Bluey is smart and I get Jimmy

I'm out of puff a bit today and it's frustrating. I feel not too bad. No fever, no pain, no nausea so it's a bit of thing with me that I just don't get going very well. I'm starting to get what our friend Jimmy used to say.

Jimmy is one of the oldest residents of our little suburb of Takura. In fact Takura, the town, is a sign on the road and Jimmy's fruit stand. Jimmy owns tonnes of land and he along with his family still cultivate sugar cane and pineapples. He has had a fruit shop and general store on the main road since way before we moved there. He's in the store every day of the week although he gets help from various daughters and grand daughters and gives that first job to many of the young poeple in the community. Jimmy has a crusty side I suspect but has always been a bit of philosopher. And he once seemed to be quite in a bother about something. Remember that Jimmy is in his eighties and has had lots of major medical stuff. Just ask him about his scar and you'll get to see it!

Anyway one day he said to me "chris, I just don't understand why I feel a bit crook today" It was after work in the afternoon and I thought I might be able to investigate so I said "what have you done today". " Well I got up at 4:00am and picked a row of pineapples (a pickup load), came back to the store and unloaded them. Then I went in to Maryborough to the wholesalers and bought the weeks supplies for the store and unloaded them but I haven't been able to much after that" !!!!!!

Now I have a long way to go to have anywhere near the work ethic or stamia that he has but i do sort of get the confusion of his because he used to be able to that without a problem and now he can't. I seem to be okay but now I can't get any where near as much puff as I used to.

Bluey and I were talking this morning and she helped me to gain a little perspective. Sort of like I gently told Jimmy that day, that he had done more work before I got up then I had done all day and that it was okay to feel a little out of puff. Bluey said "hmmm what was it you have gone through in the last few months.......oh yeh there was that major surgery of having your spleen out....oh and that other major surgery of having your gall bladder out....hmm....oh yeh and that other major surgery of having a tube stuck down your vein....hmmmm....something else......something......Oh and they TOTALLY KILLED ALL YOUR BONE MARROW OFF and filled you with your brothers cells! Are you nuts! of course you are tired!" We were laughing so hard I thought I was going to lose my breakfast. Then she summed it up. " it's day 25, 25 out of 100 days, you are only one quarter of the way down that track of recovery."

She's so good at making me see reason.

But I am a bit envious of my friend Gayla who had her first cataract removed and she can see right away. Forget that she has to wear those big wrap around sunglasses, that she probably has to watch for infections, and that she has the second one to go. The bit that was fixed.... her sight.... is working now. Although if we ask her she might rather have to deal with being out of puff a bit instead.

Reporting from inside the woods, but very close to the edge.
I'm Chris Olin, and there will be
More later

Chris