As a few of you know I am in China having treatment for cancer and while I am here I am doin a little blog which I will put on here if anyone is in interested so let me know Cheers Matt
Hello all, This will hopefully be a little sort of journal of my trip to China sorry if it bores you Just in case anyone didn't know I am in the northern Chinese city of Dalian (China's most live able city!!) for treatment (hopefully effective) for my Melanoma which has stubbornly refused to get better though I am still much better than I could have hoped to be at this stage. 6 months to live yeah roight!! So while I have been waging my bare arse at the Big C and been holding it off to a degree I haven't after been getting any better apart from early on and I have had a few new ones pop up which I wasn't happy about so I had to do something. Chemo has very little success with this and Dr at Westmead has encouraged to try other stuff as they donât have much to offer. This treatment found out through an ex college from NEM seemed to have the potential to give it a good push and appears to have relatively few side effects. The website is below if anyone is interested. www.nextgenerationpdt.com OK that's out the way lets move onto the trip Kat dropped me off at the airport (thanks) I flew China Eastern, actually managed to snag one of those seats where you get loads of leg room opposite the stewardess as no one seemed want it (Nice). The airline then demonstrated either a lack of cinematic awareness or extreme confidence by showing New Poseidon movie as their main feature which could be slightly unnerving at 30,000 feet watching a disaster film what next Flight 93? Unfortunately that was the best of the worst because when an Adam Sandler movie (who cares what one they are all shit) started showing I thought about jumping out myself. On arrival my Dr picked me up and drove me to the hotel it was weird here I was in the most populated country on earth and the roads were like Hunter street on a Sunday night (that impression was soon to change though) The hotel was right on the water which is great would be better if you could see more than 200 meters as the air pollution is insane. The hotel I was staying at charges you (well me anyway) twice the entire cost of the stay as a bond so it was 2k straight on my card unfortunately there was a snag as they ran my card 3 times all which were DK's but my bank (I know now) had taken the cash out so I was 6k down and still hadn't paid for my room and this is after 16 hours flying and watching a fucking Adam Sandler movie!!! Luckily I organized to pay for that night and said we would sort it out in the morning. Went to my room to sort out my dosh prob fired up the laptop went to went to access my account when I find my my four key doesnât work which is in my account number so I cant get into the account (you cant make this up) so I would have to go downtown tomorrow to find a cyber cafe to work out what happened brilliant. Oh well off to dinner I go as itâs late. My first restaurant dining was certainly an experience as I decided to check out the local area ended going into a seafood place that was packed but as I walked in it was obvious I was the only Westerner. Everyone kept staring at me. The staff were brilliant but they couldnât speak any English so we did a lot of pointing and smiling and blank looks were in abundance what they did have was an amazing array of seafood. They had over forty (still cant use the fucking four key) live seafood you they would cook up from the basic lobster and crab to massive prawns, octopi (love that word) to sea worms and Gropers it was mental. Also I forgot what it was like to sit in a restaurant where people still smoked guess what, it was brilliant these people don't wait till after they have eaten no way baby they are dropping ash into their starters and not caring. The fact I have no ability at any language including English and no one spoke any English means I went for the sashimi plate which included raw baby prawns heads on (Kel you would have loved it) By the time I had finished and it was after 1am so I went and crashed as tomorrow I am gong for a look around.
Day 2 Saturday Well I am up and ready for my first Saturday in China I was hoping for less drama than yesterday but with me you never know. Got up early had some breaky and was out to sort my MasterCard prob. Cabs are pretty easy to get and as long as you know where you are going they are sweet the first prob was I didnât really know where to go as the best info I got from the hotel staff was kinda vague (down the main section cheers thanks a lot the city is bigger than Sydney!!) but on the brightside I met one of the managers Dawn which in Chinese is pronounced Shu-me who is very cute she said she would show me around later in the week so that could be fun. Driving in China is like no where else I have ever been where cars, trucks , buses and pedestrians play this macabre game of chicken or acid with each one daring the other to hit him and I donât think they have ever used an indicator just the horn. The other thing you notice is the pollution itâs so thick even is a city this size. The people are really friendly (not like that) I was wandering in one of the main areas didnât have a clue where a cybercafé was and I was the only white person in site actually I have only seen about four (fucking key) or 5 others the thing is everyone tries to help though most end up taking you to anywhere but what you are looking for I cant recall how many times I ended up being taken to the lavs. Ended up walking into a shop donât know what they were selling asked these guys where an internet café was and the young guy got up from his seat and gave me his computer to use pretty amazing really. I found my card was maxed so added transferred so should be fine now. Went back to the hotel where the Dr and his nurse were there to take me on a tour. Itâs a pretty interesting place sitting on the peninsular and has been a conquest city over the last 150 yrs with Russian, Jap and Chinese occupying it and it shows in lot of the architecture. Will try to get up to North Korean border before I go which would be cool. Went out that night with Lisa my nurse and some of her mates to a bar the people are so friendly here (no not that friendly) even though most donât speak a word of English apart from hi there and thank you we had a good time I was dancing like a maniac though I have scans and blood work tomorrow so cant have too many.
