It is well, it is well, for I am mending

By BIGA LEBASI
AFTER losing a son to sickness, Spafford and his wife Anna lost their four daughters in a ship tragedy while on a voyage to holiday in France.
He was back in the States then when Anna reached safety minus the kids, and wired him saying: “Saved Alone.”
From this bitter and perilous experience, God sent inspiration to Spafford and he penned this popular hymn for us to sing and glorify Him now and forever more.
I’ve kept my tattered copy of this sad and beautiful story in my dictionary I carry with me here in PNG and abroad.
In 2014 I flew into Cairns – my favorite city in my favorite country Australia –  to holiday and catch up with my colonial Aussie mates because among many reasons, I miss their nasal accent and mateship.
Mark Davis met me on arrival and we drove to his Mooroobool home to reconnect with his Hanuabada journo wife Olive, who, at one time was my cadet in the 1970s at the Lawes Road rag. Cupid had worked overtime resulting in their wedding during which I was employed as their MC to recharge empty glasses and say appropriate things without hiccupping at the reception.
Meanwhile, my “surrogate “ white son Matthew Petrie, a lawyer son of my Sogeri secondary school teachers Kenneth and Alison Petrie, got wind of my Cairns visit and he emailed me from Adelaide, to meet his mate Michael Myers, a lawyer too, for a cuppla drinks on the Cairns Esplanade.
Earlier in life when Matthew was young and living with his dad, and I, having lost my only child, a son, would go to their home, sad and lamenting my late son.
Ken, to console me, would point to Matthew playing on their lawn and say: “Stop this nonsense. That boy’s your son too.”
I had, long before Matthew was born in Port Moresby, boarded with his paternal grandparents Alex and Elizabeth Petrie in Melbourne and trained at The Melbourne Herald and Weekly Times and The Sun Pictorial and Sporting Globe. That’s how they became my family friends.
Mat and Mike are part owners of a tropical forest property at Tully, south of Cairns. And Mat had kindly invited me to spend sometime there to feel at home and refuel. I did too!
I didn’t drink much alcohol that night on the Esplanade, for I was already drunk in the friendly ambience and hospitality of the city that still brings me peace of mind.
Meanwhile, a cyclone was approaching Cairns. Shops and other business houses and schools were being closed for safety, and tourists were being herded to safe quarters.
I, at the Davis home in my cozy room after the drinks, listened and watched in awe ongoing cyclone warnings on TV with videoed coastal scenes of gusty winds lashing plants and animals, venting their rage in such ferocity I had never seen before in my 73 years on Planet Earth!
I was curious. It was the closest I had been to a cyclone and I was ecstatic. I began to wish to go walking to the Esplanade to see and photograph trees bending backwards for my future weather features in this era of climate change.
I didn’t and couldn’t. I’ll now I tell you why.  I could not piss! My bladder had decided to shut up like the shuttered buildings all over the city.
Like a field mouse accidentally finding itself in a house filled with PNG memorabilia, I repeatedly tiptoed to the loo and back with no way to unload excessive piss in my bladder.
At 6am I rudely rang a urologist/surgeon called Neil S. I. Gordon. He had to go to Bunda /Spence Street with his wife to open his barricaded clinic for me.
I told Mark and we then drove through the streets of Cairns which was now devoid of people. It was, to me, very eerie.
Dr Gordon, a urologist-plus, and so kind and generous to his patients, drained the offending piss and recommended blood tests and examination of my lower extremities….err umm.
After two days, Mark accompanied me to the clinic despite my protests to go alone to hear the result: he said Olive said so. So I heard. And I obeyed.
I had earlier in PNG read up on cancers and other health issues. So armed with this info, I reasoned that if ever I develop a disease nobody wants to hear I have, I would be positive and accept the doctor’s decision, good or bad.
Dr Gordon entered the room where Mark and I were seated, flipping through magazines and healthcare pamphlets. His credentials were on the walls. Amazing.
He walked in and immediately read through body language that he had bad news for me.
He said good morning. “The good news first or the bad news, Biga?”
I said the bad first please. I HAVE cancer of the prostate!
I stole a hidden glance at Mark. He looked shocked. Pale.
I flew back to PNG balancing a pissbag and disembarked from the jet, seated in a wheelchair which was lowered to the tarmac by a machine that resembled an enormous front end loader.
It took a while for my 17-Mile family led by Lawrence Stevens to spot me arriving home in style!
Meanwhile, Matthew Petrie and his siblings having heard of my predicament, bought a CNS/ADL/CNS return ticket for me and when I returned to Cairns, spent a week relaxing with his family at their Adelaide home.
In August 2014 as I, in a green sterilized gown waited to slide feet first into a scanner, I uttered a silent prayer and recalled It is Well.
The nurse told me it wouldn’t hurt and closed the door. My prostate gland was cored by Dr Gordon at a day surgery.
That night, after coaxing from Mark, I overnighted with them.
Next morning when I, with my pissbag, and on my knees, trying to tie my shoe laces, small Hurricane, Mark bona Olive edia bubu, came from behind, stretched his growing arms, and hugged my worries out of the window for me.
Staying alone in a Sheridan Street backpackers and still wearing my urine bag, I found out nobody was bothering to clean my room daily so I bought a bucket and a mop and Dettol and did it myself. I had accidents in my leaking catheter between bed and the loo.
So one sunny morn I limped down Sheridan Street looking for cheaper rooms. I rested on a bus stop seat and on the opposite side of the walkway was a big signage reading: Mental Health Centre. Out from there came a young man who stopped to tell me that he’d just been in there for his medication, as we waited for the bus.
I noticed that he did not suffer from any stigma. So I opened up and poured my cancer story to him – a complete stranger. He listened to my sad story which I was so afraid to talk about because of perceived stigma.
Steven Garner of McCoombe street Mooroobool, down from Mark and Olive in the same street, became my Cairns cancer carer like them.
The others are, the Petries: Matthew, Catherine and Elspeth; Anthony and Jacqueline McCarthy and kids Teagan and Lucian, Carmello and Connie Darmanin, all of Cairns, and hundreds of tourists who had transited in the city, imparting their faith in me to keep smiling and be positive and Jim and Didi Foster, Brisbane.
In PNG: Lawrence Stevens and his 17-Mile  “pagans”, Graham Lynch of Kairiru, Sir Kina and Lady Bona, Baia and Mele Tupagogo, Oleva Harvey.
To all of you Eawedo matemate (Suau for “thank you till I die”).
I haven’t been on medication since the coring in 2014 because my PSA test results are decreasing.  The lowest so far is 15. That means no medication.
This week my blood pressure went down after a high for three years.
“When peace like a river attendeth my way/When sorrows like sea billows roll/Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say/It Is Well It Is Well with my soul!”  – Horatio Gates Spafford.