Baggas’ Blog

AN hilarious quote from Peter Lalor in today’s Weekend Australian newspaper :

England is dead and the Sydney Test is shaping up as cricket’s version of A Weekend at Bernies. All everybody has to do now is pretend the other mob is still alive and the fun will continue.

Australian Word Map

Just discovered this. It’s a map/dictionary which aims to catalog “regionalisms” - that is words that are unique to particular parts of Australia, or which have differing meanings in different places. I wouldn’t say it’s entirely accurate, but it’s worth a look. Not a bad way to waste a bit of time.

Finally we have some positive news about Owen.

We spent a long day at PMH yesterday where Owen had his MRI scan under General Anaesthetic. Overall he coped very well with the whole day, although was hungry and tired. Saw the ophthalmologist afterwards and he showed me the scans – we could not see any obvious abnormality or tumour to account for Owen’s problem. Unfortunately the radiologists had gone home by this point so a complete report on the MRI will have to wait until tomorrow, but I am sufficiently reassured from what I could see that everything looks okay.

This means Owen’s problem is likely to be due to a local problem with the muscles of the eye. For the time being the management will consist of continuing to patch the good eye daily, and getting Owen some glasses. If these steps don’t correct the problem, then there is a chance he might require eye surgery at some point to adjust the eye muscles, but obviously this is greatly preferable to needing brain surgery!

Thanks again for all your prayers and support. It has meant a lot to us in this stressful time.

Just a quick update on what’s happening with Owen. He went to have an MRI brain scan yesterday but it was just too scary and too hard for him to remain still. Very few 5 year olds are able to do this but it was worth a try. So in the end we had to abandon the scan and now we have to wait to have a scan under general anaesthetic  at PMH, which is a shame for two reasons – firstly the added risk of a  GA and secondly the longer waiting time. They have managed to squeeze it in on Tuesday next week which is reasonably quick  but is still a few more nervous days of waiting for us. We really hope it’s all behind us before Christmas and of course that Owen is fine. I was feeling a bit more optimistic about it all but now that we have a firm booking I’m swinging back the other way. I guess the fact that they’ve got onto it so quickly plus the fact that Owen will have to have an anaesthetic just reinforces the gravity of it all to me and makes me more worried again - they don’t give kids a general anaesthetic and an urgent scan unless there’s a pretty good reason for it..

Otherwise Owen is okay. His eye looks marginally better than it did and he is doing fine with the eye patching now, but is still seeing double at times. He has no other signs of symptoms of a serious brain problem although we are watching him closely for any changes.

Flickr: Photos from baggas - just to round out blogging about our Africa trip, I just thought I’d mention that I have uploaded a stack of our photos to Flickr, so anyone who wants can take a look. We showed many of these photos at a “slides night” we had at our place on Friday night and they were well received by those who came over. We’ve got quite a few people who were keen on coming but couldn’t make it and might consider doing it again after New Years if people are interested. We are both very keen to get back to Uganda again ASAP but have no idea about how/when/who etc, and everything has been thrown into even more confusion by the events of the last 2 days…

Just to mention briefly what’s been going on, our 5 year old son Owen yesterday started complaining of double vision (which is a quite uncommon symptom in children) and had a constant crossing of the eyes. This really worried me and so we took him up to the children’s hospital where he was seen by the on-call opthalmology doctor who basically gave us the impression that the most likely diagnosis was a brain tumour, which was my worry from the start. His plan was for us to come back today for further eye tests and possibly a brain MRI. Last night and this morning were incredibly stressful and emotional. After testing, the specialist we saw today (who was more senior and experienced than the doctor yesterday) told us he was 95% certain that the problem is benign, due to long sightedness causing a squint, and he thought it could be corrected with eye patches and glasses. Having said that he was still concerned about the possibility of a tumour and agreed that a “semi-urgent” MRI is the best course of action. Initially I felt a lot better after seeing him but when I thought about it more I became less at-ease with this diagnosis, mainly because of a couple of features. Firstly Owen is a little old for this condition, and secondly and more tellingly, he was only very mildly long sighted on the tests they performed, which is actually not abnormal at this age. Usually symptoms like this would be associated with much more severe long sightedness. So although I felt better about this before as time goes on my worry is growing again. Being a dad and a doctor is not easy in this kind of situation.

