It's Movember. Just gimme a mo ok?

One mo story

gimmeamo — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:19:32 +0000

What a month it’s been. So big that it’s taken me a couple of weeks to reflect on it. To paraphrase Hamilton Holt, “Nothing worthwhile grows easily”. This sure wasn’t easy, but Movember was a worthwhile cause and an amazing experience. I’ve met men who had tried growing a mo in the past, and a woman who supported the cause, but not on her husband’s face. I’ve raised the topics of prostate cancer and depression, and got people, including myself, talking about their own experiences with these illnesses. I’ve raised $1,020 in donations. And I’ve committed to keeping a daily blog.

Thank you to all my friends and family who have supported me and thanks to ‘mho’ for challenging me to do it in the first place. The biggest thanks goes to my very patient and supportive partner who put up with me taking photos of myself every day instead of shaving. She even took a lot of the photos for me. At the end of it all, she photographed me taking the shave we’d been long awaiting, then said, “I don’t mind if you do it again next year.”

Day 30 – Movember Gala Parte

gimmeamo — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:06:32 +0000

Day 29 – Last chance to donate

gimmeamo — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:56:22 +0000

After almost a month of daily mo shots, here’s a full face shot so you can see how it turned out. In hindsight, I think I should’ve let the soul beard (the bit of fuzz under my bottom lip) grow from day 1, but it’s only been going for a couple of weeks. The mo itself hasn’t been long enough to be the full Fu Man Chu, so I won’t bother shaving the bit under my nostrils. Basically this is the full untrimmed moustache. I guess you could call it organic. It’s not as bad as I feared it would be. Still sparse, but at least it’s more than just the few hairs that Bristow has.

So if you’ve been following my adventures, or have just been spammed by me because you made a pledge to donate, now’s your last chance to do it. There’s only one day of Movember to go.

Day 28 – New experiences

gimmeamo — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:22:18 +0000

I’ve never had a moustache before, so I really don’t know if they’re “supposed” to grow up and towards your nose. It’s funny to think that I once thought of having a comb-out. Now it looks like they’re going back in. Someone said that these shots are a bit in-your face, and for that I apologise. I wanted to share the tale of the sparse hairs in their true sadness. Only a couple of days to go and it’ll all be over. I’m looking forward to being clean shaven again. So is my girlfriend.

Day 27

gimmeamo — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:10:57 +0000

Day 26 – More photos to come

gimmeamo — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:59:13 +0000

The mo’s starting to look interesting. I’ve been falling behind on uplooading the pics, but they’re coming. Been focusing more on my health and trying to get a bit more sleep after reading about a CEO who died due to lack of sleep.

Day 25 – Doctors and Drugs

gimmeamo — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:59:32 +0000

beyondblue provides a lot of good resources on depression, but they place a lot of emphasis on the medical profession. It’s a sad reflection on our society today that people need to turn to their doctor as their first source of help. We’re unable to gain guidance from community leaders, like village elders or priests because we’ve become so detached from spirituality. We seek solace and a place to belong in cultural appropriation. If we turn to doctors, they will prescribe us with medication for which the mechanisms of action are as unknown as illicit drugs.

Take for instance a couple of drugs my GP gave me when I was 19. I first went to her because I’d been feeling depressed for years and neither my parents nor school counsellor had been much help. There was a 3 month waiting list to see a good psychiatrist she knew, so she gave me drugs in the meantime. First there was Tryptanol. “It appears to prevent the re-uptake of norepinephrine and serotonin at nerve terminals, thus potentiating the action of these neurotransmitters.” It appears? I guess they don’t really know. Well that was just a waste of time and made it even harder for me to get out of bed in the morning, so the doctor then gave me Sinequan and “The mechanism of action of Sinequan (doxepin HCl) is not definitely known”. That information is from the manufacturer themselves. This drug seemed as bad as the first. The doctor gradually reduced the dosage and I still felt drowsy even on the lowest dose. When I finally got to see the shrink, he just laughed. He said that the drugs didn’t work because my problems were reactionary, meaning that I was depressed not because of a chemical imbalance, but because of all the things I’d been through and was still living with.

Years later, I had a colleague who’d recently been put on anti-depressants. He told me that his drugs were great. “They just gave you the wrong kind,” he said. Maybe it was because we were in our late 20s by then. I read now that

“Antidepressants increased the risk compared to placebo of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents, and young adults in short-term studies of major depressive disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders. Anyone considering the use of Sinequan or any other antidepressant in a child, adolescent, or young adult must balance this risk with the clinical need.”

I wonder if that info was around in my day, and if so, just what the hell my GP was thinking.

Day 24 – Redemption

gimmeamo — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:36:17 +0000

There are many different forms of depression. Someone can be living with dysthymia for years and then do something stupid like a man losing the family’s nest egg on a bad investment, or as in John Brogden’s case, a politician acting politically incorrectly . This can lead to disgrace and major depression, even attempted suicide.

Brogden resigned from parliament, but later returned to public life as CEO of several companies. He spoke publicly about his battle with depression and became a patron for Lifeline. His greatest achievement however, was being given a pat on the back by the very community he insulted. “Multicultural Mental Health Australia (MMHA) Chair, Associate Professor Malak said he encouraged more community leaders and celebrities, especially from CALD [culturally and linguistically diverse] backgrounds who may be affected by a mental illness in the family, to show the same courage as Mr Brogden and talk about it openly.”

John Brogden’s story can show those in their darkest hour, that even if their depression is the result of self-inflicted shame, there is light and even redemption on the other side.

Day 23 – To test or not

gimmeamo — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:59:18 +0000

One of the many ‘treatments’ after being diagnosed with prostate cancer is ‘active surveillance‘, or just waiting and seeing how it goes. It doesn’t really sound like treatment to me. According to the Prostate Cancer Foundation some men avoid treatment because “treatment has potentially serious side effects such as impotence and incontinence, treatment may be worse than the disease”. The disease kills about 3,300 Australian men a year and yet we don’t have the same success rates in diagnosis leading to successful treatment as we do with breast cancer. We don’t even know if there’s much point in having routine screenings like we do with breast cancer.

Day 22 – Awareness

gimmeamo — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:59:24 +0000

I’m a whinger. Yesterday I complained that the Commonwealth Bank changed their logo to pink for an entire month for Pink Ribbon Day on 25th October, but did nothing for Prostate Cancer Awareness Month in September. How wrong was I?

Maybe my ignorance is indicative of men’s habit of shunning issues concerning our health. Even when it’s all around us, we don’t notice until it happens to us and it’s too late. It’s a good thing I’ve got involved with Movember. Not only am I raising awareness of prostate cancer and depression in those around me, I’m also learning a lot along the way.