An update on the latest happenings with the melanoma. I think I mentioned I found a lump on my left arm, miles away from where the original melanomas were removed from. Two weeks ago I called in to the clinic and I was scheduled in fairly swiftly to have it looked at.
One of the consultants looked quite concerned after reading in my notes about the 6mm tumor which put me in this boat. Well, looks like yet another biopsy to remove part or all of this new lump, my first lump. I have to wait for the date to come through though. The consultant didn’t give anything away. Early days, best not to jump ahead, even though I know what might be ahead, as is normally the case it might not happen. I drove home feeling less stressed and better than I normally do.
It’s now actually running into the second week, since seeing the consultant and I’ve not had a date come though for the operation, usually this kind of delay is normal and might boil down to how many biopsies have to be carried out each day. It does however leave you hanging in there, knowing you might have a possible recurrence of your cancer on your hands arm. It might not be the case that it is back, equally it could be that, so the hanging around is actually the worst bit, and just latley you might catch me staring into space when I might be weighing up the possible outcomes. This isn’t a mole, this is a lump and that kind of means it’s a bit more worrisome.
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New intro music today, also new section on show looking at web technology. Geotagging is highlighted as well as an introduction to Wikimapia.org and getting your flickr photos into Google Earth. Music track included: Nefrit El Or - Scream. To download the full version of this show or catch the previous couple of shows visit www.leejordan.org.uk/podcasts.
New intro music today, also new section on show looking at web technology. Geotagging is highlighted as well as Google map mash ups as well as getting flickr photos pinpointed on a Google map and then in Google Earth. I also talk about my experience and what I found at the Summer Sundae music festival a couple of weekends ago. I had on the calendar a tour of Villa Park, the local football stadium and it was impressive, so I touch on that and also just a small update about the Melanoma situation.
Ok so a new addition to the show I hope to continue with is a web tips section. I hottly recommend checking out the wikimapia and also, even as a user, if you have Google Earth, check out the Yuan.CC web feed file below.
Even if you haven’t got Flickr or understand how to geotag your photos if you do have flickr, see other peoples photos in Google Earth right now by clicking the following link. It’s mega cool, you need to download Google Earth, if you don’t have it already:
You can stream the show from this page using the player below, or add my podcast feed to your podcatching software, such as iTunes, or Juice. If you are more of the traditional sort download the mp3. Comments can be left in the following form. This show has chapters encoded into the MP3 file, although not supported in players yet, this is the way to go. Whenever the letters “ch” appear in the filename, you can skip around using a player which supports MP3 chapters. Technology developed by the BBC and uploaded here
Normally I’m very strong, but I’m only human. I aim to be positive and genuinly I’ve felt happier that things are ok, but you get your moments, when you think oh crap.
I asked the wonderful folks at mpip.org about this lump I found, which is miles away from what’s called the primary site. It kinda made me a bit more aware of stuff I didn’t know about. You can do things with information you can make choices, get on the phone faster and ask better, more effective questions.
My stomach did butterflies when I read it, my focus has been on the scars to check them for lumps. It’s not like I’ve been living ignorant. Maybe I read too much into it because of the 23 months and because I’m coming up to my own 2 year mark, with a fat lump in my arm. If I’m wrong then I’ve only been careful and cautious. As of yet because I’ve had no battle with my cancer, my battle is the awareness and that’s how I feel I’m winning, my own situation backgrounds and pops up every now and then. Kinda shakes you up a bit to be brought back down to earth, to realise this is what I’m dealing with, it’s not something I just blog about, you know, it’s real.
So I fired up “Crosses” by Jose Gonzalez on the Zen, stared at the rain and savoured that moment when I saw him play that song on Sunday, after which a really upbeat song came on by Captain and the sun came out. It is like that, sunshine and showers.
Well July was an intense month, very busy and very hot also. In this show three main topics include; Lugradio Live 2006 in Wolverhampton which includes a soundtour of the show, Steve Jenkins a life in music exhibition in Walsall and the Birmingham tornado one year on.
You can stream the show from this page using the player below, or add my podcast feed to your podcatching software, such as iTunes, or Juice. If you are more of the traditional sort download the mp3. Comments can be left in the following form.
I have to say the guys at Lugradio.org put on one heck of a show this weekend in Wolverhampton. Easily beating last years debut event, Lugradio live 2006 was held over two days instead of one and was housed in the really decent and spacious, yet hot, Students Union at Wolves Uni. Lugradio was created by a bunch of Wolves Linux User Group members who had the personality and rapport to carry what is a very likeable podcasty type thing. See this page for more details
Slick is one word I heard bounded around about the presentation, organisation and running of the event which is held for the open source community and attracted visitors from as far as Singapore. Professionally printed banners and programmes really showed how much work had gone into the event. The speakers were excellent and talked on many topics, Mark Shutleworth drew a big crowd to his talk on the big challenges facing open source as it progresses, Bill Thompson’s talk on how open source might be too focused on a head on battle with non open source, so much that it might be ignoring the needs of the developing world, was an excellent talk.
