It’s a long story! It started on Friday 11th March 2022! Around that time, Australia had experienced huge rainfall volumes. I think in Bawley Point, where we live, there was circa 250ml in a few months. This was following the bush fires in early 2020. They say this is a country of extremes and that is certainly the case in my, very limited experience. Even the locals said they had never experienced rains, so persistently and in such volumes.

The roads in Australia, and certainly around here, are not built in a very robust way. There is a substratum, of sorts, with a very thin piece of tarmac overlaid. It doesn’t take much to break the surface and the volume of rain led to potholes on a massive scale. The local council simply couldn’t fill them quickly enough and when they did the repairs soon washed away again. Kim had gone up to Sydney to see her girls and the grandkids. It was a dry sunny day on 11th March 2022, so I put the dogs in their cage in the back of my car and set off to drive south to Bateman’s Bay. I never got there and can’t remember why I decided to undertake the trip – possibly to go to the DIY store and include a walk with the dogs and maybe lunch.

Around 5 kilometres from home I hit the mother of all potholes with both offside wheels. It was a huge strike, and the dashboard immediately went red with a warning light to say the front tyre was rapidly deflating. I had to drive on a little way as there was no space to pull over. I was in the middle of nowhere, no mobile signal! Rather than attempt to change the wheel to the “limited” spare, I thought it may be more sensible to try to see if the tyre would re=inflate using the “gunk” provided. In the end I considered it best to seek help as I was in a pretty dangerous spot by the side of a very busy highway with a 100kph speed limit. When I eventually found somewhere, I got out to have a look at the damage. By now the tyre was flat against the rim. As they are low profile tyres, I couldn’t make out the extent of the damage.

But with no mobile signal I had to walk back the way I had come, to a place called Termeil, about three kilometres away. There is a BP garage there, where I could at least make a call. I took the dogs out of the car as I had no idea how long I would be gone. After attaching their leads, I set off. After about 2 kilometres I found I had a mobile signal again.

I decided to call my good friend, Gary Wallington. Gary lives close by and had become a good friend having already done so much work to improve our property – he had relaid our driveway for example. He specialises in earthworks and has been a godsend with all our projects. He doesn’t always answer his mobile, if he is working with heavy machinery, for example. I was delighted when he answered the call. He had just returned home to collect some materials for the job he was working on. I think, by now, it was around 11am. I explained my predicament to Gary. He immediately set off to come to me and the dogs, who, to be honest, were not going to be capable of walking much further. Like me, they were worried about the dangerous road.

About 10 mins later, Gary arrived in his ute and we all jumped in for the short ride to find my car. We both felt it may be worth trying to pump the tyre up before trying to change it for the spare. I said I had a good quality pump back home, so we set off to collect it. At the same time I could allow the dogs to settle down in the house whilst Gary and I went back to the car.

We tried to pump it up without any level of success. Frustratingly, we could not see any damage to the tyre, but it clearly was badly damaged. So, off came the wheel and we fitted the space saver and inflated it. At a steady 50 kph, the max safe speed for the space saver, I set off home. We could see that the deflated tyre had a large gash in the tyre wall. There was no way it could be repaired.

I called the local tyre shop, which I had used previously. Unfortunately, the tyre required was neither in stock with them, nor could he obtain one from his suppliers. He rang around other national suppliers and drew a blank all round. He suggested a call to Porsche, who would undoubtedly have a stock for their vehicles. I spoke to Porsche Canberra who confirmed they had one in stock. I asked them to stick my name on it. I booked in to have it fitted the following Wednesday, on 15 March.

On the following Wednesday I drove to Canberra, which is just over two hours away. With a maximum speed of just 50 kph allowed, it took a while longer. I asked them to inspect the suspension on the offside, where the pothole had done its best to destroy my car. It turned out to be OK. The front wheel was changed. In checking the rear wheel, they discovered that it too had been badly damaged. It had a large blister on the inner sidewall, which I obviously couldn’t see. They had a new tyre in stock, so I ended up having both front and rear offside tyres replaced at around $2000. Ouch!

I drove home and the car felt fine. I tried to claim compensation from the local council. It’s a very long story but, in short, they refused to play the game.

After a few days I started to notice a wobble through the steering wheel. It was only noticeable on a good road surface, which are rare around here, and at around 60kph. I assumed the wheel hadn’t been balanced correctly so took it to the local tyre shop to have it checked. Both the front and rear were perfectly balanced, which was strange. The wobble persisted, but it wasn’t too bad, just annoying. I left it and it gradually got better.

We move forward to the car going in for its annual service in September 2022. I mentioned said wobble to the reception staff and they agreed to undertake a check. It turned out that the actual wheel had been slightly buckled when striking the pothole. It was minor but enough to cause the wobble. The choice I had was a new wheel at $4500 or take it to a specialist to have it sorted. No prizes for guessing which option had the greater appeal!!

With me so far?

