Christmas at Waitarere Beach

Miang and I spent our Christmas at Waitarere Beach, along with Catherine, boyfriend Mike, and the family of Chris and Hiva. There were many magical moments with my grandson James, braving the waves, blowing bubbles in the breeze sweeping across the sand, and shelling peas for Christmas dinner.

Chris, Hiva, James and Thomas

On Monday this week, son Chris and his family arrived in New Zealand. Based in Palmerston North, they have made day trips and a weekend visit to Wellington, and they will join Miang and me at Waitarere beach for Christmas and Boxing day.

On our first expedition we went to the local playground in Khandallah, where James met met Mark Hunter's son, Sam. Both boys were very courteous, and when Sam fell over, James asked "are you alright?"

James, who is 3 years and 3 months, hadn't seen me for over a year, and so it took a little while to get to know "Granddad Paul", but by the time of his second visit, I was in great demand for reading stories, assembling jigsaw puzzles, and playing the horn, the latter being a source of horrified fascination.

Thomas seemed to respond well to my theory that all infants, when held, like to grip grandparent fingers, or have their feet dance on grandparent legs. He is such a sweet fellow, blessed with an extremely kind big brother.

James's favourite read was a curious book of "Fables" which Miang had bought, including geese with golden eggs, little boys crying wolf, and goats failing to look before they leap. What terrible things we adults do to young minds!

By the way, James is clearly reading. Is this something that 3+ year olds are supposed to do? Oh and he can also sing very well. Is it OK to boast about the cleverness of grandchildren? Such difficult questions I have to wrestle with.

Samoa

Samoa. That's where we have been for the last week.

Arriving at Faleole airport at 2 am, we were greeted at the exit by a young Samoan policeman, clutching a picture of me given him by my friend Peter Rodger, an economic advisor to the Samoan government, who was at that point in the departure lounge waiting to catch the same plane home to New Zealand. The policeman handed me a Jason's Samoa guide, annotated by Pete. It was a nice way to enter a new country and imagine that you are important, and Pete's notes turned out to be a treasure trove of good advice.

Samoa was a German Colony from 1900 to 1914, occupied by New Zealand troops in 1914, and run, sometimes badly, by a New Zealand administration until independence in 1962. The population of Samoa is 186,000. Another 131,000 New Zealanders identify themselves as being of Samoan ethnicity.

We spent 6 days on Upolu, the most populated Island of Samoa, staying in Aggie Grey's resort at the western end facing the big Island of Savaii. Aggie founded her business during WWII, looking after US Marines stationed in Samoa.

The resort was certainly a great place to relax, but our greatest pleasure was in getting out and about around the island. The roads here are for walking on, and drivers amble along at 40 km/hr. And as you circumnavigate the 200 or so kilometers on the perimeter road that bounds the island shore, or cross over the volcanic mountains from north to south, what you see, you, the inhabitant of the "prosperous world", is simply breathtaking.

Everywhere there are people, moving at a relaxed pace, cheerful and gracious to a fault. Children range freely. Young and old sit cross-legged in the abundant fale, groups walk the road to church, every day, and on Sundays in brilliant white clothing, and churches line this road, one after the other, in competing grandeur. Wildly coloured buses with wooden, glassless window frames bump along the road. And in the evening, children organise their own games, teenagers carry toddlers, youngsters play netball, groups of young women bathe in the lagoon, young men compete in frenzied rugby matches on grass verges or fields of varying size.

This Island is totally electrified yet the kids don't seem to bother with television or computer games here. They make up outdoor games. They run wild and free.

I remember a world like that 60 years ago in New Zealand.

I never saw an angry person in Samoa, not in the quiet but populous, villages, not in the tsunami-ravaged south east, not in the bustling markets of Apia, and certainly not on the immaculately gardened roads, where ambling utes carry kids unrestrained in the back or standing on the railings, dogs and pigs run amok, and strolling pedestrians wave at vehicles, even those driven by astonished palagi.

