So in my early years I was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. One of my hearts valves so to speak was not working well, getting stuck. Causing a lot of pain in my chest. So I learned to live with this, but having to take tablets for the rest of my life. After several years I stopped taking these tablets as I felt worse with them than without.

Years later having lost my children due to the Australian law system on Family law which ripped my family more and more apart. Having a wife who took full advantage of this system, inventing stories and whatever she said is what they believed... From threatening her, to running her over, to wanting to kidnap my kids and take them out of the country. Spending year after year in court, and she was only told he has a right to see his children. And yet every time she refused, with another story and we ended up back in court. Finally a break when she was admitted into a mental section of a hospital she had no choice but to give my kids to me. Some of the best times I had was, when I saw my kids every day, toilet training my son, teaching him how to walk. Teaching my daughter on how to use a computer. She was about 4 or 5 years old at this stage. One evening my son was not feeling well, took him to the hospital emergency not far from where I lived, here I had to wait and wait...

My son was sick all over me, yet I had to wait, finally a doctor came over and started to examine my son, some of the talking and things going on I was not sure what was happening. Only sometime later did I realise that what they were doing was checking my son for child abuse!!! Of course this was not the issue, he had a virus.

Then my by now ex wife was released from hospital she then straight away took me to court, even with proof of her mental case she won the kids back without a question. So the circus started again.

Back to court, very rarely seeing my kids, restraining orders for no reason except I wanted to see my kids. The system here works in favour of some. Today I know this system causes nearly 3 male suicides per day down under.

All the stress took its toll I ended up with a severe melanoma which was discovered purely by accident I went to my doctor because I did not feel well, he looked me over and a mole I had, had changed colour. He said I don't like the looks of this and took a skin sample.

Within a few days I was back at the doc's. He said it has come back positive, cancer! I will remove this right now, he cut it out and spend his time cleaning up the wound. Within a few days he called me in again and said there is still more cancer there. Another operation and again very neatly stitched up.

A few days later he called me in again and said, we need to operate again as there is still more there, this time he booked me into a hospital emergency operation.

Within days I was in the hospital, I counted 43 injections in my back as this cancer was right behind my heart. So now back in surgery again, I was awake for this one as with the others. But while they were busy I said to the person who was checking my vital signs and anaesthetics. I told this person I can feel them cutting now, it was like they were cutting with a blunt knife, I was in extreme pain at this stage. But nothing was done, they stitched me up and put me in a waiting room or something like this. After a few days I went to see my doctor again, he checked what they did, it looked awful compared to what my doc had done previously. He said now it's time to sit down, the operation was successful all the cancer is gone. He said I had to act quickly, this melanoma was so severe, that you had less than a month to live. It took some time for this wound to heal as the scar was now nearly as long as my hand. I was starting to feel better again as well, and started to think in what he had said. I could not understand how he could put a time on this, but he did. I am happy it was successful.

But the story with my kids did not change, back in court, back to the same merry go round... A year or so went by and I had enough, this had now been going on for 4 years, in this time I had seen my kids barely 4 times. I decided it was time to leave Australia as things just don't change!

As a white male I seem to be everything that I am not! So I left Australia, a few year later I could not handle not seeing my kids and went back to Australia. I managed to see my kids, played football with my son, first time ever. My son and daughter were so happy to see me. My son was so exhausted he fell asleep on me, things seemed to be better... What a moment for me.

It took about 5 more years before I would have this chance again, my son wanted me to come back to Australia and live with him and his mum, well that was not going to happen. This time I decided to come back to live down under, got myself a design position where I could finally out my talent, moved close to where my kids lived after living with a good friend of mine.

I went to the house where my kids lived, no one home or no one answering. Not having any other way to contact my kids I went to my daughters school, and saw and spoke with my daughter... it was so good to see her... And it stopped there, I was straight away hit with a new restraining order...

Not seeing my kids, or so seldom it was like not seeing them. Working long hours, enjoying what I am doing having the freedom to grow and develop what I was doing. This lasted until my boss did not want to or could genuinely not afford to pay me or my bonuses. My design work and other efforts won us a contract worth well over one and half million dollars, but my bonus for this was nowhere to be seen... Ended up in a way striking as I was so disappointed. An old friend contacted me from overseas needing to get some work, as there were two businesses operating in the same building I organised some work, but at the same time I was having issues, he made stress as well by starting to steal things. At first I could not prove this so started looking for the evidence, than my boss walked in and wanted to know what I was doing... mmm... this did not help.

Ok so I left the position and took my boss to court for unpaid bonuses and wages. This did not help me either, as he knew and or paid the judge and lawyer and I was made to look like a fool.

Stress, stress and more stress... This then also killed my relationship I had at the time. My own family then started making problems, seems my own father had an issue with me, as I would not do what he wanted... Restraining orders & court orders, with which he kicked me out of the house and more... more stress...

