My job includes fighting bushfires. I have been flown by helicopter into wilderness areas to spend the day making fire control lines with the wonderful rakehoe – a heavy duty combination rake and hoe tool. Every year I have to prove my fitness. Every two years this includes a full medical. My medical in 2009 discovered a lump in my guts. It turned out to be my spleen swollen with mutant white blood cells. My cancer had been discovered.
Last week I had my first routine work medical since my diagnosis. No lumps this time, I’m glad to say. The report was good although I’m not allowed to work directly on the fire line this season (not having to spend twelve or more hours on a rakehoe is fine by me).
Following the okay medical report is the fitness assessment. This involves hiking 3.22 km with an 11.3 kg pack within 30 minutes. While it isn’t an overly arduous test, the pace is brisk and the weight is noticeable and my legs started feeling it on about lap two of the seven laps around the local footy oval. Green Day blasting on my ipod allowed me to keep up the required speed (I did start with some Ralph Towner, a favourite jazz–classical guitarist, but the idiosyncratic time signatures of his music didn’t help).
I managed the distance with time to spare and was feeling pretty good with myself. The day was warm – quite muggy – and an all morning meeting that dragged into the afternoon left me drowsy. I wandered home early to rest and was soon completely flaked on the bed. I was amazed at just how zonked I was. I was annoyed that proving my fitness proved by undoing. I would have tried some more Green Day to revitalise me but the ipod was too far away on the bedside table and now weighed at least thirty kilo so lifting it would have been impossible. I slept.
My tiredness pisses me off. It is so complete, so overpowering that I am not game to plan on doing anything much in the afternoons. But still I try. I am not going to let this beast beat me.
