Still going strong

Yeah, I know - I said I was going to try to be more vigilant with this, but meh, what ya gonna do? I'll try and do my regular recap of what's been going on, no doubt missing some vital pieces of information. Anyhoo...

So my first weekend out of hospital was spent seeing The Audreys at The Gov. Fricken awesome. These guys really are something, and they're only getting bigger and better. They showcased a couple new tunes, which down really well. I can't wait for the new cd.

The weekend after was The Vasco Era (again at The Gov). Alice, Pete and I arrived a couple hours earlier to get some dinner, which was delish, before wandering inside and grabbing ourselves a nice booth near the stage. I think I'm turning into an old man - no more do I want to go into the crowd and be pushed around and get all sweaty and having disgusting sweaty people rub up against me. It's just not fun anymore... I'd rather sit in a nice comfortable couch, with a drink, a table to put it on, and a nice vantage point to watch an awesome band play. For a more detailed picture of the night, check out my friend Suzi's awesome review here.

After the gig we went back to the Battery Kids bassist's house for a bit of a shindig. There was lots of dancing, strobe lights, people on acid and freezing temperatures. Quite a night really. Didn't get to bed until around 4:30am, which was interesting as Alice and I had to be at a breakfast at 10 the next morning. Ah well... such is life when you want to be cool.

That's about the end of the fun and exciting things that have been going on. Last Friday I received some bad news - a cf friend of mine had passed away. She had been in hospital during the whole of my admission, and things didn't look too good then. In fact, she had been in for around 4 weeks before I went in, so all up she would have been in there for at least 2 months. She had told me that up until the end of last year, her lung function was in the 80% region, and in the space of 6 months, that had gone down to around 20%, so much so that she was told she would need a transplant. She was to fly to Melbourne to meet the transplant team, but told she was too sick to fly. Luckily, the transplant team were actually in Adelaide for some meeting or something, so they were able to see her and get her on the list anyway. But obviously too much damage had already been done... A day or two after I was discharged, I got word that she had been moved into the ICU. I had sporadic reports that she was doing well, until I got the last message on Friday.

Usually with cf, things don't happen suddenly (well, not that I've experienced or seen personally anyway). The state she was in when I saw her in hospital, I would have expected her to last maybe 6 months. So the fact that passed away in that short space of time that I was out of hospital was shock enough, letalone the fact that she was healthier than me at the end of last year. But apparantly it can happen, more likely to girls than boys. I guess I've just been lucky enough so far to have not experienced it.

Her funeral was on Friday just gone, which is never a fun thing to go to. But it does give you some closure, which was definitely needed as I think everyone was still in disbelief due to the suddenness of the whole thing. There were heaps of people, ranging from family, friends, cf people, and hospital staff from both the Royal Adelaide Hospital and the Children's Hospital.

Alice is doing well, although still busy as anything. She is still doing 6am starts, which doesn't give her much energy past 5pm. She is managing to get quite a bit of jewellery done still, which is a VERY good thing, both for her mind as well as her clients.

One last thing which I think you'll all be very happy to hear - I've started swimming again. It's so good to finally be doing something again, and hopefully this will keep me good for the rest of winter. I'm hoping it will also get my fitness up so I don't die in the snow. My lungs are still feeling quite strong and clear, and I'm not coughing up much at all. I'm very happy about that. :)

That's it I'm pretty sure... hopefully everyone's doing well.

Rating: 8.3

What I'm listening to: Sia - Lady Croissant