If my big walk taught me anything, it’s that broken things can be fixed, even a life. I think I’m a little bit broken now, but not too seriously. I’ve just allowed myself to fall into sloth after the walk, and it’s been hard to get the motor started again. But now, and for the rest of my life, I have this motivating memory. I did something. I think it was significant.

I’ve been working on journalling up the BIG WALK, something I didn’t do well at the time. I tried my best to do regular live-streams on Facebook (@CapsBIGWALK) letting people know where I was, what I was doing and why – so there’s a lot of images and video to go through. If you’re interested in reading, you can see the breakdown here, so far up to Day 8.

Oh incidentally, yesterday I achieved two things during my visit to the dental school (aside from letting a diligent dental student hone their craft with me as the crash test dummy, haha)

It’s been more than 2 months since I finished the walk, and in my sloth I’ve been regaining weight (inching back up toward 100kg again, although nowhere near where I was pre-walk (140kg). Radiation induced thyroid damage and being 50+, weight gain is no joke.

But now I have this little superhero character still alive inside me, so I can never slip too far. “WAKE UP SIMON”, I can almost hear him urging. “Get your arse in gear, mate”

I’m not broken, or at least nowhere near as severely as I was after my cancer treatments and subsequent decline, but I have allowed myself to slip somewhat. All good though, getting back on track 🙂

My focuses .. foci ? .. in the short term are:

I need to make money, I need to get in front of the mortgage and pay for my kids’ schooling and whatnot – but at the same time, I’ve decided if you don’t LOVE something, you simply should minimise it’s footprint in your life.

And aside from that – health. Walking. Walking. More walking. As I lose more weight, I introduce jogging, stairs, general athletics like clambering up and down over picnic tables. My goal is to put all this obesity and health stuff behind me. 100 days is the deadline.

So. Getting on track.

Sure, I did SUPERHERO UP FOR SCIENCE! but I haven’t woven that relentlessness into my day to day life just yet. I did bring back hope. I did get to keep many of my gains – like I don’t really morbidly dwell on cancer any more. And I have kinda fallen in love with myself. But I’m not a go-getting dynamo in a day-to-day sense (yet).

But I’m starting. And I think the key is … try and do what you love.

And do something meaningful, and ideally kind. Every day.

I think I’m suffering from Frodo Syndrome.

(I thought up the name myself – but probably it’s already out there)

After completing my Mad Quest, after succeeding in the ways that mattered to me, growing, getting stronger, discarding pain and sorrow … I’m home now, with my family.

But I’m just kind of meandering around. It’s been two months now.

I’m still active, I still DO thing – at the request of a nambour policeman, I visited a PCYC group trying to help at-risk teens to find a better path. These kids have exposure to domestic violence, substances – and I dressed up as Captain Australia and went and spoke to the group.

I talked true, and I think I did a good job, and I got good feedback after – that the girls (it was an all-female group) felt that a lot of what I had to say resonated. I guess because I came from a similar dark domestic background, but somehow found a path to escape. We spoke the same language.

I’m not even sure exactly what I’m trying to say. No worries. I’m happy. I’m healed. I’m transformed from where I was a year ago .. broken by cancer. I’ve moved past that. I leveled up.

But somehow I feel like there’s something more I’m supposed to do – and yet most of my concerns are mundane. How to get in front of the mortgage again. How to knuckle down and stop sitting around and gorging. (Being 50+ and with a thyroid problem, I’ve started gaining weight again.

I’m not a web developer, in fact I’m an absolute boofhead.

After completing Captain Australia’s BIG WALK (Brisbane to Melbourne 26/12/21 to 19/3/22), I’ve been resting and recuperating these past two months. Trying to figure out ‘what next?’.

I still don’t have the answer. But the walk was an ordeal, and it taught me a great many things. That suffering isn’t the end, and that it can be illuminating .. purifying. My suffering in the walk was necessary, it brought me to a new level of joy. Thanks to my pilgrimage, I’ve been able to put cancer behind me.

So do I put the uniform in the cupboard and move on with my day-to-day life ?

I’m not sure. I don’t know how much time I have left, but I’ve realised I want to be righteous, hopeful, truthful. I want to make my life and the wider world BETTER. I don’t think I’m done with suffering and self flagellation, I think I’m up for more challenge, I think Captain Australia has more work to do.

For now – that work is documenting the 84 days on the road.

I did all these messy live streams and photos on facebook (@CapsBIGWALK), but it’s a chaotic jumble. I really had no clue what I was doing. My main motivations were to raise money for the charity (The Kids’ Cancer Project) and to leave a living diary for my children, in case I didn’t survive my own cancer. So I was trying to record it all, trying to talk true, reflect on who I was and what mattered, so I could leave that for my kids. But it was a jumbled mess.