100 years of Physics at VUW

On Thursday this week, we celebrated 100 years of Physics at VUW. The early professors were all appointed on the recommendation of Rutherford, first Laby, from 1910 to 1914, then Marsden, who dashed straight back to the war in 1914, and then Florance who stayed for nearly 3 decades.

In my VUW student days the Head of Department was Darcy Walker, wearing the bow tie in the photo above. Standing to his left on the right hand side of the photo is Noel Chapman, the professor of Nuclear Physics during the 1960s. Chapman and Walker were my brother Jim's PhD supervisors. Jim is the handsome fellow near the centre of the photo, to Darcy Walker's right. It was because of Jim's example that I ended up doing physics. Behind them all is the control console of the 500 keV Van de Graaf accelerator, their research tool for low energy nuclear physics.

I remember one particularly inspiring teacher at Vic, the late Professor Norman Barber. When I took quantum mechanics with Norman, I fell in love with the subject. Norman's grandchildren, Jacqui and Felix are both current VUW students in chemistry and physics. Felix is lab assistant in our NMR research team.

I spoke at the celebration, taking the opportunity to give a brief sample of a Barber lecture on atoms. Norman's son Peter and daughter Mary were present, along with Mary's young son, Louis. I think I saw Louis's eyes light up when I drew, on the blackboard, those Barber 2p orbitals with their quantum mechanical phase. In front of the 150 people present, I was able to tell him that he may not have known his grandad, but he could take it from me that he had been a great scientist and a fine teacher.

It was a most enjoyable evening, with visitors staying on late to tour labs and to chat. Many of the older cohort were present, including Noel Chapman and Darcy Walker. Remarkable survivors, both of them!

The Victoria-Magritek team

Today, my esteemed friends and colleagues, Andrew Coy, Robin Dykstra, Craig Eccles and Mark Hunter, joined me in Auckland to receive the Prime Minister's Science Prize. This is a huge honour, but best of all, the prize recognises the teamwork that has made our lab and created the company, Magritek.

Why this five? It could have been for a hundred of our wonderful collaborators, past and present. But, consistent with the narrative of "science to business to positive impacts for New Zealand", we five are the scientist shareholders who started the company. The guy with the green tie is Prime Minister John Key.

For more background see
http://www.pmscienceprizes.org.nz/about/winners_2010/science.html

Pike River

The awful unfolding of this tragedy has dominated our thoughts since last Friday. The country is stunned. Today's Dominion Post cartoon by Tom Scott, captures that mood. One of our "folk poets", Gary McCormick, has written this.

SEVENTEEN (In memory of Joseph Ray Dunbar and all those who died in the Pike River Mine.)

Joseph Ray Dunbar was just seventeen.
One week ago - turned seventeen.
No doubt had a few drinks out
with his mates.

He'd been through a rough patch, someone said.
Who doesn't ??!
A boy from the Coast,even-eyed.
But he's gotten a job now.

New boots.
The making of him, someone said.
You get a lot of respect with a job.
Couldn't wait !

Probably had his lunch packed.
The unlined face, the big smile.
Probably had a way with the girls.
The local girls.

Couldn't wait !
The local girls are wearing black.
Mothers and sons and husbands too.
He probably ran the last hundred yards....

Joseph Ray Dunbar.
Climbed aboard and headed on down.
A smile and a wave and a joke amongst men.
The biggest day of Joseph's life.

You caught the train, Joseph.
You took the train too soon.
You caught the train before your time.

Gary McCormick reads his poem 'Seventeen' written for those who died in the Pike River mine.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/pike-river-mine-disaster/4386404/Audio-Gary-McCormick-poem-for-Pike-River-miners

The Mountains of Moria

Today I had the first appointment with my Wellington oncologist, following the Sydney surgery. In preparation I had taken a blood test two days earlier.

Miang and I waited in the consulting room, expecting the usual greeting "you've lost more hair". Instead, my oncologist entered the room with a look of astonishment on his face and began, "your CEA is normal". "What concentration?", I asked. "3.0 ng/ml" was his reply. "Tell me about the surgery." I chatted with him for a while, recounting some of my extraordinary and somewhat bizarre experiences. "Not something I'd like to do every year", I said.