Forward to May 2023. I had scratched the rear passenger side wheel on a kerb, which annoys me intensely. Why do architects design car park entrances so narrowly that only Dinky toys can enter easily? Anyway, I took the damaged wheel and the buckled one, in our old Mitsubishi ute, to a place called Spot on Wheels, which I had used previously! Unfortunately, like most trips in the vastness of Australia, it was a two-hour drive to drop them off and two hours back. The ute was not built for speed or comfort! This was repeated two days later when Steve called to say “all sorted”. So, back in the ute for another 4 hours round trip. On the way back, I stopped off at the local tyre shop to have a new tyre fitted to the wheel that wobbled as it had worn unevenly and needed to be replaced, again! It had been pre-ordered on this occasion and had been sent by freight from Perth. Don’t ask what it cost!!

It was too late, when I got home, to start fitting wheels on my car so I decided to leave it until the following day. The wheels on the Cayenne are 22″ diameter and very heavy. The following morning, Saturday 20th May, I decided to put both wheels back on the car. The back went on Ok. They are very difficult to lift and line up with the five stud bolts and a few expletives were used on more than one occasion. I had a break after fitting the rear. When it came to the front wheel, I got everything in place and as I lifted the wheel I felt something “crack” in the right hand side of my lower back. I knew my posture was all wrong but bending and lifting such a weight is always going to be risky. I did manage to fit the wheel after a couple of attempts.

However, it was apparent my back was going to make me pay a heavy price. It felt muscular and I was sure it was not a spine or disc issue. It felt more like my hip. I took Nurofen Ibuprofen to ease the pain and try to help reduce any inflammation. I was in pain for the weekend and took tablets to get me through. On the following Tuesday, our electrician, Riley, was here to fit a light. He suggested going to see Renee Anderson a masseuse in the village. Riley had used her several times and recommended her highly. I called her and explained the nature of my injury and she agreed to see me on Thursday, 1st June. It went Ok, but she wasn’t confident she could do much for me as she felt it may be more than muscular.

I decided to go to see a Chiropractor. I have used one before to great effect when I had neck problems, back in the UK. Michael Lizak is based in nearby Ulladulla. Interestingly, I had met Michael previously. He plays the keyboards in a band called SoulTonic, who I had engaged to play at Kim’s 60th birthday party on 31st December 2022. Upon examination Michael felt he could help. I told him about the crack I heard but he dismissed this. We had three sessions and, I have to admit, I felt better after each one but within two or three days the pain was back, and not much overall impression was being made in reducing it.

I had my first session on 29th June and last one on 13 July. At this point I decided to get an appointment with my GP to arrange further investigation. I saw Dr Buddhi, who was new to the practice following the departure of my regular Dr, who had moved back to Sydney to specialise in acupuncture. Dr Buddhi examined me and felt there was constriction of the hip joint with obvious pain. She recommended an MRI to help determine the nature of the damage.

On Friday 21 July Kim and I booked into a hotel at Sydney Airport as, the following morning at 6am, we had a flight to Bali for a week’s holiday. I must admit, it was a painful journey for me. I never thought about booking an extra legroom seat for the journey, at the time of booking. By the time I realised I would be stuck in an economy seat for 6 hours, they had all been allocated. I managed, just.

Once we arrived in Bali, the pain subsided, but was still there. The rest did us both good. We had been very busy with our projects around the property and the break came at a very opportune time for us both.

We returned home on Sunday 30 July. The MRI was taken two days later 1 August. As fortune would have it, I had an appointment with the nurse at the medical practice on Thursday 3 August. This is an annual review, which is undertaken for all over 70’s in Australia as part of their screening program. I had previously had a blood test and the nurse reviewed these with me, whilst checking my weight and blood pressure. She seemed happy with the results and said I would see Dr Genevieve Burt, one of the senior team at the practice, who would chat to me and sign off the review.

I had not met Dr Burt previously, but she has a good reputation with friends who spoke highly of her. She looked at the annual review results and, like the nurse, was happy. I asked her if she had seen the MRI result. She hadn’t, but on checking her screen, found them. She looked at me and said, “I don’t know how to say this to you Peter, it’s the first time we have met, and you are on your own, which is far from ideal”.

She went on to say, “there are two things that have been revealed”.

The first was that I had a 10cm fracture in my pubic ramus. There was nothing that could be done, it will self-heal in 2/3 months and the pain will subside, which indeed it has.

Worse, I had stage 4 metastasized secondary bone cancer. It had spread throughout my lower spine, my pelvis and the tops of both femora. It was likely elsewhere too, but beyond the range of the MRI., which was focused on my pelvis and lower spine. To say I was shocked was a bit of an understatement! It certainly didn’t sink in, and I didn’t really fully understand the implications of what Dr Burt had told me, but I had enough knowledge to know it was far from good news. She went on to say she could not be certain where the primary cancer was but felt it most likely to be my prostate. I believe 95% of bone cancers start this way. The prostate is very good at metastasizing to the surrounding bones, from where it can spread further.

We discussed “where do we go from here” Dr Burt was very empathetic. She immediately realised the need to enable me to see a specialist to determine the exact nature of the disease, establish that it was primary prostate cancer, how serious it was and what treatment could be brought to bear to deal with it in the most effective way.

She promised that, later that afternoon, she would speak direct to a prostate cancer oncologist to arrange a consultation. Imagine my surprise when a meeting was arranged for the following Tuesday! Clearly not the NHS, I thought to myself.