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A serious online art gallery, family history, church music, choirs, organ music, art, stray opinions, wild places, books, ideas, wit and stupidity..... a miscellany of things I love or seem to get involved in.
Updated : Now and then
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PAULY has arrived from the SPCA.
He is ten months old, the last six probably being a tormented and terrorised plaything of young children, having been a "free to a good home" kitten. Dumped when he had become unmanageable and needed vet care. Now he is almost feral, frightened, defensive, angry - and I have a bruise and teeth marks to prove it - and a mission. He sure can pack a punch. He has spent four days so far in peace and quiet and isolation in the bathroom in his own "house" with his "own" SPCA bedding and necessities. Every hour or so I have handled him and cuddled him despite growls. Trust is being established.
I will note here our progress.
Day 2. Carried into kitchen in my arms - trembling thereafter.
Day 3. Went backwards - had to consolidate gains.
Day 4. Into catcage in his bedding and time in front of TV, and beside me at the computer. Relaxed. Has said "meow?" - once. Visual contact with Antonia and Ambrose OK. No trembling
Day 6 -Sat up and meowed to be given some warm soup ! Shared cream with him, and left the cage open. Hopped out and explored living area. Back in his house and into bathroom at night.
Day 7 ditto.
Day 8 About the living area and eating others food. Allows a cuddle and has begun to wash himself and roll in the sunlight.
Day 9. Ditto then started purring when back in bed. Moods very changeable.
Day 10. Allows cuddle even when bad mood kicks in but can end up purring. Gets in to conversation. Has explored downstairs. Coat is improving with his grooming.
Day 11. Ditto but time also upstairs with me at computer in the sun.
Day 12. Decamped to beneath the phone table and spent the night there.
Day 13. Still under the phone table but at 8pm went back to the bathroom for food and toilet and play - in my presence. Tail up. Purred and went to bed.
Days 14-20 - seems to have plateaued with regular in/out of bathroom / downstairs / under phone table. He will not be going outside for quite a while yet. Unfazed by Antonia. Lots of cuddles, even tummy rubs, has been combed, settles on my knee at length very relaxed. Sleeps after big sighs. Very little / no snarling now. Occasional bites are gentle playbites. Does a lot of sleeping, but I think he has a lot to sleep off. Got to get some toys. PingPong in the shower would be fun as he digs up the plughole and has fun there. He has asked to go through doors, but as yet has not come to me for cuddles of his own volition. Has yet to spend time in my bed and explore upstairs... 3 Weeks - SPCA phoned for progress report..... YES - he's on my bed now. 4 weeks - sleeps alongside me.
Edith May Cathey (nee Lander)
15.11.1915 -- 11.5.2010
A Tribute - the last of her generation.
May has lived for nearly sixty years in this town of Gadsden, Alabama, having married into one of its older families in the early 50s. But for some reason known only to herself she has never taken US citizenship. I could never understand this. How could anyone live through so many Presidential elections and never have a voice. And it's not that May did not have any political opinions – always a staunch conservative. We think that the reason May never became fully American is because she was a New Zealander at heart, a farm girl, and “home” was a substantial farm well away from the city life, in Taranaki, a province in the North Island of New Zealand.
Only a few months back, she phoned me with the thought that she'd like to come home to “stay a while”. That caused international consternation in Auckland, London, and the US Embassy. All a matter of the Green Card. Well May, in the closer presence of God, you are home now, and you can feel the chilly southerly wind off the Tasman Sea as you wish. You can track the flight of the tuis, and the wood pigeons. You can sing again “ Lo, Hear the Gentle Lark” as you did as a gifted young woman. You are reunited with John and all your generation.