He asked me to lie on the bed so that he could examine my abdomen. Now I should say that the landscape of my scar-transected abdomen is more like the Mountains of Moria, than the Plains of Sixpack. I could sense him flinch as he glimpsed that landscape and started his examination, the gentle tapping of the finger with the two hands working together. He looked perturbed, and then after just a few taps he stopped. I read his mind at that moment. "Good grief, the contents of the abdomen were never like that in any anatomy lesson that I learned". He expressed that inferred thought as he recoiled from his brief examination with the words, "My goodness, you have had major surgery".

I tucked my shirt back , buttoned up and we both sat down again. We chatted some more about the new adjuvant chemotherapy course that I would start in a few weeks. The CEA data were compelling, and as you look at the graph Dear Reader, you may see that something remarkable has happened as a result of the peritonectomy. My oncologist was clearly struggling with the irreconcilable, the healing power of chemotherapy versus that of surgery. Of course, the cunning of the peritonectomy procedure is that it combines both.

"Might I suggest that you recommend this procedure to future patients who are suffering from peritoneal metastasis?", I asked, pushing the boundaries of the patient/physician relationship. He paused deep in thought for a moment and then said, "Not for everyone." I think he was still disoriented by the experience of feeling the strangeness of my abdominal interior.

I like this man very much. He is wise and kind and self-effacing, and I have forgiven him for telling me, so many months ago, that I was incurable. Perhaps he will be proven to have been right, but I think he and I now both believe that, rather than a few months, as earlier perceived, it may be a few years before we will know the answer. I thanked him, and Miang and I walked out the door with him, parting with best wishes for Christmas, and with that we strolled back out of the hospital smiling and laughing.

"Normal CEA!" I repeated several times, to Miang's evident amusement. "Better than a kick in the pants, I would say."

The missing cards

A curious unhelpfulness of St George Hospital showed up in their treatment of incoming mail. Several people who sent me cards had them returned, if they had a return address indicated, or if not, simply discarded. My sister's crime was to address the card in every way correctly, but to also include the line "Cancer Ward". It turns out that there is no Ward labeled precisely as such, so rather than checking the hospital's register of patients the mail receptionist simply did a "return to sender". Fortunately the medical and nursing staff at St George were less callous and lazy.

So, if you are one of those who sent a card, and received no thank you from me, please understand, I probably never received it!

Back home

Yesterday afternoon Miang and I flew into Wellington airport, to be greeted by my brother Jim, who had driven 2.5 hours from Wanganui to be there. As we walked out the exit passage we saw a huge sign saying "Welcome home Sir Paul", being waved over Jim's head. Thus the welcome was also an occasion for hilarity.

We drove to Khandallah in beautiful sunshine, in the absence of wind, indeed a perfect Wellington day. The balmy conditions continued to today, as we started with a local walk, and then attended to the last of the unpacking and the washing. I say "we". In truth, Miang has done nearly all, as I have felt pretty exhausted.

Now I look forward to a long summer of recuperation, hopefully building my energy levels day by day.

PS: The magnificent artwork of the sign is thanks to Jim's wife Sharron.

Reflections on St George Hospital

Major surgery starts early in the morning, allowing the full day for the procedure. The night before, the patient anticipates the dawn. Remarkably, in my case, I slept well, waking just before the the alarm at 5-45 am. We reported in to the Day Surgery Unit at 6-30 am, to await the surgeon's visit, before my being taken into theatre. It was 8 am before he appeared, having just completed his morning ward rounds. With a few words of encouragement he left. It was to be several days before I saw him again. Miang, Mary and I exchanged a few words, and then I was wheeled to the anesthetic room, once again meeting the astrophysicist turned anesthetist, who had briefed me the day before. He removed my wedding ring, slipped a cannula into a vein in my hand, and I was gone.