So I’m going through, compiling it, and re-telling it here, in the CABW 84 Journal. Breaking it down day by day.

But I’ll try and get into the daily blogging as well. Until I figure things out, here is a gallery of photos from my BIG WALK.

When I created this blog, my intention was to use it as a daily diary, that it might be the main place where I’d share my BIG WALK from Brisbane to Melbourne. But that’s turned into Facebook (www.facebook.com/capsbigwalk) which I use for daily live streaming (on the charity’s advice).

I’m not great with all this social media stuff, and updating multiple locations with the same story – so as I start my BIG WALK in a couple of days 26th, if you want to check in from time to time and see how it’s going, the above link is your best bet. It may be that while I’m away, this website doesn’t get updated at all (but when I’m on the road, I’ll still try different things, in fact I may be lonely and aching for human contact some days, prolifically using all my solar power to stay in touch and over-sharing).

I’ve been nowhere near as active or as diligent as I should, leading up to the BIG WALK.

I’ve been dealing with the threat of a secondary cancer, so have had to deal with hospital time, CT scans, MRI. I still don’t know the result, but hope next week to get a confirm that there’s a thing called a ‘benign meningioma’ (a slow-growing tumour in the lining of your brain that goes under surveillance and can be dealt with surgically if it starts to impact life/health.

It all started with adverse reactions after Jab#1 and #2. Don’t let this put you off vaccination, it’s basically an uncommon autoimmune response you can get to any vaccine – and it’s more common in older folk, apparently. My body over-produced antibodies, and they went on a rampage. Jab#1 was tremendous leg cramps – really horrible, debilitating, escalating cramps over 4 nights. Jab#2 was a more generalised illness – fatigue, soreness, some cramping, bowel issues, concentration issues. And I went suddenly deaf in my right ear, which led to the CT scan and finding this anomalous growth.

Fingers crossed all A-OK, it’s just thrown my planning into disarray.

So I’m leaning on facebook as my main way to record what I do and engage the public – and anything that you can do to help me get the word out PLEASE DO IT. I’m behind in almost every respect, and I set out in ONE WEEK. Yep. One week and I’m on the road.

The image above is Day 1 of my walk. It’s a hefty start, but I want to get out of Brisbane (my home city) as soon as possible. I won’t feel out ‘into the world’ until I get over the border into New South Wales.

So if there’s not much activity here, please check out the facebook page, where I’ll be doing daily posts before and during the BIG WALK:

http://www.facebook.com/capsbigwalk

Not my finest hour, although I met a bunch of lovely people today, especially including Lee and Nadir who assisted with my DAILY DONOR DARE OF DOOOOOOM! to “do a shoey, mate”. So I drank a litre or so of water from my gross old mile-covered boot.

I’m the type of person who likes to put trauma behind them, so … I … think I’ll take a nap now.

The video speaks for itself.

I just need to find a rock to crawl under and hide. Ha-ha.

I’m a shy person. I’m not a singer. But a lovely donor (Daniel) made me a DAILY DONOR DARE OF DOOOOOM! to “Sing ‘The Horses’ by Daryl Braithwaite”, so the video is me doing my best.

It was actually a fun day, and I needed this.

I know I may look crazy, like some kind of middle age train wreck, but at the end of the day it’s my HOPE that people see things like this and understand it for what it is: raw commitment.

Good, bad or indifferent, I am 100% behind The Kids’ Cancer Project.

I’ve been struggling to adapt to the new reality of possible secondary cancer (brain) just weeks after the all clear from my Stage 4 head and neck cancer. It’s almost feels like someone up there is having a laugh at me.

The dare came at just the right time to remind me to pull my socks up, and focus on service.

Today a lovely young man, Joel, reminded me of that, he mentioned a quote from Albert Einstein “only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile“

I remember that now. It’s giving me back my power and purpose. Reminding me that I’m just a boofhead, just one old man. But my BIG WALK, it’s about more than that. It’s not just about me, but US, and how together we can do remarkable things.

I can’t lose the important message of my Quest – which is to show concretely that a broken life CAN be fixed. That we can find hope, reconciliation, joy, even after times of profound trauma and darkness.

No, I will not fall back into the old way. I will not fear.

Fuck you, cancer.

Incidentally, I got ANOTHER dare today, which is both great & terrible. This great donor writes ““DDOD: You gotta do a shoey in your smelly boot mate. Water, powerade, whatever. Just gotta be mixed with the sweat. Legend.”” …. I didn’t know what it meant at first. But I googled it and … yuck …. haha, this is what I have to do. Will do it in live stream either tomorrow or thursday: