"KING OF THE MOUNTAIN"

I can't remember a time in my life when so much has happened in such a short period of time.
The month of May 2009 will go down as one of the watershed periods in my life.

I started the month with an amazing result in the Napier hillclimb events, where I went head to head with a far superior car, I didn't win but I showed it was ultimately possible.

Sarah and I then moved house and at the same time got Resource consent to start the earthworks required for our new home in Kelson.

I celebrated twenty years in business on May 1st.. man how time flies!

I was given a clean bill of health by my doctors and declared in "Complete Remission" following a clean CT scan.

I've discovered my constant cough may be Asthma related and can be controlled with std medication.

Last week I won the Duncan McKenzie Trophy for greatest number of points won in all Wellington region sealed sprint events. This is the fourth year in a row I've won it and a record for the most number of consecutive wins.

I was awarded the Mobil : Wellington Motorsport Personality of the Year award for my contribution to the sport and my success behind the wheel despite the hurdles of the past year.

As if all that wasn't enough. and just before the last day of the month rolled around. I travelled to Hunterville this weekend with Sarah and Murray to compete in the Manawatu Motorsport "King of the Mountains" Hillclimb series.

I won the first day (Otara rd) by a mere .4 of a second over Murray in second place. Day two, Lower Pahikikura rd, was looking to be more suited to Murray's rally car than my tarmac tuned car because of the strong likely hood of rain and snow showers.
Thankfully the rain and snow stayed away for the entire period of the event, other than a brief snow shower over the lunch break. The result was that I won day two as well, but by just .04 of a second over Murray.


The net result is I now hold the title of "King of the Mountains" for 2009 and Murray in the other Flextech car took out the second place position. (Jokingly winning him the title of Queen of the Mountains).


My mission for June is to jump start my health. I need to gain an appetite, put on at least a couple of KGs, get this cough under control and my body working the way it should be. (It seems to be missing a few hormones or something at the moment as it's all screwed up)

Wow!

Last night I attended the Wellington Motorsport Association annual prize-giving evening.
I'd been told I needed to attend, I thought it was because I had again won the Duncan McKenzie series for sealed events. This the fourth year I have won it in a row. Something that had never been done before.

Sure enough I was awarded the DM trophy and I made a short speech about how difficult the year had been, but that I had been lucky enough to still compete in all the rounds. Some of the events I entered in a very sick state indeed, But I had made my motorsport my goal... a focus to get me through my often harsh medical treatments. I mentioned my boyhood racing heroes and how I had set myself a goal of one day winning the Duncan McKenzie series.

One thing I did notice during the prize giving was the large number of competitors that won awards that I help out in one way or another. Usually it's a bit of free advice and a discount on the work I do on their cars. It seemed like I had a small hand in about 90% of the winning Rally and Sealed event cars.

Later in the evening we were told it was time for a very special award, one that is only given out every few years. We were told that the recipient had competed successfully at a very high level in local motorsport despite having several obstacles thrown in his way. This person was known to offer help to many younger motorsport competitors and contribute both his time and expertise to the sport. I began thinking ... gee that could be anyone.. heck it could even be me!!
He spoke of the fact that this person offered the use of their premises for motorsport events.. and I realised it was me he was talking about! I started to shake..

Suddenly my name was being called and the whole room rose, giving me a standing ovation.. I walked to the front of the room tears welling up in my eyes.. I was totally blown away.. speechless. The award.. "The Mobil Wellington Motorsport Person of the year"

It still hasn't completely sunk in.. Perhaps I should have guessed something was in the air when the General Manager of Motorsport New Zealand phoned me yesterday and asked if my car could be put on display in the foyer at Head Office...

Complete Remission !!!

I just missed a phone call on my mobile.. I knew straight away that it was important, it stopped ringing just as I reached into my pocket to pick it up.

My voice mail notification went off a few seconds later..
It was Dr D'Souza, he had been able to confer with the radiologist and they have agreed that other than some scarring on my lungs the CT scan is clean. He used the words "Complete remission".

Complete remission is no guarantee it won't come back, it just means that at this point in time I have no detectable disease. I'll take that with both hands!

Time to celebrate !!!! Long may it last!!

No results today.. Whooping cough at large?

Well it's been a stressful wait for today and the results of CT scan. Especially in light of the cough and asthma type symptoms I've been having. However Doctor D'Souza did not have the written report from the radiologist. He said he had looked at the scan himself and could see no areas of concern but he wanted to be sure before giving me the all clear. He said there were a few lymph nodes in my mediastinum that were probably normal but again he wasn't 100% sure.

The end result is another few days in limbo until he can discuss the scan and get back to me on Monday afternoon.

In my hunt for other possible causes of a persistent cough I've come up with an interesting theory...
In that there appears to be a relatively unreported outbreak of whooping cough (Pertussis) out there at the moment. So many people have commented to me that they have a cough that won't go away and has been with them for up to six weeks. I did some hunting on the internet and found a few local cases where people have insisted on being tested and they have come back positive for whooping cough.

With all the fuss about swine flu this seems to have gone unnoticed and unreported by our media.
Local health authorities have noticed a dramatic increase in whooping cough cases amongst children but as the distinctive "whooping" cough is absent in adults I believe it is not being correctly diagnosed. I'm not saying I have Pertussis, known as the "100 day cough" in adults but it's certainly out there in the community and in very large numbers.

Cough and Asthma

I've now had this Asthmatic cough for about a month, it is brought on by changes in air temperature. If I am exposed to warm air I start to cough a little and I get very wheezy.
There are a lot of people I know who are complaining of similar symptoms and even my 1 y/o niece Alex has developed a cough that sounds similar.

However I'm still totally paranoid as it reminds me of the cough that developed after I returned from Germany and that turned out to be Hodgkin's. I don't have the dry annoying cough though that is more typical, and I have no other symptoms like night sweats, high temperature or itchy skin. So I live in hope that it's just a chest infection/asthma that is being exacerbated by the radiation and chemo damage to my lungs. Either way I shall know for sure on Wednesday when I see Dr D'Souza for my CT scan results.

Things have changed in my business, Kurt who had been with me for around four years, left on Friday to work on building up his own business doing earthworks while working part time as a gib-fixer. So there is only me now working in my business, which isn't completely a bad thing as the workload has dropped quite a bit with the shrinking economy anyway.

The new house plans are coming along slowly. I'm dealing with the council at the moment, going through the consents process. That in itself is worthy of a blog. You can't imagine how ridiculous some of the information requests from them have been.

I'll post an update on Wednesday after I've seen the doctor for my scan results.. fingers crossed it's not a relapse.