Day 3 Sunday Well itâs a big scary day today to see how far the cancer has spread because I have quiet a few new ones on my body I am sort of fearing the worse and didnât get a lot of sleep though trying to be positive whatever the result I just have to get on with it. The hospital was not that bad though all the nurses wearing masks against bird flu is a bit unnerving and you sort of expect Weird Al Jankovich to suddenly jump out and start singing âLike a Surgeonâ. Did the bloods no sweat then the CT scan. BTW Dr Chris they donât bother with giving you that drink just throw you up on the machine and get cracking. Anyway went shopping with Lisa for a bit but was thinking about the tests so went back to hotel though before that you cant knock the service you get here you go into a store and try something on and you get 3 or four people trying to help you out try getting that in Paddo. Dr turns up so thinking here goes. The Bad news is I have a pretty fucked up liver but the GREAT news is it hasnât really spread I have a little in my kidneys but my brain and lungs are clear (must be all that smoking) he is very confident they can treat this problem but it will need a lot of extra time on the light machine but they say that once treated even though it may stay where it is it has a lot of trouble spreading for some reason (Dr C you might know why) so he is pretty happy I am doing fucking cartwheels. Now the day gets interesting me and the Dr go for a sauna but a lot different to Icebergs I can tell you that. NEXT TIMEâ¦.sorry I have 6 hours of medicine to take. Day 3 Continued⦠Hey there again the nurses have left my room for lunch after dosing me with some green spray for the last 3 hours so I have an hour or so before they get back so I have time to update China Baby. Where were we? Thatâs right I had asked Dr Jin if he knew of anywhere I could have a sauna as I have been having them as part of my alternate health treatment and I thought they were helping me quite a lot. He said yes lets go (the bloke seems unusually keen but what the hey) so we jump in his car for another game of chicken on acid and I finally see an accident (minor thankfully) its not that I was happy to see any accident itâs just that I couldnât work out why they werenât happening every second minute. When you turn at an intersection while in motion you donât worry about 90% you take it early and sort of go diagonal forty five % and take potluck and fuck whoever is in the way. It really can be rock and roll experience. We get to the hotel (come back with name) and there are a couple of parking guys to help us park on the footpath as the car park is full. A couple of pedestrians almost get hit but they just keep walking undemonstratively in a way you would never see in Oz. At home some knob head would be barking at you and trying to pull you out of the car for a âchatâ Maybe they see it as part of living with economic progress who knows I am not here long enough to noodle it out. The sauna is two floors below the reception which definitely lacks the view that Icebergs has but upon entering I can see it has its compensations. Before you get to the reception you have to leave your shoes or in my case dirty white Pumas on there last legs. We both get an arm bracelet with our locker number on and what looks like a white facecloth. Walking into the undressing room and it is obvious I wonât need the board shorts I brought with me as everyone is starkers. On quick inspection I am not too concerned as none of the others guys seem to be packing too much heat as no one wants to bring a knife to a gun fight but there are no Magnums on show just a lot of snub-nosed 38âs and few air guns and I think a few may have turned up unarmed!! The first room is something else with four vast Grecian swimming pools at one end with big screen plasmas showing a replay of the Arsenal Liverpool game and a few rows of massage tables to the side I am starting think this could be a benders place but their seems to be a lot of fathers with there kids so no prob. Quickly have a shower though get a shock one I find one of the pool guys washing my back but it seems part of the service so I let it slide but keep my âstraightâ eye on him. Off to the big sauna and man its hot much better than the ones I have tried at home. A few guys are doing Thai-chi though I donât really care to catch the occasional brown eye winking at me so itâs a good time to study the back of my eye lids. After about 20 mins I am fried so get out and get taken to one of the massage tables where one of the male masseuses really got to work on me and does a great job. It had to be the best massage ever I have to say I got a small surprise when he gave the old biffens bridge a scrub at that point I got such a shock I just started laughing I couldnât help it. Oh well so much for blending in as once again I am the only Westerner. but you have to admit its pretty funny Feeling very relaxed we go out put on some disposable jocks and socks to go with a stylish little Chinese kimono and go upstairs. On this floor there are a range of rooms to relax in you have the hot crystal room where you lay on mats below a crystal roof, the Gravel room where you lay on gravel, the rock room (obvious I know) and the oxygen room which was a lot cooler so I crashed in there for a while. The Chinese love hard floors which sort of explains the bed at my hotel!! One thing about this floor was that women were also allowed which is obviously why we are wearing clothes which is no bad thing to be honest maybe itâs my aussie upbringing but I didnât really fancy my bit part (easy!!) in Chinaâs answer to a British rugby change room though the Big plasmas were very cool. Feeling very calm and chilled we retired to the lounge room where the room was filled with massive chill out chairs each with their own flat screen TV with 20 channels female staff then come around and ask if you would like a drink or foot massage so I took one of each which rounded out a perfect afternoon. The whole experience only cost 130 RB or about 25 AUD. Was it better than my normal sauna, yeah but you couldnât do it every day. As we had been there about four (you forget how popular that fucking number is!!) we went for a feed. From my mini disaster the first night you can see it really makes a difference if you are with something who can speak the language. We had an awesome feed of light fried prawns in a spicy pineapple and tomatoes sauce followed by fresh killed lemon sole in cashew and plum and then black bean beef (a classic I had to have over here). By this stage I was shot so went back and crashed. VERY VERY CHILLED. Back to the meds cheers for now