Amid the darkness of kidney disease, this Geelong grandfather finds light in drawing

To suffer from both terminal cancer and chronic kidney disease is no joke, but Rob Lymer is spreading light in the dark with his witty cartoons.

In his two years as a patient of Barwon Health’s home dialysis unit in Geelong, the 68-year-old’s sharp and quirky characters have brought much-needed smiles to staff and patients.

His works line the walls of the unit, near Geelong Hospital, and he has completed his second annual calendar, which is on sale to raise money for the centre.

Among Lymer’s more whimsical ’toons are a “shit house sprint”, which depicts different consistencies of poo with little legs racing across the page.

Other cartoons are more poignant, such as a circle of nurses ready to catch a Humpty Dumpty falling off a wall.

Lymer, a retired cleaner and labourer, has had a tough time health-wise.

In 2014, the grandfather from Belmont was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He also has type 1 diabetes. Two years ago, he started dialysis, which involves repeated cleaning of the blood by a machine when the kidneys fail.

Initially, he learnt self-dialysis at the unit for four days a week. Then for a year, he conducted his dialysis at home for eight hours overnight, five times a week.

Lymer would still email the nurses a cartoon once a week, in what he called “Friday Funnies”.

He is now back doing his dialysis at the clinic.

Dialysis clinical nurse specialist Lucy Stevens says it’s amazing how Lymer’s cartoons connect with people and bring humour to difficult situations.

She says he is a positive person, but the cartoons can reveal underlying issues.

One image depicts a figure with the world on his shoulders next to a smiling man dressed as a king. Above the first man are the words “walking into respite”. Above the second: “walking out of respite”.

Lymer says the drawing expressed how he struggled to conduct home dialysis while receiving chemotherapy for cancer, and how grateful he was to be offered a week of dialysis in the unit.

One of Stevens’ favourite cartoons is a Little Miss Dialysis drawing (inspired by the Mr Men series) that depicts staff members as having qualities like Little Miss Motivator, or a counsellor, or someone bearing cheese and biscuits.

Stevens says it made her emotional to realise what the staff can mean to a patient beyond the medical sense and that it is “just so generous” for Lymer to think of others by creating a 2027 calendar of his cartoons.

Three months ago, Lymer was told he has lung cancer, which has spread to other organs and is terminal.

Fellow dialysis patient Max Bradfield, 75, of Ocean Grove, says Lymer’s comics “give me a feeling of inclusion, that someone else understands the ups and downs, I guess, of working your way through it all.”

Of the “very impressive” works, Bradfield’s message to Lymer is simple: “Well done, you’re helping me, very much, and keep up the good work.”

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