Anyway the next step is an MRI on Thursday, which will hopefully rule out a tumour. The big issue with the scan is that it involves being still for half an hour in a big, noisy tunnel - quite a big ask for a 5 year old. Usually they suggest a general anaesthetic for the scan at this age so they can keep the child still, but there is only one hospital in Perth that can do this and they have a 2-3 wait at least. So we are going to a private hospital and proceeding with a non-anaesthetized scan, which could be quite scary for Owen. I will give him a bit of oral medication to make him groggy and maybe even sleep through it but there’s still a chance it won’t work out and we will have to endure the stressful wait for an anaesthetic scan, which will take us right up to Christmas or beyond (not a good time to get bad news). So as you can tell this is a huge worry for us. I am much more together than I was yesterday, but am still highly stressed out. I’m going back to work for the next two days although I really don’t feel up to it, mainly because if I don’t work I get no income and after 5 weeks off for our Africa trip the bills are piling up. I don’t dare think about what will happen over the next few weeks if the news is not good.

Anyway keep us in your prayers. I probably won’t be blogging much over the next few days but will try and let you know any significant news. Thanks.

Now I like computers and technology. I guess that’s true of most bloggers. I love my iPod and Palm Treo and other gadgets and always have, ever since we had our family Atari 2600 and Commodore 16 computer back in the 80s. But since then I have never owned a games console. I’ve played the odd PC game here or there - usually a strategy game like Civilisation or Sim City and usually for 1-2 weeks before I win it and lose interest for a while - but have never been a serious ‘gamer.’

Well that situation has now changed. Before going to Africa our mobile came out of contract so I signed up for a new deal which came with a ‘free’ X-Box 360. On the weekend I opened it up and plugged it in to our home theatre and I must say it is a very impressive little machine. The graphics are brilliant, especially on the big screen in High Definition. Audio is similarly good, taking advantage of 5.1 surround. What I really like about this unit is how well it works with a network. I’ve got a wireless LAN adaptor for it which took less than 5 minutes to configure, and it now connects to my home network to stream music and video files from my PC and to utilise the internet for game updates, downloads and online gaming. The network performance is almost flawless, though I haven’t tried any serious online gaming yet.

I’ve got a few games for it. Owen has enjoyed playing Lego Star Wars with me, The Simpsons Hit and Run is a really fun (yet violent) game from the original X-box, Disney/Pixar Cars is very enjoyable and the graphics are superb. Personally I’ve enjoyed playing a bit of Test Drive Unlimited in which you drive around a realistic simulation of Hawaii undertaking challenges and races with which you can earn money to buy new cars, clothes, homes etc. The graphics, especially of the cars themselves, are phenomenal. I’m still not much of a gamer though - I spent over an hour late last night trying to succesfully complete a task comprised of picking up a woman and giving her a lift home with her shopping bags in an allotted time period (which seemed way too short.) Quite tricky to go that fast and avoid crashing into other traffic and buildings (and trees, and lamp posts etc etc etc) - and when I did eventually succeed there was very little in the way of thanks! Microsoft have now released a wireless racing wheel for the X-box 360 with ‘force feedback’ (so it feels more like the response of real driving) so I’m looking forward to getting my hands on one of those.

Normally I’m a pretty avid reader, but since returning from Africa I’ve found myself struggling to find time to read. This is for a number of reasons including general busyness, work, the Christmas season, my body clock still being out of sync due to a succession of jet lag plus daylight savings, and a little machine called X-box 360… (more about that another time perhaps) Also contributing may be the fact that the last book I read (Dostoevksy’s The Brothers Karamazov) was a marathon effort, although well worth it.

Anyway, to help get me back into it I’ve turned to a couple of my favourite authors. Patrick O’Brian, with Clarissa Oakes, the 15th in his brilliant Aubrey-Maturin series. And Prayer by Philip Yancey. Yancey is one of my favourite Christian writers - easy to read and accessible yet without being dumbed down (in fact I believe it was Yancey who first led me in the direction of Russian authors such as Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn). His works are always insightful, down to earth and honest, drawing from a diverse range of sources.

