Gosh another week gone by!

To think that this time last year I was posting twice a day from Germany. I'd spend hours writing my posts, because, face it, at the time there wasn't much else to do.
These days I'm flat out balancing my priorities between building a house, earning an income and getting everything ready for Targa.

The engine for the race car is being put back together this weekend and all going well should be back in the car and running by mid next week. The engine required a new crankshaft and some specialised machining work to bring it back from the dead. I'm very grateful for the support of Kerry Lyndsay Engine reconditioning for their machining and supplying the new racing crankshaft, Collier Motor Engineers in Levin for re-balancing the engine internals, and Pete Zivkovic for rebuilding the engine to his exacting standards.

The race tyres arrived this week too. It's like Christmas! Dunlop race tyres have supplied us with one free set of tyres and another at a heavily discounted price. Then Targa organisers sent me a GPS unit to install so they can keep tabs on the car during the rally. We are not allowed to go over 200kph at any time and in the Evo 200K comes up on the speedo very quickly. I've told Victor to punch me on the arm if he see's me going over this speed. Hmm.. on second thoughts being punched on the arm while steering a race car on twisty roads at 200+k's probably isn't a good idea!! ;)

We (the team) are still looking for a couple of big sponsors for the car/entry in Targa. We have secured a full page spread in the official program that is part of next months Classic Car magazine thanks to the generosity of the good people at Parkside Publishing. This ensures exposure to over 200,000 readers. If you want to be a part of this and get your company name out there as well as supporting our campaign and the Cancer Society, please drop me an email before next weeks publishing deadline.

Health-wise I finished my two week course of prednisone earlier this week and my fever returned yesterday.
I'm back to night sweats, fever and chills until I restart on the steroids again the week before Targa. It's amazing though just how quickly I gain fitness and weight when on them. I'm just hoping I can stay relatively well in the interim.

...Ron

a busy week..

It's been a week since I last posted, There's so much happening lately I hardly manage to keep track of the days.

I've been doing a bit of a trial run with the prednisone. Yeah I know the doc said I could have it next month while on Targa but I wanted to do a test run and see what days I feel best and over how long to take it. I started on 40mg a day for 4 days last week and then dropped to 20mg a day since Sunday. I shall finish the course this weekend. That will give me a full month before I restart again.

The results: The fever stopped within twelve hours. By the next day my temp had started to climb slightly in the morning but dropped again once the steroid had kicked in (I take them at breakfast). It now never moves much from a normal 36.5C at any time.
The 40mg dose leaves me feeling a bit "wired" but by the time I started on the lower 20mg dose I felt completely normal and well. My cough has completely disappeared too. The small nodes on my neck have shrunk down to around half their previous size.

I feel so good, one has to wonder why I can't just take these things forever.... sigh .You can't imagine what it's like to be sick and feverish for six months non-stop and then suddenly become normal again. It's certainly makes you appreciate every waking second of your day.

Workwise, the week started with an interesting job. A Rolls Royce hearse that I had been commissioned to engineer new rear shock absorber mounts on. It took a whole day just to remove the old brackets from someone else's previous efforts some thirty years ago. Then the next day was spent repairing the cracked chassis and making the new mounts. Working on a hearse was certainly a bit different than the race cars I'm used to working on..

Things are still moving along at great speed with regards to Targa. There has been one major hiccup though. The engine in the race car has worn out it's crankshaft and requires a rebuild. Luckily this was found now and not on day one of the event! I have had a small team of helpers dive in and save the day. Big thanks to Mark from STM for helping me pull the engine out and also to Pete Zivkovic who is doing the rebuild.

We have had a raft of new sponsors come on board, mostly relating to help with accommodation costs. You'd need to visit http://www.targalifechallenge.co.nz/ to view them all.

Cheers! ...Ron

Long talk with the Haematologist

I just got off the phone with Dr D'Souza my haematologist. It was a long conversation about the results of Monday's CT scan and what it all means.

Basically the scan did not show anything too scary. There are still the two enlarged nodes in my upper abdomen. Stlil not large enough to absolutely declare a relapse based on that alone.
There appeared to be some abnormality with the liver but this too was not clear.
The nodes in my neck were not big enough to be considered a sign of relapse.

Sounds good doesn't it. It's not really. The liver may be the cause of my constant fever.. it may not. Basically what a recent study has shown is that if the patient believes they have relasped there's a good chance they have. I believe I have relapsed based on the symptoms I have. They are identical to what I have had on all previous relapses (and I've had a few!).

We talked about having a biopsy on the nodes in abdomen, however they are still small and there's no guarantee that they can be located and biopsied successfully. I mentioned about my plans for Targa and he was aware of them. I said that as I have had no significant change in my health in the last six months other than the fever and cough, and weighing that with the CT scan showing no real disease progress, I'd like to leave things until early November after Targa before proceeding. He agreed that there wasn't much we could gain in the interim anyway.