May Lander first came to America before World War Two. She had been advised by the great operatic soprano Amelita Gallicurci (on tour in New Zealand) to spend some time perfecting her operatic coloratura soprano voice at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. So, granddad, Jack Lander, financed her trip to New York and set her up there. Then war broke out. May had to stay in New York until the end, (civilian sea travel was off) even though she did not want to continue at the Met. The catty, competitive soprano life was not for her. The nuns had not prepared her for the poisonous jealousy, and backhanded compliments of Lily Pons. She worked as a florist, and loved the young life in New York. She had a little penthouse flat, and granddad sent his entire wool clip each year to be sold in America to help her. And the excitement when she was able to come back after the war!!!
Then I really got to know her. Hours of childhood play in the shubbery building stick houses. Horrors hunting for skulls in the Land Wars redoubt called "the orchard" - (and never finding any) My first music and French lessons from her. Always supportive of whatever I was up to. Interest in what I was doing – even in recent weeks, sixty years later, comparing our arm surgery and radiation.
May returned to America in the early 1950s and then married John Cathey, and became part of this community. And many of you will have more stories to tell of her life among you. A devout Presbyterian, a kindly generous woman, with a flair for flowers, still singing in the parish choir, independent, indefatigable, up a ladder painting at 90, driving “the elderly” around town, and so often causing minor calamity. We worry in NZ about her cat left alone now.
My lasting memory of you, May, is at Auckland Airport bound for LA, where we had killed time naughtily sampling all the perfumes in Duty Free, and you were later wheeled away as an elderly Special Passenger, swathed in a deadly combination of Lanvin, Oscar de la Renta, Chanel and Yves St Laurent.
May, you have been such a character in our family and will be so deeply missed. Go in peace, my love, and enter into your eternal inheritance. I toast you with a slug of Cointreau!
Ambrosia sings at St Columba
AMBROSIA'S CONCERT DEBUT
We sang our first public concert in St Columba Grey Lynn on 14 March 2010. What a wonderful venue. Just the right size for us. We will be back, and have been invited to do parish occasions too. A great acoustic and reception. The choir did well. Even the unique and subtle Arvo Part Da Pacem we made peculiarly our own - the definitive performance and the rewrite within an hour. Ah well, there will always be a gremlin somewhere in the search for perfection.
The best performance of the afternoon, I think, was Stanford's Blue Bird, (an atmospheric setting of Mary Coleridge's poem),People commented on the purity of the soprano line. And his Quick we have but a second, was done with Irish dance vigour. Josquin's Mille regretz also went well, a melancholy work in the Phrygian mode, and the German Romantics were popular. We are a credible choir at our first outing. Next - Byrd Mass for Four voices, Mews A sound came, Josquin O Salutaris, and Byrd Ave Verum all at St Albans. More details
< www.ambrosians.org>
A summer holiday with a Summer Scholarship under the magnolia tree with a glass of wine and sets of autograph string quartets to help edit. This guy's time has come. Yeah right. Well the possums have eaten the tree, and its raining. But what an intriguing experience with 18th century autographs - (in need of twink) Getting into the head of the composer. What did he really intend...? Even an inky thumbprint! http://www.wranitzky.com/
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
spawns everywhere it seems. So it pays to be blind, dumb, weak, dependent, to cope with someone so incurably blighted. Otherwise keep clear. And hide the knives and scissors. Narcissists are deeply and dangerously threatened by insight, capability, intelligence, character. They wreck lives, health, homes, families, marriages (unless they're co-dependent), friendships, parishes, workplaces. Far best well away.
"Narcissists are aided, abetted and facilitated by four types of people and institutions: the adulators, the blissfully ignorant, the self-deceiving and those deceived by the narcissist."
Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures. ... They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities.
George Gerber
Those who can, do, Those who can't, manipulate, lie and bully..
(GB Shaw misquoted)
Half the harm that is done in this world
Is due to people who want to feel important
They don't mean to do harm
But the harm does not interest them.
Or they do not see it, or they justify it
Because they are absorbed in the endless struggle
To think well of themselves.
T. S. Eliot
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Ex-Cathedra
The Desert Fathers used to pray "Good Lord protect us from Bishops and The City."
Recycled-
This is a wonderful story about Itzhak Perlman for those of us who will lose or have lost a string or two along our way...
On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City . If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight.
He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.
By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play. But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap - it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn't.
Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to accept that.
SWINE FLU REACHES A.A. MILNE
You could see him modulating, changing, re- composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. Then suddenly people rose and cheered.
There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done
He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone . .
" You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left".......
IMPORTANT-A MUST-READ - (all over the web) Pianist, Karl Paulnack at Boston Conservatory understands the role of music ! PDF HERE
More information on the music page >> HERE
Life in Waterloo Quadrant - ironically f r e e - of church ....
2009: BMus(Hons) program. Research in Musicology & essay on JSB St Matthew Passion Reception History in NZ - requested written as a Proposal for PhD. Research essay on Anglo-Saxon Neumes as in the Winchester Gradual 11th Century, chant for the Tuesday of Passion Week - Essay on Gregorian Hymns Introits and Graduals. Some of these essays will be loaded to my music page as PDFs. Gripping whodunnits! Post-Grad Summer Scholarship on Wranitsky edition with Dr Nancy November
2010: Dissertation - Chant of the Divine Office focussing on the Night Office and Vespers as found in the 14th century Penpont Antiphoner of Bangor, with feasts of St David, St Thomas of Canterbury - all new liturgies of the day. And two research essays - one on Medieval Hymnody, and instead of Medieval polyphony as neumed in the Winchester Troper (11th cent), perhaps a white cotton gloved hands-on analysis of the 14th century Antiphonal in Auckland Library in the Sir George Grey Collection, with a view to having it fully detailed in international musicological databases of chant for the Divine Office. OR - a study on some digitised manuscripts online...
2011: MMus Thesis on two 14th century Manuscripts in Alexander Turnbull Library being digitised for us now.
2012 --- >? PhD Thesis on Anglo-Saxon plainsong in unstaved neumes in British Library, London - PhD Real sleuthing medieval whoddunit. Outpost of empire colonialism.
Its getting way too serious here!
A Night Out With The Boys
The other night I was invited out for a night with “the boys”. I told my wife that I would be home by midnight…. Promise ! Well, the hours passed and the beer was going down way too easy.
At around 3am, drunk as a skunk, I headed for home.
Just as I got in the door, the cuckoo clock in the hall started up and cuckooed 3 times.
Quickly, I realized she'd probably wake up, so I cuckooed another 9 times. I was really proud of myself, having a quick witty solution, even when smashed, to escape a possible conflict.
The next morning my wife asked me what time I got in, and I told her 12 o'clock. She didn't seem disturbed at all. Whew! Got away with that !
She then told me that we needed a new cuckoo clock. When I asked her why, she said, “Well, last night our clock cuckooed three times, then said ‘oh fuck,' cuckooed 4 more times, cleared its throat, cuckooed another 3 times, giggled, cuckooed twice more, and then farted.”
THE ADVENTURES OF A NEW BLUE MERC
For sale. Very low mileage. Only runs in low gear, forward and reverse - the latter at speed. WOF and Rego OK. Wot offers? (This was a real Irish advert)
But don't you think the getaway was a bit rude and insulting?
THE DESMOID TUMOUR RESEARCH FOUNDATION NEEDS SUPPORT>>> HERE ________________________________
These are extremely rare tumours that are outside the scope of usual cancer research.
I HAVE A PUZZLE
With the prospect of editing some early music in view I am doing a little preliminary research. It has taken me to the Rolls Series, "Rerum Britanicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores" now courtesy of Princeton University who have put these early texts online. This might be an important passage for me in due course. It may tell us more about the music there that can be useful to my editing. So, if perchance you have a worthwhile contribution I would be glad to hear from you! There are gaps quite insoluble. I have not yet finished my attempt at translation. And I am not an expert Latinist !