In view of trying to lighten my load, I’m not planning to formally review the Prayer book, but I might just randomly post a few quotes from it on here as I read. Here’s a couple of good ones from the first chapter…

Prosperity may dilute prayer too… Christians in developing countries spend less time pondering the effectiveness of prayer and more time actually praying. The wealthy rely on talent and resources to solve immediate problems, and insurance policies and retirement plans to secure the future. We can hardly pray with sincerity, ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ when the pantry is stocked with a month’s supply of provisions. (p7)

life with God should seem more like friendship than duty. (p9)

Five weeks away from work have not changed the number of patients who are late or don’t show up at all unfortunately. In the last hour and a half I have had about 3 patients show up out of 9. It’s a colossal waste of my time and money and it also denies access to other patients who might want an appointment. Every day people complain to me about being unable to get an appointment which is ironic when over at least 10% of my appointments are no-shows

If they have any excuse today it might be because they are busy watching the cricket. Since I’ve been bored I’ve been catching some of the current Ashes Test on internet radio. Australia has just bowled out England in their second innings and now has to score 168 off 36 overs. If there was ever a time to send Gilchrist in to open, this has to be it. Just wish I was at home watching it rather than bored here at work.

One thing about cricket radio broadcasts - replays don’t work on radio quite so well as they do on TV. A while ago they said “In case you missed the wicket of Pietersen, have a listen to this…” and then they replayed the guy calling the delivery. Never heard that done before.

Anyway better go see if there’s any more patients before the Adelaide Tea break finishes…

The Monthly Magazine - Faith in Politics (Kevin Rudd)

I’d heard that Kevin Rudd is a devotee of WW2 German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and had read multiple news reports referring to the above article by Rudd, which is well worth perusing. Although his Labor, Anti-Howard bias is evident, he has many valid points to make that I agree with, particularly on how the Christian faith should speak to a wider range of political issues than the narrow one or two point focus of the so-called “religious Right”. His description of 5 types of Christian political engagement is right on the money.

Thanks to Hamo for the link to that one. Looks like the resurgence of faith in Australian politics has taken a very interesting new twist. As Hamo comments, the challenge for Rudd will be if he can lead his party in a direction consistent with his gospel ethic…

Beazley breaks down in front of press | | The Australian

Well poor Kim Beazley has lost his job as leader of the opposition again, almost certainly for good this time. I quite like Kim - he’s our local MP and seems like a good bloke but he’s had a tough time competing against an ascendant liberal government in a time of economic prosperity. I also like his successor Kevin Rudd, a very intelligent guy who is very open about his Christian faith. If we did ever end up with a Labor Government I think Rudd would be a good man to have at the helm, though his chances of winning the next election are slim.

In a double blow for Beazley, not only has he lost his job today but also he lost his brother, who died of a heart attack this morning. You can’t help but feel sorry for the man. It’s obviously affecting him as the above story shows, with him breaking down in front of the press and saying about Kevin Rudd :

“He will be a very good leader of the Australian Liberal Party. He will take us to victory at the next election.”

Now I’m not sure if that was a typo by the website or what Kim actually said. Maybe there’s a grain of truth in it - the only way for Kevin Rudd to be PM would be to join the Liberal Party (and then roll Howard, Costello, Abbott, Turnbull and a bunch of other leadership aspirants - come to think of it - he’s probably wiser sticking with Labor)

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Briefly, on the subject of Kevin Rudd, here’s a fascinating interview I dug up from ABCs Compass Program in May last year, in which he discusses his faith, and the nexus of religion and politics. Well worth reading to help get more of an idea of where this guy is coming from… Will be interesting to see if he makes an appearance at Hillsong this year…

Kevin Rudd : The God Factor

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And finally, it hasn’t taken the Libs long to respond to the change of leadership with a comical website (they must have been saving this up all weekend). Check out this one :

Same Old Labor