We talked about my wish to take prednisone to reduce my fever and he agreed I could start the the prescription the week before Targa and continue them until the week after. This should at least offer me some degree of comfort while competing in the gruelling event. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to race for a week while running a high fever!

We discussed possible treatment options as well. In January this year I had a chemotherapy regime called IVE which wiped out all the cancer load I had at that time. I wished we had run to two cycles because it really worked well. Dr D'Souza said that IVE may be a possible palliative treatment given it's previous effectiveness. I agreed. It's still something I would not consider until maybe early in the new year based on how the disease is progressing (or not).

Then he mentioned a new drug that has just come onto the scene: Gemcitabine appears to show promise on previously heavily treated patients with refractory Lymphoma. This drug is currently not funded by Pharmac and would have to be funded privately at around $4500 a cycle, but that may not be too much of a problem and I have health insurance which may help.

So where does this leave me? Hmmm not sure. Probably back where I was five years ago, only with a slightly more treatment battered body. As the doctor and I both agreed on before we ended the conversation, I could be around for a few more years yet if the disease stays at a passive level and we keep on top of it. And that new drug looks promising!
There's always hope. No scratch that! There is only hope. Without it there is nothing. Positivity isn't an attitude, it's my reality. I have no room for the negative.

Sorry for the long boring medical post, it's my way of documenting my journey. Thanks for coming along with me :)

http://www.targalifechallenge.co.nz/

Things just happen..

As I'd mentioned in one of last weeks posts, TePapa are currently running an exhibition on the history, evolution, technology and people of Formula 1. They had asked local motorsport people if they could display their cars out the front of the museum to help promote the exhibit for fathers day weekend.

One really cool spin off was the use of the large "Green Room" attached to the theatre up on the fourth floor. We were treated to an endless supply of food and tea and coffee, plus somewhere to unwind and relax. The very best thing about all this was that we shared the use of the room with Greg Murphy, Chris Amon, Bob McMurray (ex McLaren F1) and several other motorsport identities.


I got to have a short chat with the great Kiwi Formula 1 legend Chris Amon in which we talked about setting up the suspension on the first front wheel drive Corollas brought into NZ. He would advise Toyota on what suspension settings to use after testing at Manfield race circuit and then the car would be brought to my workshop where I would set the wheel alignment to Chris's specs. This was a relationship I had with Toyota all through the late 80's into mid 1990's and yet I never got to meet the man in person.





Fellow Rusty-Racer team member Murray O'Neil was thoroughly enjoying a chat with V8 Super Car racer and four times Bathurst winner Greg Murphy about the subtleties of single seater racing. Something I know nothing about, having never driven a single seater race car in my life.
However I was content to just stand in the group and nod occasionally, basking in the reflected glory. ;)





It's been a great week for fundraising towards Targa. The tally towards the Cancer Society has grown significantly with a large donation from Craig Sheppard of Harbour City Security.
Graeme Gaskin and the team at "Gaskin Ford and Mazda" have come on board and made a significant donation towards running costs for Targa as well as supplying us with the use of a service vehicle during the event.


One man that has really blown us away is local motorsport competitor Brendan Cantwell who challenged his workmates to get behind the Targa Life Challenge team. Brendan and his workmates at Provoke have raised over $1500 towards the running costs of the race car.
(That's nearly 10% of the total expected campaign costs raised due to the efforts of just one man!)
A huge "thank you" goes out to Brendan and his Motorsport mad workmates!

But weight there's more!

I emailed the Targa organisers earlier in the week to inform them of the correct weight of the race car. I had advised them previously that the factory weight was 1240kg but further research showed that to be wrong and it's actually 1170kg for the lighter rally version I own.

Targa regulations state that they calculate the race weight of an entered car as being the factory curb weight plus 160kg for the driver and co-driver. I was pleased that they accepted my new weight figure as it meant we would not have to carry any ballast to bring us up to minimum weight.

However I got a phone call from Targa HQ in the morning asking if my car ran a restricted turbo charger, which is doesn't. Later that day I got an email from the officials stating that because my car was un-restricted they were adding a 100kg weight penalty to my car. Bugger!

I'll need to bolt in either some lead blocks or some weight lifting bar-bells to the floor of the car. I'll also need to change my spring rates and shock settings to compensate.
Oh well, I do like a challenge. :)

On a more positive note.. I attended the AGM of the Hutt Valley Motorsport Club last night and was pleasantly surprised to be awarded Life Membership in recognition of my 25 years of contribution to the club.

Still lots happening with the Targa preparations. We are in negotiations with sponsors on several fronts. Still waiting for that big sponsor to come on board, but from the ground swell of interest we have generated so far I have a feeling it can't be too far away.