In what seemed an instant, I was emerging into strange consciousness, though I was later to discover that over 24 hours had elapsed. Miang, Mary and Tom were standing beside my bed in the Intensive Care Unit, though I was unable to speak to them, because of a ventilator tube passing through my mouth. I needed to tell them something and moved my hands to indicate the action of writing. They passed me a pen and a notebook. The words I wrote were incoherent, but what I wanted to express was a memory of physical distress while young women had endlessly chatted in a sort of teenage patois, oblivious to my condition. This was the beginning of several days of morphine-induced impressions, vaguely connected with human activity or conversation within earshot, all vivid and mostly bizarre.

The periods of consciousness were initially short, perhaps only minutes, but of course, I was the least reliable witness. After another 24 hours, my ventilator tube removed, I was moved to the High Dependency Unit, where a male nurse seemed to wish to engage me in deep discussions about my scientific work, or New Zealand's social liberalism, none of which I particularly welcomed, but to which I offered polite and hopefully good-natured replies, in the least number of words possible. I was later rescued by an orderly who shifted me to a regular ward, where the nurse to patient ratio was sufficiently high to make such in depth interrogations unlikely.

Over the next days, my plumbing was gradually removed so that by the time a week had elapsed, I was able to eat, I had a functioning bowel, I was walking the ward corridors, and my self-controlled morphine line had ben removed. This clever device, known as a PCA (patient controlled analgesia), allows the patient to press a button to obtain a shot of morphine, the pump then being deactivated for 5 minutes, before a repeat is possible. This delay ensures that the drug has a sufficient sedative effect that any attempt to overdose will be preceded by the patient falling asleep by about the fourth or fifth dose . Prior to the PCA removal my sleep had been accompanied by vivid, and often very unwelcome, dreams. Even in my semi-conscious state my brain would interpret voices in the corridor in a dream-like slightly paranoid sense that these conversations involved me, or people who knew me, strange recollections of people from my distant past, here in ward 3E, St George Hospital.

On disconnection, a sense of normality returned, and my physical progress continued apace. In a bed across from me was a comrade who had has his operation two days before me. He could not hold down food and was in distress much of the time. My rapid progress was good fortune, but probably little comfort to him. I left the hospital on day 13, and for the next week visited this comrade each day. To my enormous relief, at the end of that period he suddenly improved, was able to eat food and to move about a bit.

My son tells me that a high pain threshold is helpful to surgical recovery, allowing the patient to more rapidly reduce the pain-killing drugs, with their unhelpful side effects, and to mobilize earlier, to be able to get up and walk about, again assisting the recovery process. I have something to add to that. For me, it is the horror of hospital meals, no matter how nourishing, no matter how well presented, the dread of the relentless delivery of that tray, at a time prescribed by the meals service, drives a determination to escape.

And so I have emerged, from yet another hospital experience, entertained by the distinct personalities of the medical staff, treated to extraordinary care and kindness, and throughout, uplifted by my family and friends. During my last two days in hospital, Miang, Catherine and I made plans for a summer holiday at a rented bach on the Kapiti Coast. It was an unfamiliar and most pleasant experience, to be planning for the future, albeit only a couple of months ahead. A year that had begun with a sense of closing, completing and coming to terms with the immediate term, was ending with a new lease of life. There would be next year, possibly another, and maybe further good years ahead.

Surgery is a remarkable profession in which procedures beyond the imaginative possibilities of most of us, bring about transformative change. My son, himself a surgeon, had advised me of this radical peritonectomy possibility back in April, a treatment of which my New Zealand oncological advisors were largely unaware. Yet I have much reason to thank my oncologists. They had treated me with a cocktail which significantly reduced my cancer burden, buying crucial time, time which had enabled me to organise the Sydney surgery.

For Professor David Morris and his team, I have nothing but admiration and respect. I would like to see other New Zealanders with peritoneal metastasis have the same opportunity that I have been given. That's one more plan for the future. I am going home with immense optimism.

