The horizon’s bigger than it used to be

I haven’t been out in a l-o-n-g time. My best friend (husband) got sick about three years ago and if he doesn’t feel like going out, neither do I. It was only two months ago a doctor found he had a malignant pancreatic tumour and decided to do something about it.

Doctors are weird creatures, you can see ten of them before one goes, ‘hang on, I think there’s actually something wrong with you.’

Hallelujah! – What have we been telling you for the last three years?

Anyway, he was rushed into theatre and had what’s called a ‘whipple’ procedure where they remove part of the pancreas, stomach, gall bladder, bile duct, and the list goes on and on. The operation was successful and as far as we know he’s well on the way to recovery. In a future blog I’ll write about this experience and his symptoms if anyone out there (and I sincerely hope not) finds themselves in the same situation and needs someone to talk to.

So last night my son arrived from interstate for a world wind visit before embarking on 18 weeks of fire and rescue training. He’s been away for a few months and the phone started ringing three hours before he reached the front door. Old friends were waiting for him and because hubby had been so sick I didn’t want them all descending on the house.

Next best thing – I decided to head out with him to a local bar to meet up with his friends.

The place was great (apart from the Hulk Hogan doorman who accidently stepped on my foot) and I didn’t realise how much I missed crowds and jukebox music. Van Morrison, Cold Chisel, The Police, Credence – what a blast from the past! We played pool and won – I seriously don’t know how, maybe it was my misspent youth coming back to haunt me.

But then things got a bit weird. I was standing at the bar and someone mentioned a book they were reading, Soul’s Child. Naturally, my ears pricked because I wrote it. One of my son’s friends tapped the guy on the shoulder and said, ‘she wrote Soul’s Child’, and pointed at me. Next thing I know there are free drinks flowing and people are wanting to know why I wrote the book and did I really believe in ghosts and had I ever been ghost hunting. I realised then I’d been out of circulation for far too long.

I wish I was a good talker, but I’m not. I’m not used to drinking and after three glasses of wine I’m closing one eye to focus on faces and feeling my face flush to spontaneous combustion point. Luckily the lighting in these places is so bad that you need night vision goggles to find your way to the toilet.

When I got home at the ungodly hour of 8 PM hubby took one look at me and thought I was coming down with some kind of red-faced-night-sweats-pink-eye flu.

I slept like a baby.

As I said, I don’t get out much, but with hubby on the mend the future is looking a lot brighter than it was.