Grey's back - a week's gone by

Thought it was rather boring last week. Grey's Anatomy that is. Guess I'm just not concentrating.

Had my clinic session on Thursday 22nd Feb. at Prince Charles Hospital. Dr. Peter Hopkins was concerned that I had had two stage 2 rejections in the past nine months. Stage 2 is considered mild. It appears that on both occasions it was the pre surgery (hip replacement and planned Fundoplication) move from Everolimus (trial drug) to Myfortic combined with Cyclosporin that caused the problem. (This drug business is all trial and error).

Now it looks as though I'm off Everolimus, off Cyclosporin, and on to Tacrolimus and Myfortic. I hope I got all that right. So it's wait and see until my Fundo op. on 8th March and then we'll go back to trial and error again. Somehow, I suspect the current drug regime will continue into the foreseeable future.

The controversy in regard to MIS schemes continues to cause me a lot of stress. Great Southern shares have dropped to $2.02 (from a high a couple of years ago of $4.65). That's a massive paper loss for us and with little hope of recovery until some certainty returns to the sector.

The Government simply hasn't done its homework on this and I have urged, as have hundreds of others, that sanity prevail and that there be a stay of proceedings until the matter can be properly debated by both sides, farmers and MIS managers, in the High Court if necessary. I have written to a number of members of Parliament including the Prime Minister, The Treasurer and various ministers, expressing my concerns.

I am not against change as long as it is decided after a thorough understanding of the effect change has on the rural community, on jobs, on export income, and on ordinary shareholders.

"Landline" (ABC TV - repeated Monday 26th Feb 11.00pm Australia Eastern time) today had a fairly balanced report on the industry and it did appear that there will be a phasing in period before non-forestry Managed Investment Schemes are given the chop as far as tax deductibility is concerned.

So we continue to have hope for the future but I can tell you that we don't need all this stress. A new life after lung transplant, little income for eighteen months, the ups and downs associated with drug trials, hip replacement surgery, serious reflux problems, and now financial stress is all taking its toll and I am feeling very tired. It's a real effort to pick up each day and go on. But as always, I say, "Nothing is ever as bad as it seems" and I am sure things will get better.

Let's hope so anyway. I am just very, very tired.

Sleep well.

Tony, good luck for 28th Feb settlement on your new venture and Happy Birthday for Friday (I should have called but at least we were thinking of you). Phil, hope you're feeling OK, or as well as can be expected. Geoff, we haven't heard from you but continue to hope all is well.

Take care,

Ben