Dec 11 - Botanical Garden in George.

We were up at 7 for a berry smoothie. Yummy.
We decided on the wheelchair instead of crutches for the gardens.

Then as soon as we got all our ducks in a row we headed for the Botanical Garden. It is actually only about 3km from the house.
It is 55 hectares (140 acres). It is located on the site of the place that William Burchell stayed for many years doing plant and animal research from 1811 to about 1830.
He named many species of ants, birds (Burchell's Coucal), and animals (Burchell's Zebra).

The Garden has 3km of wheelchair paths. We checked it all out. Me leisurly, sitting, and gawking, and poor Maddie panting like a steam engine, pushing me in the wheelchair.

We went to a bird hide and looked at birds.  I loved all the flowers.

There was a pair of double collared sunbirds. (FYI: I didn't take this picture)

We then went for coffee at the small cafe.

 Here is a good view of the mountains, and my cute steam engine. :-)

We saw a young Morhen. He was so tame. He walked under my wheelchair.  I am glad I don't have to buy shoes for this guy.

Maddie then had to go home quickly. She left me in a wonderful spot. I sat and looked at nature for an hour. Another Morhen came by. He walked all around me. It was a male in breeding plumage. I watched him closely, waiting for him to step on his own feet and trip. He never did.

We then found a picnic spot, and ate the lunch she brought back for us. Fish and chips. Yummy.

Life doesn't get much better than this people.

Dec 10 - The Beaches

We both slept very well, and were up and drinking a berry smoothie before 8.

In my motorcycle tour days I delt with a man named Chamberlain. He owns the largest hardware stores chain in Africa. His wife was best friends with my ex-wife's mother.
When he retired, he and his brother bought 4 houses on a very exclusive beach, tore them down, and built 2 big houses.
Herolds Bay is a small bay that has a good small beach. Very much for rich people. It is the start of the tourist season, and the beach had not a lot of people there.

 This is a pic of the houses along the beach at Herolds Bay in one direction.

And in the other direction.

I had to hug a street lamp pole to take the pics :-)
Notice the many shades of blue.

We then drove to Victoria bay. Another public beach. This one is a madhouse during the holidays. We looked around a bit, then sat in a open restaurant. We had a nice pizza. (diet pizza of course) and enjoyed all the girls in bikinis....oops I mean we enjoyed the scenery.

Victoria Bay. Up at the top of the picture is the tunnel entrance for the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe. The other side of the tunnel we saw yesterday from the whale watching point.

I

 Here is the restaurant.

 The view from inside the restaurant.

What a pleasant place it would be if all the people (except the two of us) were gone. Well, maybe the guy that makes the pizzas could also stay. :-)

Tomorrow is a visit to the Botanical Garden.

Dec 9 - Drive to Outshorn and Wilderness.

Wednesday Maddie drove us to Outshorn to visit a friend of hers.
We "cured" my diarrhea by taking lots of pills they stop diarrhea. I probably won't shit for a week now.

I remember this road between Outshorn and George from back in my motorcycle tour days. The Outeniqua Pass road is one of the best motorcycling roads in the world. Long sweeping curves, little traffic, good look ahead, wide safety lane, and good tar. We used to send our clients up and down the pass twice. They loved that.

 We had a wonderful lunch at an old Ostrich house with Maddie's friend.

On the road back downhill to George we took some pictures.

 Me with George in the back ground.

 The Outeniqua Mountains, covered by clouds.

 Maddie and George.

A couple of shamelessly romantic selfie takers.

Maddie then drove us to Wilderness. It is a pure holiday town between George and Nysna. We needed to pee, so went into a large 5 star hotel. They were having a special on coffee and cake. R35. That is cheap. They had no lift (elevator) up to the restaurant. So we sat in the reception area and they sent a waiter.
I had a good chat with the waiter. After he left a very nice, chatty hotel manager sat down and we chatted lots. She just started the job and is a bit over whelmed by the responsibility. But I believe she will do that job very well.
She said the biggest problem was the local black staff. As an example she used the phone receptionist. That lady will answer the phone perfect, like 9 times out of ten, "Good morning, Protea Hotel Wilderness, my name is Sofi, How may I help you?"
Then she answers the next call with "hello". You can hear the people asking where is this, and almost plead to talk to someone else. The the next call is again answered perfect.
The manager says that training is futile because the receptionist already knows everything perfect.

