of patience and some lateral thinking.

Finally, I was outed as a gamer to one of the pastors in my old church, also an unashamed PC gamer who loves Adventure Games like I do… he handed me down a bunch of his old favourites, some I’m still yet to get through but among them are Schizm, Mysterious Journey 1&2, and Riddle of the Sphinx (aah, Egypt and adventures, what’s not to love!).

I never got into consoles, have never owned a Nintendo DS or any of those other ‘gaming only’ type devices, I suspect that what would happen if I did is that I’d lose myself in games never to be found again, or, if my iPhone habits are to be believed, I’d spend a fair bit of cash on games that I get sick of before I complete them leaving it like my iPhone, cluttered with unused apps that will likely never see the light of day again and no small amount of money wasted…

As it is, if companies keep cooking up games as good as the Room then I’m satisfied the genre isn’t going anywhere yet, and if we’re lucky  Adventure Gaming will have a whole new renaissance and a whole new crop of young adventurous geeky followers… stuff it, let’s just say ‘young at heart’ adventurous geeky followers…

I shall unashamedly name myself among them.

 

**As an aside, for those who are uninitiated, ‘The Guild’ is a web tv series made by uber chick geek Felica Day which has run for 6 seasons and which celebrates all things MMORPG (massive multi-player online role playing game – think World of Warcraft).

Picture This – why I gave up on Instagram

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I’ve been watching all the furore over Instagram’s change of terms and conditions with interest, and as usual, there are two sides to the story, and yet people get all energised and a whole flurry of “OMGs” and “WTFs” erupt in my timeline (be it Twitter or Facebook or even my email account).

Here’s the thing.

We are posting our pictures in public. We have to give Instagram permission to display them, and given that it’s a social tool and connects by API (blah blah, tech junk, etc.) to other services, for proper legal standing those images need to be permitted on other forums.

Sometimes those forums will have ads.

One day Instagram will have ads.

It’s the way these things go. We get all excited about a new service, website, app etc., we all jump on board and get hooked on it.

Then it has to pay for itself.

Realistically the terms and conditions need to align with Facebook (remember? Instagram is owned by Facebook), and frankly, those pix that you put on Facebook are covered with the same terms and conditions, if I read things correctly. Are you careful about your photos on Facebook? Have you jumped ship from Facebook because of THEIR terms and conditions?

No, neither have I. I’ve thought about it, but I find the service too useful to do away with, and frankly I’ve got all sorts of tech malarkey going on in the background to strip ads so I never see them anyway.

I’m the kind of user Facebook hates.

That said, I’m still ditching Instagram, but it’s not about the terms and conditions. It’s because, quite frankly, the app doesn’t, for a second, compare to the flickr one.

I’ve been a flickr user for YEARS and had got out of the habit of posting pix on it, because, if I’m honest, I got out of the habit of taking pictures. I fell out of love with my big old clunky D100 and don’t really love the picture quality of my iPhone 4 so I’ve really only been farting about with occasional cat or lunch picture on Instagram.

Instagram has dumbed me down. Big time. (This isn’t a reflection of any one else on Instagram, it’s just me. Promise.)

In any case. My Instagram pix no longer show up on Twitter, the app interface doesn’t do what I want (seriously, I can’t see your photo stream? I have to keep going back to the thumbnails to see all your pix? Back… forth… back… forth = irritating).

Fortunately Flickr has lifted its game in the biggest way with their iPhone app. I can filter pix, my images aren’t cropped arbitrarily, I can see your photostream, I can post them to Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr and I can also do way more editing of my pix, can tag them and can make them publicly available for use on MY terms, given all my pix are out there with Creative Commons Licensing. (Edited to add, and because I [happily] pay annually to use it, ads aren’t an issue, at least not now… hopefully, never!)

The only thing that kept me coming back to Instagram was the validation from all your likes and comments, and if I’m sticking with a substandard product just for your validation?

Well, that’s just silly.

There you have it, I’m quitting Instagram. I’ll miss you, but if we’re friends I’ll see your stuff on Facebook anyway, right?

And if you’re an iPhone user, I challenge you to check out the Flickr app (yes, you’ll need a flickr account) and if you like it you can follow me and maintain my validation levels on my Flickr pix (or, you know on Facebook and Twitter and all those other places I play on the web.)