"On The Beach"

Just to show that I am no longer deserving of concern, and am fully ready to assume normal household duties, here is the picture of Miang and me on Brighton Beach, Botany Bay, taken yesterday by Eiichi. The site of the photo is close to where the "first fleet" arrived in Australia in 1788.

Later in the afternoon, we were joined by Sydney friend, Bill Price. Today we are packing up and about to leave for Curl Curl.

From Japan to the USA via Sydney

Today my old friend Eiichi Fukushima from Albuquerque, New Mexico, came to visit me in Sydney. He had been in Japan for 10 days visiting his son and his sister and took a deliberate diversion via Sydney in his journey home, to check up on me. You can imagine how touched I was by this.

What an extraordinary man he is. One of the first stories we recounted when he arrived was of a 2 day hike the two of us took in the Julian Alps of Slovenia, in 1993, when Eiichi discovered my manic side and me, his extraordinary alpine skills, and his great patience. Eiichi was part of the team who first climbed the highest mountain in Antarctica (Mt Vinson-Massif).

The first picture shows me and Eiichi in downtown Kogarah, while the second was taken at our Melbourne Cup party in Bezzina House. Later in the afternoon we were joined by Christoph Arns, a mutual friend from Sydney

PS: for the uninitiated, the Melbourne Cup is an annual horse race which causes all work in Australia and New Zealand to cease during its running.

From Hospital to Hospital Residence

This little sequence of pictures marks my move from Ward 3E, St George Hospital, to Bezzina House, a residence for outpatients on the hospital campus. I was discharged on Wednesday 27th October, the same day my daughter Catherine (pictured) left to return to London, after being with me through a period of remarkable recovery from Friday 22nd.



Putting on street clothes and emerging into the outside world, I felt a new strength, or at least enough to clown around with Miang and sister Jeanine. I must admit to looking quite well in these pictures, though in truth, even a small amount of exercise leaves me quite exhausted. There is a long haul ahead, during which I will need to accept a gentle rate of progress.

During this period, Miang will be vigilant in restraining my bad habits, such as eating without properly chewing my food, not drinking sufficient fluid, and, amongst the worst of my crimes, idly indulging in "work", which I protest is just me communicating with friends, and trying to find out the latest gossip from New Zealand, Australia being a place where New Zealand is never thought about, let alone mentioned in the news media, except perhaps when we behave in some particulary quaint manner.

Of course this is why we are so desperate to beat them in sport, so that they will "notice" us.

But let me finish with these remarks. Much as I enjoy, am entertained by, and even love my country, there is nothing more "small minded" and childish as our occasional resentment, envy, and obsession with our big brother next door. In truth, in all my life, I have experienced nothing but generosity and respect from my many Australian colleagues and friends. This most recent experience, of being treated in one of the finest hospitals in the world, by a world-class surgical team led by David Morris, is a culmination of that generosity.

This may be a lucky country, but all I can say is "Advance Australia Fair."

Breaking the silence

I must apologise for my silence for the last 6 days. Despite the cheerful smiles of my earlier postings, I have still had some recovering to do, and I must admit to feeling very tired through much of this period. In fact, my recovery has been remarkable, so much so that I am to be discharged from St George Hospital tomorrow, some 6 days earlier than their average period of hospital stay following my type of surgery, and only 3 days longer than their record. All my external plumbing has been removed, and my wound staples were removed this morning. I can take short walks unassisted.

During the last 5 days my London-based daughter Catherine has been here to check up on me, along with my sister Jeanine from Tauranga, New Zealand. And of course, my younger sister Mary, who lives in Melbourne, was here with her husband Tom, over the initial period of the operation and its aftermath.

I have a long way to go before a full recovery from surgery. On leaving hospital I will join Miang in Bezzina House, a residence on the hospital campus, and then we will go to stay with Miang's Uncle Andy on the North Beaches, before returning to New Zealand. If all goes well, I will be back in Wellington sometime in early November.

