This was published 5 years ago
'People gravitate towards Rob, he teaches you what’s important in life'
By Tim Elliott
Carpenter Rob Dettmann (left), 49, is one of Australia’s oldest living survivors of cystic fibrosis. He has been a firm friend and inspiration to commercial pilot Duncan Overton, 49, since they met in high school.
Duncan: "We never knew how long Rob would live. We’d talk about death, and he must have been scared, but he never let on."Credit: Janie Barrett
DUNCAN: I met Rob in school in 1982, when we started year 7. We got the bus together from Longueville [on Sydney’s north shore]. We all knew he was sick. Occasionally we’d be walking up the hill to school and he’d stop to cough his lungs up, then he’d be straight back into the conversation.
I wasn’t very cool at school, but Rob made an effort to draw me into the social groups. He’d say, “Hey Dunc, come with us,” and get me invited to parties.
He was also very funny. After year 12, a bunch of us went to Avoca Beach [on the NSW Central Coast] for Schoolies week. We were at the shark tower, it was midday, and Rob had had a few beers. He wandered off … and suddenly there was a report of a naked man on the beach. Then someone yelled out, “The cops!” So we grabbed Rob, shoved a pair of shorts back on him, sat him down and told him to shut up. The cops came up to us and said, “Have you seen the naked guy?” We were like, “Nup.”
He loves cars and motorbikes. His dad owned this old Fiat: the FartBubble, we called it. Rob and I used to service it. One day we decided to put a sunroof in it, so we got my dad’s jigsaw, marked out the roof of the car, cut it open and placed this piece of perspex on it. When his old man saw what we’d done, he went ballistic.
We never knew how long he’d live. As he got into his 20s, some friends he’d made through the cystic fibrosis community started to die. We’d talk about death, and internally he must have been scared, but he never let on. As far as he was concerned, it wasn’t going to affect his life. He’d have the occasional ciggie. Sometimes when he was in hospital, a few of us would pick him up, take him to the nearest pub for a few beers, then drop him back.
Rob had his first lung transplant in 2004. He’d been on the list for a while. On the day I found out his turn had come up, I was looking at nappies in an aisle of the supermarket in Discovery Bay in Hong Kong, where I was living and working at the time. One of our mates called to tell me Rob was going into surgery. I just burst into tears. I thought, “He’s got another lease on life!”
Rob and his wife, Jo, had their daughter, Kiana, that same year. There was a risk he would pass on the CF gene, but it turned out that Kiana’s okay. I’m her godfather.
Rob had his second lung transplant in 2011. He was in a coma, and one day Jo called me from the hospital and said, “You’d better come in.” Rob was completely out of it, with multiple tubes coming out of him. I sat there talking to him, holding his hand, stroking his head. After four weeks he came good, and he’s still here eight years later. He’s inspirational like that.
People have always gravitated towards Rob, because he teaches you what’s important in life.
ROB: Dunc’s dad was a doctor, and the first person to put a line into me, when I was 13 and had to have intravenous antibiotics. Because of his dad, Dunc knew about my condition and had some insight into the situation.
We went to a lot of parties together. One night, when we were about 17, there was this party that Dunc had gone to in Wahroonga. I just thought, “I’m going too.” Trouble was, I was in the Children’s Hospital in Camperdown at the time. So I snuck out, with a drip in my arm, carrying the IV pole, and drove the Fartbubble all the way to Wahroonga, which is pretty hard when you’ve got an IV pole in the car. On the way back, the car broke down just off the Harbour Bridge, and I had to hitch back to the hospital, where the nurse caught me climbing in the window.
When we were in our 20s, Dunc and I went to buy an old Yamaha motorbike off these really sketchy guys in Malabar, near Long Bay Jail. Dunc paid about $800 for it. We took the bike to my dad’s farm at Putty and we rode it ’til it just shit itself and seized up. Dunc then brought it back to Sydney, and it cost him about $1500 to have it rebuilt.
In 2006, Dunc bought a farm near Dungog [north of Newcastle]. Our families go there together three or four times a year [Duncan and his wife, Tina, have two children aged 18 and 16]. The kids ride motorbikes and go waterskiing in the Williams River. After my second transplant, I couldn’t do much, so I’d go to Dunc’s farm and spend all day on the daybed in the sun.
Dunc lives just down the road in Freshwater, which is great. I’m a carpenter, and over the past six months I’ve built a spa and deck at our house. But I lost a lot of dexterity in my hands after my second transplant, because I had a stroke on the operating table. So the other day, Dunc came and hooked up all the fiddly lighting around the deck. He helps out with stuff like that.
Mostly, he’s just a great calming influence. I’m pretty aggressive and I don’t give a f… who I offend, and if someone annoys me, I’ll tell them, which is probably not a good way to be. It’s worse when I’m on steroids, which they give me when I get the flu. A few years back, I had an argument with the owner of the local hardware store over prices, and I ended up grabbing him by the throat. Afterwards, I went back to the car and cried. Dunc would say, “Take it easy, you don’t need this stress. It’s not worth it.” That’s his temperament.
He and Tina will come up here to our place for a barbecue, have a few drinks around the fire. The best thing about Dunc is his encouragement. He gives good advice, and I try to listen.
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