Then out of the blue I get a call from an old friend, asking me if I would be interested in starting a business with her! Ok, so after a lot of negotiation I fly back to Europe. Here I just faced more stress, seems the business was not the main priority! I would have to look for clients, look for insurances, look for whatever! But how, I did not speak the local language. At the same time I found a lady who spoke good English we got on like a house on fire, then I needed to leave the place I was at and moved into a restaurant that had some spare rooms Slowly we ended up in a relationship and I ended up moving in with her, finding myself an engineering job (job = just over broke). Things went well at first and I could hold my head above water. Nearly every week to month our workload was increased. Learning a lot of different technical processes etc. I needed a change after 4 years here. One department was looking for new people. This department had already moved to another building, as it was being sold off. This was my opportunity to move on, got the position and started. Here things were going well as my experience from the main engineering position helped me with this new position. At the same time home life was becoming more and more stressful. My Partner was looking after mentally handicapped people, all good. Some exciting moments some not, very interesting though. One of the people was doing so well that they could move out, very excited about this. Than one of her kids came and told her that they were going to have a child soon, and that she would become a grandmother soon... All good news, everybody happy. Except a few days later the phone rings. We had to go to the restaurant where the people were being integrated straight away. The lady could not handle the news that she was going to become grandmother and took her own life.... This was for me hard to deal with, and more stress at home, ended this relationship. Then a new personal manager started at the company I worked for. We did not get on, in fact he did not get on with anyone there. Needing to change my living space I ended up buying a house as it worked out cheaper than renting a place. I met a Lady while buying my house.

The situation at work went out of hand after about 6 months with, me having to have talks about my performance, yet working harder than ever in designing new factory layouts. In the end the stress was too much. I ended up being sick nearly every day. My doctor prescribing me more and more tablets.

I was not getting any better, just more side effects, more stress. On good days I was thinking of going back to work again. Bad idea, everything just went to shit at work. In the end it was so bad, that suddenly one eye went crocked and was looking at about 45 degrees right. Could not see properly due to this and was given a driving ban. Not long after I was send off to get an mri* scan of my head... This time they found something else. They were looking for another reason my eye could move so quickly and not recover!

So another whack... a tumour against my eye nerves!

This came heavy but what else could go wrong... my doc wanted me to have an operation, so of for more tests... Another mri* to see what size it is and what it is, and what they could do about it!

The news came that they would like to remove it to see what it is as they could not see if it was a cancer or something else. So the diagnosis was to drill a hole through my eyebrow to reach it and if this didn't work or if they needed help they would drill another hole through my temple.

Super isn't it? Well we decided we wanted to discuss this first, as the Doc's wanted to do this straight away. I said no way, we want to try something else... So we tried a natural way, that seemed to have success with a lot of tumours and other things. So every day I drank this disgusting drink that tasted something like really salty to a swimming pool.... But ok if it works its better than an operation and better then getting more poisons put in my body with injections or tablets.

Then another mri* in a different hospital and discuss the operation!

So another scan, docs discussed what to do called us in and were comparing the size of the Tumour!

There seemed to be no difference at first but after measuring it seemed to be getting smaller, so our decision was clear, no operation!

The doctors of course were not happy about this news as they really insisted on an operation. But I was not ready for this at this stage, the mri* alone made me feel very unwell.

Then things got worse, I had trouble with my left arm, than my leg. Felt extremely tired and slept whole days. Doctor just prescribing more tablets. Most I stopped taking as I felt worse than taking them. Then had to go for an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to see what was going on.

Results, it seems like I had a stroke and they found out where it occurred as there was a change near where my spine joins my head, how they could see this I have no idea. Also one day I had to go to hospital to have spinal fluid removed for testing, not sure anymore what the reason was, as the pain from this was also horrific as they could not get the needle into one of the lower vertebra's and the nurse could not get it in. This is done without aesthetic as this can ruin the result. After 4 or 5 attempts it worked, this took about 3 hours, normally it would have taken about 40 minutes...

But I did not feel well after this scan, than another and another... man I was kaput (broken).

One stroke I had in the car, luckily I was not driving as I was banned from this. I did not feel well, feeling car sick wanting to throw up, could hardly get out of the car, had to help my left arm and leg out of the car, needed help getting up and walking. Ended up sleeping the rest of the day, feeling better having a bath after. But this was a stroke.

This was the third and last one... Slowly started walking more eating healthier, drinking healthier.

Than several months later not having any more mri's* It was a good thing. I could walk again, cycle again etc. Winter was coming to an end so we decided to go sledding in the mountains. All good let's do this. We arrived and took a ski lift up the mountain, as I was not confident we decided to go one sled together. The slopes were freshly smoothed out, they looked great. So off we went, just got up to speed maybe 100 or a little more meters down the slope and suddenly my foot slipped of the sled and the sled disappeared. We crashed all I remember is rolling down the slope. Wanting to get up as there were more people coming down on sleds, I couldn't! Only able to use my arms to crawl of the slope, I crawled to the side, my partner was not happy and suffered a lot of bruising. Finally I managed to sit up and stretch my back, I had some pain in my lower back but not too bad. Having pain everywhere, I sat for a while, I said she could go on and enjoy the sledding. Finally I manage to stand up and started my way down the slope walking. Having to stop at regular intervals as the pain was just too much, not sure how many hours I took to walk down but made it. Had trouble to get into and out of the car with a lot of lower back pain. After a good sleep I felt much better, still had pain and had some problem walking. Slowly my right leg started losing weight, having to support myself with crutches while walking, standing still became a problem as well. But lifting my leg or body with the crutches created a feeling of someone wanting to pull my leg off, like something was being pulled from within me.

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Connecting the Dots - eyes wide shut

* MRI = Magnetic resonance imaging

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