We then drove to a whale lookout point. We asked a guy there if he had seen any whales. He said nothing today, but he saw some whales and dolphins yesterday. I think the locals are trained to say that. :-)

We took some pictures. I came SOOOO close to falling. I put crutches aside, and was waiting to take a picture with a para glider in the shot, and lost my balance and fell backwards. Thankfully I fell onto (almost into) a big concrete trash can.

The town of Wilderness. Note Para glider. This is from the whale watching point.

Again from Whale watching point. The Outeniqua Choo Tjoe steam train used to run from George to Nysna untill 2009.
:-(
Here it is in it's glory days.

 Tomorrow we go to the beaches :-)

I have changed the way my blog is delivered. It is now e-mailed to certain people only. That way they can forward it if they want. So now Richard, SuZi, Don, Allen and Maddie will receive this blog post.

Day 120 - Last Blog

23:00
In George.

This house is big. +- 5000 sq/ft (460 sq/m). It is on many layers. Right now I can get to about half the house. Once I get the wheelchair adjusted, I will be able to get up the step to the kitchen also.

I was so exhausted last night I was asleep around 9, and got up for breakfast, then took a nap and got up at 1. except for about 10 toilet trips, I slept 15 out of 16 hours.

I have not experienced any of George yet this trip.

I find that I have not kept correspondence with the people that mean the most to me. I have been letting the blog do all my talking. This is just not right. My fiends and loved ones mean more to me than that.
This blog has become more like a very impersonal email. It used to be for Dan, to Dan,  and I shared it with close friends. It seems to have lost direction. I now seem more concerned about what people want to hear, rather than just expressing my thoughts. I often hear from people, that I give to much detail about things best left unsaid. I can see that. People don't want to read depressing medical stuff.

I think that things that some people want to read about are often "none of their business", and the people that actually do care about these thing should be told in a personal mail.

39.8% of my page sessions are now robots, or hackers. I had 8 people that stayed on my blog site for more than a minute during the last few days.

It no longer seems about angiosarcoma, or amputation. It's about my feelings for Maddie, my travel arrangements, and my new car. 

This blog has out lived it's usefulness.
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Day 119 - George

08:00
Up and zooming trying to get ready for taxi.

Saturday morning 2:00 am
Maddie - George

I've just woken up in the early hours of the morning, realizing that we didn't attend to the daily blog.

Just a short one from me, to put everybody's mind to rest, then back to dreamland.

We were so worried about many things, i.e. that Dan's diarrhea won't subside in time for the flight, crutching, airports and wheelchairs and many other things that might be a problem.  None of the issues we worried about, happened.  The taxi arrived well before time. Dan chatted and joked with the taxi driver all the way to the airport, we laughed lots and everybody was in good spirit.  The SAFAIR staff was prompt to give Dan a young assistant from the booking-in point . She wheeled and assisted him professionally all the way into the plane, where he could just crutch to his seat. We both were tired and dozed off during the 2-hour flight. After landing in George, we had to wait until everybody had left the plane. Dan had to crutch to the front, got into his wheelchair and was lowered down in some kind of lift. We were both relieved that Dan had no 'accidents' during the flight and only needed a toilet after we landed.

Shirley and Carl came in two cars and were waiting for us. They were not sure how much space we would need for baggage and wheelchair.

Back at the house, Dan was exploring every room of the big house, first on crutches, then later in his new wheelchair.  We tried to figure out how he will be able to take a shower. This house where I stay is not 'Dan friendly' as yet,  but we'll figure it out more each day.
It will be a challenge for him indeed. Of course he's more comfy in his own house, but I'm positive that the change of environment will be good for his soul.

I zoomed to Checkers for food shopping, while Dan was watching the Discovery channel.  After supper, which was quite late, we both realised how tired we were. Dan was fading fast. Neither of us had even given the blog a thought, in actual fact, he didn't even know where his cell phone was and he didn't care either. He just wanted to lay down his weary head and sleep. He had 3 very bad days of little sleep, lots of phantom pain and acute diarrhea, which took its toll on his body for sure. 

Let's hope from tomorrow, (oops, I meant today) he will get better, just chill and enjoy his short break here in George.   I'll go outof my way to make it pleasant and enjoyable for him.

More news from Dan himself later. Now to get horizontal again.  Maddie checking out ......  Zzzzzzz

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PS
I will definitely recommend SAFAIR to people with impaired abilities.   Issues  like seats that can't recline are not important to people in wheelchairs.  The assistance they give to those people is of major importance. I have less worries now when Dan has to travel back on his own. 