Below is the extract from the "Rolls Series" available now from the Public Records Office in London - material from the Rolls of the Middle Ages.
It is reputedly by Thomas of Elmham, (or his companion) a monk of St Augustine's monastery, and chaplain to Henry V at Agincourt. Or it was intended for his history of the St Augustine Monastery at Canterbury which he completed only as far as 800, hence the rough Latin draft by someone of the contemporary account - possibly written from recollections about 1435.
It accounts for the music used in Canterbury Cathedral as the monastic chapel for St Augustine's Monastery nearby, A medieval serivice sheet. In 1416, after Agincourt, the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund met for some time with Henry V at Canterbury to sign the Treaty of Canterbury, forming an alliance between the two against France.
________________________________________
At issue, the three popes to be deposed, (at the Council of Constance 1414-18 ) and lands of France, and matters of religion. Just what were Henry's views? And also Chichelle's?
The monk-writer has musical interest and services may have showcased works by Dunstable as the flower of English talent of the day. Names of works correspond to his. The writer may even have been a monk singing "in choir".
Easter must have been late that year as Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity and St John the Baptist are all within weeks of this conference in mid-summer. Funny, there is no reference to Becket, as Henry V made many pilgrimages to Canterbury. But there is mention of St Edward and St George - Chichele had just made St George patron saint of England in 1415 in lieu of St Edward the Confessor. And they fought and won in the Somme (aka Agincourt) under his cross of red banner.
Whatever, a good time was had of the visit to England - a fine summer in the south, time at Windsor (? hunting deer) and an opinion formed of fine musicianship and churchmanship in England, as the Emperor and entourage departed for Calais via Dover.
The original probably looks like the text (two) below, by Henry VI. Translation has defied many over six centuries, and for sure I'm no better Latinist. What are the problems?
1. The writer is being deliberately obscure for some reason. Parts of words fit across several lines. (Perhaps there is a monkish idea of virtue in anonymity but in admiring Dunstable he just had to name him crypticly.)
NO ! - LIGHT has dawned on this one. He is deliberately writing using musical compositional tools like hocketing, talea, or cantus firmus. Of course, he had no vocabulary as we do today to discuss the nascent polyphonic style. No way of describing voice leading and part writing, so he's doing it with words. Clever !
2. He uses abbreviations and contractions.
3. Letter formation is confusing and inaccurate. Hence my trialling it in Old English script. Note several letters can still be mis-read in this exact modern font. s/a/e, n/u, i/r, g/s.... and no doubt the years have faded some letters in the original.
4. There is monastic terminology not generally known by non-church musicians, relating to the calendar, Liber Usualis and Breviary.
5. Sometimes he just cant spell!
6. He seems to be jotting notes, rather than writing full sentences.
7. Sometimes the copyist at the Rolls can't figure out letters, so there are compounded errors.
I get the feeling that this is more a "monastery" event than cathedral. A high point in their history. St Augustine's monastery is now in ruins. Henry V and Sigismund would have been guests of Henry Chichele, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at his palace in Palace St. The other nobles and advisers would have been guests at the monastery. And the servants would have stayed at the Eastridge Hospital with the pilgrims and slept on the hay with the fleas...
The font I am using below is called Barlols-Random, and is a Gothic font from urbanfont.com I hope parallels the hand written original. But it may not show in your browser. It may default to Times Roman.
Gloria post toto sunt repetenda choro. •
Dominie* ferial. feriaS. feria4. feriaJ.
tem,u late til- min, date nomen Domini neJiclta
Can Jubi Con Lau Be
ferla 6.
ate Dominum de calls (m,l cor mcum ix Dominn. .
Laud Exul in ordine psalle.
fnuo Trioitati dietui Deul ia Fatrl Tlrtns bi lani Sum Bene Quis Glor Honor Ti •\
eam,u Fatrem. (Patrem)
I Benedi dabis his.