I have had so many good wishes from friends and family. I have a tale to tell about this experience, but it may take a greater period of time off opiate-derivative drugs, and a little more personal energy, before I can tell it.

More Thursday

One of the happy tasks I undertake to improve my fitness is to inhale air through this little "ball raising" device. I do this for about 10 minutes every hour. The look of surprise on my face is quite genuine!

The observant blogger will notice the lack of a tube in my face. I'm down from 9 tubes to 2 - one abdomen drain and one iv line through which I am fed and administered drugs. I can control the morphine by pushing a button using a clever system that prevent overdose.

Thursday evening.

It is now a week from my surgery. I am sitting n a chair beside my bed, finally tapping away on my computer. Please excuse me if I don't process emails yet. Miang and I have to compete for the USB wireless device, and, in any case, my "processing" skills are very limited due to the analgesics. As you can see, I make a good appearance of being OK. My mind is still a bit muddled but I am making progress towards "normality"

Paul takes a stroll

It's Catherine here again. As you can see, Paul continues to reach new milestones with each day. He is now able to walk short distances with the assistance of a nurse (or as he himself said, "I took an attractive woman for a walk"). He can shower, shave and will soon be able to read and send emails. His catheter is out, his nose oxygen lines are out, and now his next goal is to get his bowel moving so that he can begin to drink water and then start on solids.

Miang says he is being very cheeky whenever he can keep his eyes open. Long may that last.

I am looking forward to flying out to Sydney on Wednesday night (arriving Friday morning) to spend some time with him.

Out of the tunnel and into the light

Paul has taken another step towards the light today, having been transferred to the High Dependency Unit. The medical team are pleased with his progress. He has been able to sit out of bed, he's lucid and the pain is under control. Apparently he has even managed to be cheeky! They are hoping to move him to a ward as soon as a bed becomes available.

One step at a time...

In the ICU

This is an email from Paul's sister Mary (reprinted here with her permission), which sums it up perfectly:

Dear family,

Well everyone the first crucial 24hrs is now over and Paul has done extraordinarily well.

Firstly, the surgery was very successful. One of the team contacted us one hour into the surgery to inform us that there was no more disease than expected and that all was proceeding well, however they called back a few hours later to inform us that they had found a few more tumours. At that stage we didn't know where. It was a long wait until 6.30pm when Miang got a phone call to inform us that the surgery was almost over and that the surgeon was happy that he had cleared all tumours. The intra-operative chemo had gone as planned and Paul would be in ICU within the hour. By 8pm we were able to see him briefly in ICU and he looked remarkably good. He was on a ventilator and in an induced coma however his colour was good and all his vital signs were stable.

One of the ICU Dr's met with us briefly and said that the cancer clearance had been complete despite there being more than initially expected. The only organ they removed was the gall bladder, largely for convenience, not because it was diseased. They had briefed Paul that they would probably need to remove the spleen but this was not required. They removed the peritoneum as planned and the additional surgery that was required was to remove a couple of tumours from his small intestine. They did not need to form a colostomy so this is unexpected good news for Paul. It had been a long day for all concerned not least the fantastic surgical team.

Miang had been wonderful during the whole day. We kept ourselves busy, doing some grocery shopping, organising ongoing accommodation for Miang, walking along the beach etc, all the while clutching our mobile phones waiting for news.

This morning we were able to go in to ICU at 10am. We were amazed to see Paul awake and recognising us. He was unable to talk to us of course because he was still on the ventilator but he was very keen to communicate with us and indicated to us that he wanted pen and paper to write messages to us!! I was worried he might next indicate that he wanted his laptop so that he could start writing a new book or something!!! There is no keeping this man down!!

I would not however like to give the impression that he was having a picnic. ICU, ventilators, multiple lines and tubes is no fun and he was at times a little agitated and distressed. We left him for a while to rest and went to the waiting room outside ICU. The staff called us back in some time later and we found that they had removed the ventilator and he was able to talk to us. When we left at 1pm he was about to be connected to a Morphine pump with which he could administer his own Morphine as he required it. Prior to that he was on a continous administration of analgaesia controlled by the staff.

