liam getreu

Amazing. Who would have thought? I’m sitting in a nice bed and breakfast in Bright for the Autumn Festival, so I thought I’d load up my laptop until the DVD starts playing to do some work… and lo and behold! Wireless access! Fantastic!

I was going to be offline for a little bit, but it looks like I’ll have great access for a lot of the time. Weather is quite miserable, so a lot of time inside the cooling with the dogs playing games and watching DVDs.

And now — on with the show!

With the first part of my break (okay, maybe not break; holiday?) over, I am tonight flying out of Perth and into Sydney. Well, not really tonight, tomorrow morning, actually. At a quarter past midnight. Midnight horror. Argh…

I’ve done some very interesting things over the last week-or-so. I took lots of photos — everything from relaxing at home, Habo’s third Pesach seder, a Freo Dockers match, and a sojourn to King’s Park for some scones. All in all a very fun holiday. Full of friends from Israel, friends from old days gone by, family, and of course, sunshine! I even got a tour of an iiNet DSLAM in an exchange here in Perth! (Sadly, I wasn’t allowed to take photos, though.)

In Sydney I’m going to have lots of fun — again seeing friends, and also attending the Lizzies on Friday night. Whirlpool’s up for an award, which should be good fun.

And then when I get home, a bit Yom Ha’atzmaut party at Rod Laver Arena. Fun times ahead. :)

Since I got back from Israel, a lot of people have asked me what my Shnat highlight was? What was the best thing that I did all year?

Well, here’s one of the answers that I give: teaching Bedouin kids Hebrew on Kibbutz Revivim. We taught them the basics. Things like the letters of the aleph bet (the Hebrew alphabet), colours, fruits, body parts, basic things to give them a head start at school.

The most challenging thing was that we had to communicate with the fathers of the kids, who spoke no English at all, only Hebrew and Arabic. Now my Hebrew was alright, but nowhere near good enough to do that. Usually Loni just spoke to him on the phone, but once or twice I had to do it. It was a real challenge because he spoke very quickly, and very unclearly, making understanding, translating and responding in a timely manner difficult.

But that’s why I loved it. It was a challenge. And it was fun. It was Shnat.

After more than a month in hospital, I’m finally able to go home today, albeit for only a few hours.

My latest treatment is TPN: total parenteral nutrition, which is being given through a central IV line in my chest. It means that I get all the nutrition I need through my veins and don’t have to rely on my bowel to absorb food. Because my gut’s pretty screwed up. There’s a giant narrowing and blockage sitting there in the small bowel that needs to be removed. But I am so malnourished and skinny that surgery is too risky, which is where TPN comes in.

But the good thing about TPN is that it can be given over only, say, 18 hours, leaving six hours where I can be disconnected from the pumps and roam free! I’ve been going out and wandering around a bit — I went to the city with Mum, and gone outside and downstairs a few times — but this is the first time I’m having an adventure. Home should be good. It’ll probably be hard to leave when it’s time to go home, but it’s better than not going at all.

And then tomorrow the adventures continue! I have to go out to university to enrol in my course, and then defer for another six months. That should be good. Hours of waiting in line… Fun… At least I’ll be outside. :)

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged anything, almost three weeks to be exact. And a lot has happened in that time. A lot to set back my plans for the next few weeks. Well, maybe few months…

Since I got back to Melbourne in what I thought was reasonably health, everything took a turn after I saw my specialist. Turns out I was sicker than I thought. My doctor decided to take a blood test with astonishing results. Most important things were dangerously low. So low that had I have gone from normal to those kind of levels quickly, I probably would have died. I’d clearly been sick for a while.

So the last two weeks have been full of treatment at the wonderful Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. I got a whole lot of potassium and phosphate infusions, five blood transfusions, high doses of steroids, and of course nutrition. And tomorrow I go under anaesthetic for a colonoscopy so doctors can see what’s actually going on inside me.

But I’ve managed to have a bit of fun. Because I’ve been in hospital over some big days — Christmas (okay, so I claimed it), my birthday and New Year’s Eve — I’ve been getting out of hospital more, and ‘enjoying’ my stay more than usual. On Christmas, for example, the charity TLC for Kids brought around pressies for the adolescents on the ward: brand spanking new 2gb iPod Nano. Nice stuff I thought. And then for my birthday I went gambling at the casino for the first time which was cool, and then bought myself a nice birthday present as well. I’m now enjoying this wonderful product along with the RCH education department’s wireless Internet service. Technology’s great, eh?

And in the meantime, I’m going to be in hospital for another week or so. Hopefully my Internet access and further fun with my laptop will continue. God knows I’ve got lots planned. Finally, a big thanks to everyone who’s sung out their hellos since I’ve got back, and their best wishes to me for my birthday, and to get well soon. It’s really nice to hear friendly voices on the phone every now and again. Peace!