Time to live

John Hickey has brain cancer. Following a successful
operation and a course of radio-therapy he's back in town
He spoke to Paul Cockram about coming
to terms with mortality and the joy of living

John Hickey went to England to visit his brother, got a job as a roustabout on an oil rig, met Maggie and they were married in England in1974.
They came to the Territory in the mid-eighties where John got a job as a teacher - it was not the best of times. "A disaster, actually," Maggie was once overheard to say.
But he found his feet with the move into community development with Aboriginal Field Services working for the NT Government. He worked in this area for over ten years and ended up as the Regional Manager of the Office of Local Government in Tennant Creek.
However, by this stage Maggie Hickey was the local Labor Party member and her patch overlapped with John's, especially out bush, with the result that the CLP Government suggested to John that he might like to take the gold watch and go.
He then devoted most of his energies to the garden at the Thompson Street house and building the new house at Humpty Doo.
In November last year my left leg started causing me a little bit of trouble. I'd had an operation on the back of my spine and at first I thought it was just a follow-on from that problem. I had a cramp up my leg but after it happened a second time Maggie said, "John, that's more that just cramp."
I went to my GP and told him that I had a bit of a problem that might be from the operation and he said he'd better get me in for some tests. A couple of days later he got back to me and said, "Well John, it's not your back so it must be something else."
He's a very direct sort of guy and he said straight out it might be my brain.
"We'll hope it isn't the brain," he said, "but let's have a look at that to eliminate all the evil possibilities."
So off I went for a CT scan - all this happened within a week - and when he got back to me with the results he said, "It is your brain John. It says here that it's just a benign cancer which is not too much of a problem - but I don't think that's what it is."
He said, "I've been watching you during the past week and quite frankly I think it's moving too quickly to be a benign cancer. A week ago you were vaguely dragging your foot and now you're really dragging your foot.
"I'd like to see some real action here," my GP told me.
He handed me across to another guy who presumably was a bit more of an expert in that area but he said that according to the tests it was benign and there was no need to rush. "We'll just take our time," he said.
But Lionel, my GP, sort of quietly said, "John, if I were you I'd get on with this".
You see, Lionel is a true General Practitioner. He will step back from you and say, OK let's have a good look at you and from that observation he sums you up entirely.
He looked me straight in the eye and without mincing words told me, "I think we have to get moving pretty smartly on this one."
Off I went to Adelaide and into the big machine, the one you lie on and go into the tunnel. Apparently some people get a bit spooked by it but I didn't mind at all - they keep in contact with you. This machine takes cross-sectional and lateral pictures as well.
Bad news.
"John, you've got cancer of the very worst type."
They looked me straight in the eye - they gave it to me straight, no stuffing about. They told me the average life expectancy would be about six weeks if they did nothing about it and about two years if they were to deal with it.
Dealing with it meant having an operation to remove eighty percent of the cancer.
At one stage brain surgeons used to go in for really heroic surgery where they tried to remove the whole lot and of course you ended up becoming a type of imbecile.
Nowadays they try to remove about eighty percent and then get the rest of the stuff with radio therapy.
The operation itself was quite painless, I was in intensive care for a couple of days and then I came out of that and made a nuisance of myself by wanting to get on my feet and get going.
I went on down to Melbourne for thirty days of radio therapy which was 'interesting' to say the least.
Now I see on TV there's thalidomide, the stuff that caused all those babies to be born without limbs; it seems there's a chance that it might be able to kill off the cancer altogether.
They're still pioneering it but I wouldn't mind giving it a try.
Probably from the human point of view the biggest impact on me has been the overwhelming human response which was quite stunning! It's really quite humbling to realise that people respond the way they do. It's fantastic - not only old people, but young people in particular to be able to keep a sense of fun in such a situation.
My nephew for instance. You know, they cut your whole head open and lift the flap of your skull - he was able to see the artistic value of this. They staple your skull back together again with metal staples; he immediately saw the potential from an artistic point of view, raced off and got his camera and took photos of my head.
The sense of fun and support that people gave me was really terrific, really great. For instance a fellow up in Borroloola who I probably haven't even met faxed through a message: "Tell your old man to hang in there". It was really great.
When you think about it, we've all got a pretty limited lifespan. What has happened in my case is that I've got some idea of what my life expectancy might be and in some ways that's a comfort. Now instead of postponing things, Maggie immediately said, "no more stuffing around, we want to get on with life, to live for here and now".
That's the really good thing about it.
Another thing too is that I got to see the support groups for people with cancer; and boy, you realise the need for those people.
As far as my cancer is concerned, it's a very radical form of cancer but it has very clear boundaries - you know what you're focussing on. Some people have these horrible cancers racing around their bodies.
The agonies that I saw people go through just from the radio-therapy. Mine was in a spot where there was minimal discomfort, almost none except for the monotony of turning up every day for thirty days.
But other people there who had neck cancer or tongue cancer, they went through hell. They get blisters on their tongues and loss of all taste - it was just horrible.
You see young husbands and wives with small families who are almost beside themselves trying to figure out how the hell they're going to be able to cope.
In our case, the kids have grown up; I'd like to see our grandchildren but that's a little extra, a little luxury.
It's the generosity and sense of human spirit which you suddenly become aware of; and it makes you feel guilty in many respects that you haven't responded better in the past to people in similar situations.
Instead of postponing what you want to do, you have to do it right now. I've had to modify my projects a bit, I wanted to finish the family home up in Humpty Doo, but that's changed.
We've become very focussed on enjoying each other's company - and everyone else's company too.
Maggie has had to make some hard decisions - she's had to step down as leader to focus on other things apart from politics.
You asked me earlier what I thought about people criticising Maggie for not being here while I was sick - well, there's nothing new about that really, no, we've been living with that sort of political point scoring for nine years. In many respects I just feel sorry for those people, I don't mean that in a patronising way, it's just that they're wasting so much time being bitter and twisted.
It's just such a waste of time.