There is a possibility that Paul may even be well enough to move from the Intensive Care Unit to the High Dependancy Unit later today.

There is every indication that Paul's outcome is going to be favourable. Thank you all for your multiple messages of love and support. We are enormously grateful. At this stage it almost feels that the whole world is lifting us up and giving us strength. Just prior to going in for surgery Paul thought about the Chilean miners rescue and their story of survival. Their long ordeal and their journey through a dark tunnel to their final rescue and survival was an appropriate analogy and he went into surgery with a powerfully positive focus. As his sister I am yet again in awe and inspired by this incredible man.

Love and thanks to you all
Mary
xxx

Out of Surgery

This is Catherine here, Paul's daughter. Paul's surgery has now been completed, after approximately 9-10 hours in theatre. The surgeons managed to achieve complete tumour removal, although they found more disease than had initially been expected. They have given him a PCI of 11. He will be moved to the ICU shortly.

Miang and his sister Mary will be able to see him in a few hours, and we should have more to report then.

Thanks for all your support.

The view from Cape Evans

I first went to the Antarctic in 1994. Since then I have returned five more times, on every occasion to a field camp near Cape Evans, the site of Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition hut. One of the most remarkable men on that 1911-1913 expedition was Edward Wilson, the physician and watercolour artist. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the author of "The Worst Journey in the World", made the winter traverse behind Ross Island to Cape Crozier and back, along with Wilson and "Birdie" Bowers. Cherry-Garrard describes Wilson as being so good a man as to be almost saintly. Wilson died in March 1912, along with Scott and Bowers on their return journey from the pole, their other companions, Oates and Evans, having perished before them. The painting is a water colour by Edward Wilson, of the view from the ramp behind Cape Evans, looking out across McMurdo Sound with the Barne Glacier in the background. In November 2006 I stood, along with Miang, at exactly this place.

This painting is one of the images I will carry in my mind over the next few weeks. From tomorrow I will be out of contact for a while. To all my friends and family who have sent wonderful messages of support, I give my heartfelt thanks. I am in good physical and mental condition to embark on this new journey.

Thomas Claude Fassihi Callaghan-some history

My new grandson's second name, Claude, connects with Callaghan family history. My uncle Claude was Dad's next older brother, in his family of 13 siblings. At the start of World War 1 my father was 14 years old, while Claude was 16.

After Gallipoli, where New Zealand and Australian troops served together in a combined (ANZAC) Corps, a separate New Zealand Division was created and committed to the Western Front. Claude signed up in the Hawkes Bay company, 2nd Battalion, Wellington Regiment, as part of that New Zealand Division. The Division went into action in the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916. After an initial assault, starting near the village of Longueval, the New Zealanders seized the Switch Trench system near Flers. Claude's battalion commenced action on the 18th of September. He was killed on the 29th of September, at age 18, while his battalion occupied the captured Gird Trench system, north of Flers on a rise above a road junction known as Factory Corner.

The New Zealand Division was relieved by British troops on October 4 and they retired behind the lines before redeployment to the Flanders section of the front in 1917. Claude's body, though never identified, is probably buried in the Caterpillar Valley cemetery near Longueval, along with the nearly 3000 New Zealanders killed over that period from 15 September to 4 October 1916. More than half of those killed lie in unidentified graves, but these unknown fallen have their names commemorated on a wall within the cemetery.

In October last year, Chris and Catherine and I visited the battlefields near Longueval and Flers. We found the site of the Gird trench and stood on what is now farmland, close to the place (pictured) where Claude was killed.

The next picture shows Catherine and Chris Callaghan standing by the wall on which Claude's name is inscribed.

It reads "Callaghan C.".

PhD student number 22 succesfully defends

Today, Mark Hunter had his oral exam, with an exposition on his thesis followed by detailed question and answers with his examiners, Professor Gordon Mallinson from the University of Auckland and Dr Ben Ruck, from Victoria University of Wellington. His overseas external examiner was Professor Joe Seymour, Montana State University.

