Tell me how do I feel? (New Order)



Leo Bertos in blue September
mode.

As the whanau knows we have had some sobering moments during the last two months.

When I worked at Cambridge High School I described working with Alison Annan as having a bucket of cold water thrown over my head; a big stimulating of the senses act, in a gigantic wake up call kind of way. More and more cold water shake ups seem to be coming thick and fast these days.

Our week days have established a kind of systematic routine (even when we have visitors like Jade who is staying on the island for a few days). Is 'systematic routine' tautology at work? It may be. Jacky has her Auckland radiotherapy appointments at the Mercy Hospital each morning.

We get up earlyish and Brian delivers us to a ferry terminal on Waiheke. From there it takes 35 minutes to sail across where Keegan picks us up from the Auckland Ferry building and delivers us to the hospital (when he can't we catch the Hospital bus). Jacky has her zap and we get morning tea before Keegan takes us back to Queen Street and we catch a return ferry, then another bus back to Pope's Corner in Oneroa (a part of Waiheke Island). We walk home to Brian's place from there. SWMBO needs to walk for a bit each day and then rest. We eat early (for her tablets to work) and then Brian gets out his movie collection on a gigantor hard drive and we select a movie to watch ( we laughed when GI Joe ended with the audience standing up in front of the credits!).

Up to last week I hadn't considered that men would also be undergoing radiotherapy at the Mercy. Up till then I'd sat with the women patients who have to change into a blue smock prior to their zap, but then, last week, I sat with an overweight middle aged guy wearing a shirt and tie and a blue apron around his lower bits I was a tad shocked. Keegan was too.

It was blue September recently - a month dedicated to getting men to have their prostate checked (yes - been there done that in case you're wondering). There were a series of adverts and such during September but I reckon all it would take would be a sobering visit to this waiting room to convince any men who didn't think it was a good idea to have regular checks in this region.

Love and peace - Wozza