Day 118 - short depressing blog

I have been dragged so far down a deep hole, I don't know the way out.
I have been in this bed three days now. I hate this bed.
Maddie bought me a new wheelchair. I haven't even touched it yet.
Maddie fell in love with a strong, world wise, Texan. He has turned into a diaper wearing, bed ridden weakling.

 My brother always says "Don't go there, till you get there."
Sorry Bro, I got there today.

I filled my diaper twice today.

Maddie is a wonderful soul. One of the best ever. She does not deserve her husband dying of lung cancer. She does not deserve to go through that again with me.
She should be married to a millionaire, and living on a yacht in the Greek islands.
I asked her to please try to get me to George tomorrow.

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20:20

I feel better. Maddie drove to the oncologist, and got lots of diarrhea stuff for me. She has been feeding me and she stopped the diarrhea.

Chemo, phantom pain, and then the diarrhea hit me hard. Yesterday and today were some of the worst days of my life. And don't forget that I have angiosarcoma cancer AND just lost a leg. 

Maddie is all packed for George, and of course, I haven't started packing yet.

My new wheelchair is super. Much higher quality than I need. I like that. 

Maddie just took a picture of me in my new wheelchair wearing just a diaper. She refuses to allow anybody to see that picture.

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Day 117 - Day after chemo

08:00
What a screwed up night and morning.
I am paranoid about my stump now. The scar has no protection at all.
I slept poorly, but not from phantom pain, I just wasn't sleepy.

I discovered the most amazing thing. If I fantasize about moving my left toes. forward and backward, and left and right, Not much, sort of like if I had a shoe on. By visualizing it, it is almost as good as mirroring.
Because there is absolutely no feedback from muscles, or positioning sensors in my foot, the phantom foot never moves. That makes it hard to do. But by imagining the movement, I was able to mentally move my leg and foot. The instant my missing foot moves in my brain, the phantom pain goes. Very repeatable. I played around from 1:00 till about 3:30. I could repeatably stop the phantom pain. It takes lots of visualization, and concentration. When either would slip, the pain was there in a second.
Not really a practical solution, as I can not let my mind drift for even a second. Sleep is not possible while stopping the pain this way.

I got up at 07:45 to call a guy about selling the beetle. I sat on my wheelchair, and started dialing his number. Then I had to poo, and I pooed. There was about a second between no need to go, and shit everywhere. I yelled for Maddie, and zoomed to the toilet. What a mess. Very explosive, but so short lived. No warning. We then started taking all the pillow cases off the pillows on the wheel chair. Poor Maddie, what a smell. When we took the one pillow case off the buckwheat pillow, the zip had come undone, so about 1/4 of the buckwheat fell all over the floor. What a mess.
I took a shower, and will live in old underwear all day. I am paranoid.
We have a booklet from the chemo lady, saying what to do to treat diarrhea.
She says don't eat or drink the following:
Coffee, broccoli, hot sauces, chillis, beer, soy milk, beans, raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole wheat bread, and bran cereals.
That just listed the food contents of this house. Now I will starve to death. The doc says to eat high sodium food. Bananas, and bovril. Bovril has 5830 mg of sodium per 100g. Shriek!

We still don't have confirmation of the wheelchair for the flight to George. I need to call for that now.
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18:35
I am so useless. I have slept 3 different times today. all for 2 hours, then I am awake for an hour, then I pass out.
We have so much to do before George, and I feel so useless.
We sorted the airport wheelchair saga, and the ladies at the airport say that I should bring my own wheelchair, and then there is no problem. So tomorrow at 1 we will go buy a wheelchair.
At 11 we need to take the beetle to a guy that acts as a broker for beetles. Then we should know what it is really worth.

20:30
From Maddie

Our dear friend/bro has passed out, so I'll just end his blog for the night.

It was not a good day for Dan, to say the least. I agree ... AS sucks and chemo sucks too.  To just think that there is still 3 more cycles of chemo treatment ahead, is enough to make the most positive person depressed, no need to say how  the patient  feels about that. I feel so sorry that he has to go through all this :-( BUT I'm positive that tomorrow will be a better day, that he'll have less fatigue and more energy, less nausea and better appetite and less negative with a more positive spirit.

Hang in there Dan!  You are in our thoughts and prayers.

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