Mark's thesis and defence were superb and singularly impressed his examiners. The picture shows Mark, Jillian, Samuel and Thomas, at the celebration after the examination.

Mark's PhD work concerned the development of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance techniques to measure the non-local dispersion tensor, a quantity which correlates fluid velocity at different points in space and time in a complex flow field. The measurements are extremely demanding and provide fascinating new insights. Mark's experimental work was verified by computer simulations, or as we prefer to think, the computer simulations were verified by Mark's experiments. These simulations involved a big contribution from Dr Andrew Jackson.

A PhD oral allows a real probing of the candidate's knowledge, not only of the thesis work, but also his or her general command of the science discipline in which they work. As PhD supervisor, my job during the exam is to remain silent unless asked for comment. This did give me time to snap Mark in a seriously pensive moment as shown.

The week leading up to the oral has been a struggle for all of us in the NMR group for the simple reason that Galleria Barrista cafe, our favourite source of great coffee on campus, has closed. The final picture shows members of our group on the last day of Galleria's trading, along with the owners, Tania and Perry, both of whom have been wonderful hosts, and friends we will sorely miss.

Thomas Claude Fassihi Callaghan

Thomas Claude Fassihi Callaghan, son of Chris Callaghan and Hiva Fassihi, was born in London at 15:47 hours on 1 October (3:47 am October 2, New Zealand time). Mum and baby are both well.

Thomas weighed in at 3.98 kg, pretty much the same birth weight as older brother James (who turns 3 on October 4).

Thomas is a fine first name. His third, Fasshihi, is the maternal family name while his second, Claude, has a poignant Callaghan connection.

PS: Thanks to daughter Catherine for the photo, along with artistic rendering.

A date for surgery

Much earlier than I had expected, 14 October 2010 will be the day that my surgery takes place at St George Hospital in Sydney. The surgical team, having assessed my chemotherapy schedule, have offered me an early opportunity for the cytoreduction/peritonectomy/HIPEC surgery. The proximity gives me little time to catch my breath, let alone to put on some more weight and improve my fitness, but it is the best possible opportunity if I am to have the most successful outcome.

My chemotherapy is now over, at least in the pre-operative sense. Miang and I will travel over to Sydney a couple of days beforehand. If all goes to plan, I should have a recovery period of about three weeks, including a few days in Intensive Care immediately following surgery. There is always the risk that surgery may not proceed, due to discovery, in the operating theatre, of more extensive disease than anticipated. And there are significant risks of side effects ("morbidities"), which complicate recovery. Nothing about this type of surgery is routine or straightforward, but I have the utmost confidence in the team. They have performed hundreds of these operations over the past six years.

If all goes well during surgery and recovery, I will face the next, longer term phase, involving discovery of the degree to which the process has been effective in eliminating the disease. My odds, based on radiological assessment of the level of disease, are around 50% 5 year survival. The graph shows typical international data (PCI stands for Peritoneal Carcinoma Index. Mine is about 6)

Many people have expressed concern about the rather aggressive nature of the surgery. (For further information see http://www.peritonectomy.com/index.html). I agree that it is hard to contemplate, but then, all surgery is, by its nature, hard to contemplate. Further, I do have the advantage of being under general anesthetic. For family members in attendance and waiting, the experience is hard. For me, the period under anesthetic involves an absence of awareness, an odd phenomenon which I experienced during my bowel surgery in 2008. My focus must be singular. On emerging from theatre I have to do all in my power to recover.

Latest CEA

My latest CEA measurement delivered a pleasant surprise. At 8.7 ng/ml, this is the lowest reading in nearly a year and a clear indication that the level of disease has plateaued, albeit under chemotherapy.

This latest blood test brings an end to cycle 6. Now my chemotherapy course comes to an end as I prepare for surgery in Sydney. My next task is to increase my body mass, and to build up muscle strength. I am exercising by walking and, when the Welington weather is too unpleasant, by means of an exercycle at home.