I purchased the Playing With Fire domain name in August of 2000 when I was writing tutorials for my favourite Macromedia graphics software, Fireworks. My Australian penpal, David Nicholls, introduced me to Fireworks when I was working for The Holistic Resource magazine as a graphics and layout artist. The Holistic Resource was an Austin, TX-based 'alternative lifestyle' magazine. Macromedia was purchased by its rival Adobe Inc. on December 3, 2005. They killed Fireworks soon after. I hate Adobe. David and I met in Hawaii after an eight-year email/Skype relationship during which we co-authored a book named (you guessed it) Playing With Fire. Instead of flying back to the US, I flew back to Australia with David and married him a year later in a ceremony presided over by the ‘Most Venerable Thich Quang Ba’. We aren't Buddhists but tend to lean that way. Many thanks to my sister Judy and her husband Paul for flying to Canberra to take part in our celebration. David is the bright light at the far end of the sometimes dark tunnel of my life. We have since moved from Canberra to the cozy little Sapphire Coast town of Tura Beach.

I purchased the Playing With Fire domain name in August of 2000 when I was writing tutorials for my favourite Macromedia graphics software, Fireworks. My Australian penpal, David Nicholls, introduced me to Fireworks when I was working for The Holistic Resource magazine as a graphics and layout artist. The Holistic Resource was an Austin, TX-based 'alternative lifestyle' magazine. Macromedia was purchased by its rival Adobe Inc. on December 3, 2005. They killed Fireworks soon after. I hate Adobe. David and I met in Hawaii after an eight-year email/Skype relationship during which we co-authored a book named (you guessed it) Playing With Fire. Instead of flying back to the US, I flew back to Australia with David and married him a year later in a ceremony presided over by the ‘Most Venerable Thich Quang Ba’. We aren't Buddhists but tend to lean that way. Many thanks to my sister Judy and her husband Paul for flying to Canberra to take part in our celebration. David is the bright light at the far end of the sometimes dark tunnel of my life. We have since moved from Canberra to the cozy little Sapphire Coast town of Tura Beach.

I purchased the Playing With Fire domain name in August of 2000 when I was writing tutorials for my favourite Macromedia graphics software, Fireworks. My Australian penpal, David Nicholls, introduced me to Fireworks when I was working for The Holistic Resource magazine as a graphics and layout artist. The Holistic Resource was an Austin, TX-based 'alternative lifestyle' magazine. Macromedia was purchased by its rival Adobe Inc. on December 3, 2005. They killed Fireworks soon after. I hate Adobe. David and I met in Hawaii after an eight-year email/Skype relationship during which we co-authored a book named (you guessed it) Playing With Fire. Instead of flying back to the US, I flew back to Australia with David and married him a year later in a ceremony presided over by the ‘Most Venerable Thich Quang Ba’. We aren't Buddhists but tend to lean that way. Many thanks to my sister Judy and her husband Paul for flying to Canberra to take part in our celebration. David is the bright light at the far end of the sometimes dark tunnel of my life. We have since moved from Canberra to the cozy little Sapphire Coast town of Tura Beach.

There was a lot of red in the first Playing With Fire site. It was the colour of the cover of our book. PWF version two had a background image of a fire breather. This time I’ve used a colour scheme that evokes memories of my grandmother Emilie’s house. I have read that journaling is a good way to keep your brain from going foggy as a result of chemotherapy. What I write from here on is about my new journey. My wish is that some of the information I publish on this site will be helpful to others experiencing something similar. This third version of the PWF site is the result of a trip to the Bega - South East Regional Hospital emergency room on May 11, 2020. I woke up that morning with a pain in my side I thought might be appendicitis. David drove me to the hospital where we met with a very kind emergency room physician who thought I looked unusually pale. He palpated the painful area and ordered some bloodwork and a CT scan. One of the things the bloodwork discovered was that my haemoglobin count was so low I needed an immediate transfusion. I had three transfusions that day. My symptoms were consistent with cancer, which was soon revealed in the CT scan as a tennis ball-sized mass.

There was a lot of red in the first Playing With Fire site. It was the colour of the cover of our book. PWF version two had a background image of a fire breather. This time I’ve used a colour scheme that evokes memories of my grandmother Emilie’s house. I have read that journaling is a good way to keep your brain from going foggy as a result of chemotherapy. What I write from here on is about my new journey. My wish is that some of the information I publish on this site will be helpful to others experiencing something similar. This third version of the PWF site is the result of a trip to the Bega - South East Regional Hospital emergency room on May 11, 2020. I woke up that morning with a pain in my side I thought might be appendicitis. David drove me to the hospital where we met with a very kind emergency room physician who thought I looked unusually pale. He palpated the painful area and ordered some bloodwork and a CT scan. One of the things the bloodwork discovered was that my haemoglobin count was so low I needed an immediate transfusion. I had three transfusions that day. My symptoms were consistent with cancer, which was soon revealed in the CT scan as a tennis ball-sized mass.

There was a lot of red in the first Playing With Fire site. It was the colour of the cover of our book. PWF version two had a background image of a fire breather. This time I’ve used a colour scheme that evokes memories of my grandmother Emilie’s house. I have read that journaling is a good way to keep your brain from going foggy as a result of chemotherapy. What I write from here on is about my new journey. My wish is that some of the information I publish on this site will be helpful to others experiencing something similar. This third version of the PWF site is the result of a trip to the Bega - South East Regional Hospital emergency room on May 11, 2020. I woke up that morning with a pain in my side I thought might be appendicitis. David drove me to the hospital where we met with a very kind emergency room physician who thought I looked unusually pale. He palpated the painful area and ordered some bloodwork and a CT scan. One of the things the bloodwork discovered was that my haemoglobin count was so low I needed an immediate transfusion. I had three transfusions that day. My symptoms were consistent with cancer, which was soon revealed in the CT scan as a tennis ball-sized mass.