Pose missam celebre memoratur Trinus et Unus ;
Cum versu, " Tibi laus," 0. repetenda patet.
Versiculo dat Collectam celebrando sacerdos ;
Ascendit Christus, Sumpta Maria tenet.
Hie vir despiciens memor est tibi, Sancte Georgi !
His sunt versiculi cum prece more pan'. (pari)
Post Complementum, divinorum memores sex
Hi sunt sollennes, quos numerare potes. {
nitau ritus Sanctos Edwardnt Johannes Baptiata
Tri Spi Rex Pneco
3ancttu Georsia! Saacta Maria
Miles Regina beata {
bera no* nl Sanete Spirittu Itex Dentil ste. lsr natoa
Li Ve Confer ave, jungis In ]
r-tt vere martyr ad placitum chorl. .
Hie Placet hsec.
CAPITULUM XVIII. — DE KEGRESSU IMPERATORIS AD
CALESIAM PER DOVORIAM; ET DE CEDULIS IN PLA-
TEIS ET VICIS PER SUOS DIMISSIS, AD LAUDEM
ANGLORUM.
Post nova scripta data, post laudes inde relatas,
Dovoriam petiit Induperator iter.
Sparserunt equites per vicos atque plateas
Hsec laudum scripta, mente notanda piis. — "
Vale et gaude, glorioso cum triumpho, O tu felix
Anglia, et benedicta, "
Quia, quasi angelica natura, gloriosa laude Jesum
adorans, es jure dicta. "
Hanc tibi do laudem quam recto jure mereris."
(u=n - stant) Proses with psalms, versicles & responses 'as set', the Gloria after all of them sung chorally. The Lords Day(Sunday), and four days Ferial days (Psalm modes i-viii not melismatic "ferial" not festal use) (J=d) Contionem=contilumin
The songs of the assembly/conference rejoice, praise and bless the name of the Lord.
On the 6th ferial day..
Laudate Dominum (Ps 117) the clever/elaborate way (ie melismatic), my favourite (cor mecum) (Amazing to know the chant he is talking about. It is lovely music. Not just a Psalm tone.)
Afterwards a Mass commemorating the Three in One, with verses "Tibi Laus" ... repeated and extended. Versicles given the Collect by the celebrating priest.
Ascendit Christus, Assunpta Maria in tenor- this monk knows technicalities of music (Motets by Dunstable.)
At this time (here/now) men look upon and remember you. St George. (Archbishop had just made him patron saint of England in time for Agincourt 1415) Here are versicles and prayers composed for his death.
Afterwards Compline, six remembrances of the divine, here ingenious, here rhythmically and /melodically effective (and he demonstrates the hocketing and sharing of a melodic line)
Libera Nos = Chant for Trinity Veni sancte Spritus - major work by Dunstable using text by Stephen Langton Cryptic - Was woven / plaited by Dunstable (Dsntil)
Domine Iesu Christ, qui me creasti, redemisti, et praeordinasti ad hoc quod sum: tu scis quid de me facere vis: fac de me secundum voluntatem tuam, cum misericordia. Amen., it's nearly impossible to eradicate the lovely strains of Henry George Ley, who set the text to music. You can hear a portion of it here (opens in Windows Media Player or Apple Quicktime) Written in Latin by King Henry VI, the English translation** is this:
Lord Jesus Christ, who hast created me, redeemed me, and brought me hither to that which I am: Thou knowest what Thou wouldst do with me: Do with me according to Thy will, with mercy.
This is not a case of predestination as argued on AnglicanOnline, its a case of trust in and total acceptance of God, Self and the World.. Its OK to pass on...
AMBROSE on holiday at Pahi photographed by Aunty Maggie.. I think this shows his blind eye clearly. Its detached retina is not reflecting light. Await puppy photos being scanned. And below, Henry, 14 mths, has just arrived to live with Aunty Maggie... Ambrose and Peter both had the Easter Bunny to murder. (Update - Henry goes back to his breeder to be with his half brother. Didn't work out. God bless ! )
THE MIRACLE OF MODERN SURGERY- see below..
Bionic Woman back on organ....
Since I first posted this comment, I have discovered a rash of internet searches from all over the world (USA, Europe, Third World, Asia..) in, bringing up the issue of tendon transfers and arm/hand anatomy. Obviously either patients like me seeking solace, or medical students. Yes, I note a rush of interest at the beginning of the northern academic year. Anatomy 101 of the upper extremities. So I am tightening up the history, as ever a teacher ! And of late I have discovered that I am a "known patient" at MCS - a difficult case they all seem to have an interest in !!
Below are the three tendon transfers made on my paw in November 2006, after the removal of neural fibroma aka Aggressive Fibromatosis about the posterior interosseus nerve, in 2005 along with radial nerve and supinator muscle, all of which took about 10-15 years to reach a point of diagnosis. I will never forget the grateful feeling of relief post-op (possibly silly on morphine) that the exhausting pressure of the tumour (2cm x 3cm x 2cm) on the radial nerve was over. This, even when the Superficial Sensory Radial Nerve was giving me hell that morphine could not touch. Months of physio followed, preparing muscle for new function before the tendon transfers about a year later.
I think the first tendon transfer pic should show FCU linked to EDC.and the second pic should go to FDS to EPL not the Abductor - but its the general idea. There are all sorts of possibilities I have lived a whole life without one Palmaris Longus and this was just discovered by the surgeon who had planned to use it. OK, plan B ... A pity that I went to theatre longing to be put to sleep after a disturbed night on the ward. I had the offer of watching all this under local anaesthetic. But it would have required keeping totally still for three hours as Tim worked under a microscope weaving all together. Eight weeks of staged physio followed after emerging from the cricket bat cast. Patience, patience.....And yet more physio... still two years on.
However, it was not a blinding success due in part to the heavy radiation pre-op on the tumour in the arm. Too much scar tissue. The wrist is still dropped after PT to ECRB. This is about to be re-worked tenolysis as the tendons are apparently caught in scar tissue and will not slide as they ought. Even electrical stimulation by the physio could not budge them. And the thumb will not extend as it ought though it is slowly gaining.. That will be dealt to last of all. Debatable. Great improvements have been made in articulation of the arm with the recent removal of the radial head, jammed with defomity of ligaments, and an old healed crack. 15 degrees of pronation and supination have now become 65 degrees or so out of possible 90. Next step is tenolysis - depending upon a round table consultation with other consultants..
Friday 6 June 09 . (AHA - we have had the consultation complete with Powerpoint Presentation. Consensus is that the tendon transfer has come apart in the arm. Pronator Teres is floating unattached under another muscle and the tendon from ECRB is lost somewhere. MRI #3 coming up, and exploratory surgey...)
Monday 8 Sept 09. TODAY THE RESULTS OF MRI #3 - Another Aggressive Fibromatosis tumour a bit further/half way down the radius, right against the bone, compromising the tendon transfer ECRB-PT. Must be 10cm long. No surgery allowed as it will make things worse. No more radiation - 50gy maxed out. See Gary French in November, and will probably be faced with Gleevec chemo. ugh.. But I see there are herbal possibilities - eg " Pau d'arco" whatever that is. WATCH THIS SPACE. I have registered now as a patient on www.dtrf.org (Desmoid Tumour Research Foundation) and joined a couple of support groups.. These are the worst tumours - lawless and aggressive and very rare (3: 1,000,000pa) and little understood. I wonder if Gary has kept my block?
Tuesday 18 November 08 - Meet Gary at Manukau Super Clinic - > Oncologogy -> Chemo BUT - I am already on Pau d'arco tabs, (reputed to reduce tumours) and have saliva on the way to Canterbury for hormone testing, as I want to be well prepared for this meeting. Chemo is likely one year on Gleevec..... Below are articles and sites or relevance so far. TBD and CancerCompass are support groups with all sorts of shared info. Tues 18 Nov..08... GOOD NEWS! GOOD NEWS! GOOD NEWS! .... I don't have to have chemo. The mass is hard scar tissue indistinguishable from tumour by MRI .... Case of too many cooks/surgeons. Carry on with Pau d'acro and hormone. DTRF can possibly have some tissue for research as the tumour is kept at Middlemore. Another check next year ! Disease is dormant as a result of heavy radiation and surgery. I'VE BEATEN THE ODDS SO FAR !
http://www.tbd.com/group/1030/discussion/309499/show
http://www.cancercompass.com/message-board/message/single,2686,13.htm
http://jjco.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/34/8/472
http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/14/2/181
http://www.paudarco.org/
Tuesday 17 November 09 - Met surgeon Gary French at Manukau Super Clinic - AND I HAVE BEEN DISCHARGED !!!! The disease is sufficiently dormant to discharge me into GP's care. The site is getting softer and more healthy on each examination now. I have a card to return if need be, but really ------ WE'VE WON..... it has decided not to return. Prayer, intercession, heavy radiation, radical surgery, pau d'arco, holy unction.... who knows...
_______________________________________________________________________
Since loading the pipe organ progress, yes I am playing Bach again, including some diploma music, over two years after the first surgery, but plenty of repertoire is lost forever simply because of the configuration of the left hand part - even basic hymn tunes. I got back on the organ six months after transfers. Luckily the left hand is only one of four limbs used by organists. Each time I play there are minute improvements, and I look forward to playing one day soon without the dropped wrist. (Sorry that aint gonna happen now!) What I am delightfully discovering is new music that I now have to learn. Even Bach has undiscovered gems - his dark, brooding chorale prelude on the German Our Father is a recent discovery. And a salutory lesson indeed... some works have IMPROVED with the demands of physical effort, concentration, care and new insight. I can cope with about an hour of playing now, and soon will explore Theodore Dubois' Sortie Toccata. ANY Toccatas after tendon transfers are just miracles.... But as a member of our congregation said - it's ALL a miracle. I remain on the intercession list. (ER.... SEE ABOVE....)
So, if you are reading this as a patient anxious about the future, do take heart. Yes, I have been lucky and have had some wonderful surgeons, leaders in their fields who may not be matched in some of the places visiting this site. But tendon transfers have been done for over fifty years now. And I know I am demanding more finesse of my paw than most patients. You will find new meaning in "patience".
And now named credits are due with gratitude: Dr Michael Lockwood, my GP (now departed for an IRISH VILLAGE to be Doc Martin as it were), Gary French FRACS (orthopaedic oncology), Tim Tasman-Jones FRACS (hand surgeon and painter ), Alieke van Middelaar (Head of Physio) and Margaret Chiaroni NZRN (Parish Nurse), Graeme Stevens (radiologist) and latterly Wolfgang Heiss-Dunlop MD FRACS (Hand surgeon)
I list here some of the JS Bach works that I can now resume playing: The Great Prelude & Fugue in C min (BWV 546 - a big work with effort), about half of Orgelbuchlein, Five part Fantasia in C minor, selected movements of Sei Gregrusset, and more to be listed. Of course there are other composers... Reger.. perhaps Franck..Pachelbel, Buxtehude - I have played some of theirs too.
Sarah in Cambridge is awaiting an MP3 of me back on Bach at the organ. ! Will try ! It will look silly for sure but should sound OK in time if I can differentiate 4-5 fingers. And the Parish Nurse deserves a fundraiser recital. I am getting used to life without debilitating Radial Tunnel Syndrome - aka misdiagnosed Tennis Elbow for fifteen years.