MythTV
Digital Rights Management was a theme during the first day and that was taken forward in the second day with the wonderfull work being done with MythTV as demostrated on stage in the hour of power on day two. It’s the idea of having freedom in what is a very restrictive area. I spoke with Justin who was running the MythTV stand and gained a facinating insight into where users might be able to take the PC as a dedicated entertainment centre. The project has massive potential to be bringing in things like flickr photo streams and the really cool stuff we do on PCs to the TV whereas Microsoft’s MCE might eventually get there, but be very restrictive and expensive on the way there. The DRM stuff on HDTV sounds really scary by the way.
Day One Photos
Lowfat : Document management
That sounds kinda boring, when in fact what the lowfat project is, blows you away. We had a demonstration by the programmer of the project who unleashed a certain wow factor and even admited that he maybe had watched too many films like Minority Report. You know the one where Tom Cruise has this touch screen and is moving things and making them fly and if you’ve used Picassa it had that same slick feel. Using graphic effects to display documents on screen and interact with them like that along with the Novell heavy xGL stuff the linux desktop could soon be more fun than MacOSX (not that I actually use a Mac)!!
Day Two Photos
In Summary
There’s too much to talk about. The general feeling of the weekend was relaxed and friendly, typically summing up what Wolves LUG is like, being the exception rather than the rule to the view that all geeks just sit around and do really boring things. The event was extreamly well planned, the venue was great and it was a very impressive gig. Matt asked for some feedback via blogs so ok just a couple of points. The PA systems in the lightning rooms didn’t seem to allow people to plug in their laptops and some of the volume levels on the main stage were a bit wonky. My xD picture card nuked half of my photos from day two, my bad. Going on this weekend I can’t see how they can top it, but I’m sure they’ll find a way.
Huge sigh of relief, it’s all good. I just had a letter from the hospital to say that my recent chest xray was normal. This seemed to be out of routine and on the day itself I was quite worried because of the events of the day, the last one was in December 2004 and I had to ask for that several times before it happened. This latest xray seemed to come out from some kind of concern and not from me, so when I saw the letter this morning I didn’t feel great about it.
As you do, your mind starts racing ahead, because when things happen you don’t get time to digest what is happening, for good or for bad your mind starts playing out various possibilities in preparation. The reason for the scan is that I had a small Melanoma on my arm and if it were to be on the move the chest wall and the lungs are one of the likely destinations. I also had the one on my leg, my last abdominal CT scan was ok, not had one since December 2004, and the last chest xray showed only a small feature on my spleen, which on the face of it can’t have grown, but will clarify this in September.
They say it’s only skin cancer, but it’s not, it should be seen as something far more serious, melanoma isn’t a very nice one, well no cancer is very nice but this one is really evil, at times I wonder given my prognosis and looking around at the literature, why I’m here. It’s the not knowing which is the hardest part, so the results are always something of a lifeline, something to cling onto, which is why today I’m going out today and enjoying the day, because things are good.
It’s gonna be the hotest July on record, with the Midlands likely to see records falling today. As you can imagine I’ve spent a lot of my life hating the summer, hiding from it, getting ratty because of the heat and ultimatly being threatend by it, slowly I’m learning to like it and enjoy the summer like all those people who don’t feel ill effects of the sun, it takes time. In many respects knowing I have skin cancer means I don’t have to worry about getting it, which in turns makes summer more enjoyable, because that question of will I get it, has been answered, the other questions are less clear cut, but I’ll get there.
You can stream the show from this page using the player below, or add my podcast feed to your podcatching software, such as iTunes, or Juice. If you are more of the traditional sort download the mp3. Comments can be left in the following form.
Sorry I’ve been away from the mic for about 2 months, but look shiny new website with loads of cool stuff! I thought I needed to make much more of my site and I didn’t want a home page with a long list of blog entries. Ok there’s an MP3 blog here now including music reviews, my album chart, random quotes. There’s flickr photos, the site is geotagged and a lot of people who I have met and who have sites or blogs, well you guys have been blogrolled … er sounds painful! Maybe I could create a password-ed “friends page” or something where your entries get syndicated to me, that would be cool.
@media 2006
There is a quick overview of how the atmedia two days went, and then a bit of a ramble about how there is a divide between developers who have fully embraced web standards and those who haven’t and how the academic area is way behind the times. I’ve setup a special microsite for my writings about atmedia:
Julia is so nice, check out her video blog, and she gave me a free CD and permission to podcast a track. Saw Julia at the Marrs Bar in Worcester and she easily had the loudest applause of the night, up first on the band showcase was Sam Issac, reminding us of the frontman from Nizlopi.
