Crazy day today well, okay, yesterday officially. I still run on a Nightclub clock. It’s not the next day until you have had sleep. Even if the sun has come up. Technically it’s after 1am on Friday morning, but anyway.
Yesterday I had a Carer, it was a day I don’t normally get one, but I had more stuff to do. The fourth day in row and the last three with a migraine. The kind to make me really seedy, but not cripple me enough to keep me from going to the things I’d prefer to be left out of.
My Carer today, one of my regulars didn’t turn up until 11am. I’d gotten up earlier, put on a load of washing and gone back to bed. My Carer apparently wake at 6.30am and lay in bed considering the possible excuses to not get up and go to work.
Then she remembered she had me, so she got up. By the time she got to me, she had already given six others a shower. While helping me to dry and dress, she made another confession. When she pulled up outside, she noticed the blinds on the windows here, still down. Her first thought was;
“That fucking bitch is still in bed!”
I cannot tell you how much I laughed.
She laughed too, just so you know.
It’s rough when they have all the things you don’t and yet the simplest things can make them envious.
Last week (early October 2016) I received some good news. I made the decision not to splash it all over Social Media, thinking it would be poor-form.
I told only those I see in person and my Carers. I delivered the news by saying;
“I’ve got some good news and some bad news!”
Of course, everyone wanted to know what the bad news is.
A week ago, I didn’t know what the bad news was, I explained I didn’t know yet!
But, wait! Impatient!
The good news is that I got approved for the NDIS. Yeah! Balloons! Celebrations. A Carer and a shower every day of the week and even on weekends.
And they will be paid for.
That alone, I could be $60 better off every month. Then I started thinking about all the other things I would no longer have to pay and that I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.
I didn’t dare calculate how quickly I could pay off my Visa. But roughly, I thought I would not need to keep paying my shrink (officially a Psychologist) or my chiropractor, who I could now actually pay then what they are worth, not what I’ve only been able to afford to pay.
I also wanted to have it cover my beautician costs. God knows, due to steroids for brain swelling, I’ve paid $6,000 for electrolysis to my face. It’s about time someone else paid for it.
I mean, I can’t be a single straight barren celibate spinster with a beard.
I do like to imagine I might still meet the man of my dreams one day. It’s OK if he has facial hair.
A few months ago, mum and I went for a drive to visit my sister and do lunch. My sister in recent years has started being a Carer in her part of Victoria. It’s a completely different clientele in her area. I imagine she was led to believe she would have plenty of work under the NDIS.
The NDIS is for under 65-year-old age bracket.
Her clients are largely over that age bracket and self-funded retirees.
Anyway, in an effort to ask her about her new job and bond, mum asked her about any interesting stories.
Her story goes like this;
She received a call to see if she would take an elderly man grocery shopping. She wasn’t prepared to take him out in her own car as the previous time he had continence issues and the work vehicle. She asked if he still had this issue.
She didn’t hear back about this shift for the client. I can’t imagine it would have been easy to problem solve this issue. To broach the subject with the client or their family member in a way that returned to the gentleman a level of comfort and dignity for better health.
I think, I embellish to make her story more interesting.
Now mum has never asked me for interesting stories, but I volunteered one all the same.
One of my Carers arrived one day and I think it’s rather telling of my rapport with my Carers that she announced her arrival with a question.
“Do I smell like……?”
Clearly the word that is missing is the punchline to this story, so you will have to keep reading….
This Carer went to an elderly lady with some dementia, she works with many clients with dementia and she is very loving and caring and respectful in the way she does her work.
While with this particular lady she went about cleaning around her while she did the woman’s personal care (or her shower).
She noticed a small mat on the floor in front of her armchair, that she sits in. It was covered in crumbs, so she picked it up and took it outside to give it a shake.
It was one of those mats with a rubber backing. As she shook it, a wave of urine came back up at her and splashed all over her.
We guessed the word there?
Do I smell like urine?
That’s correct.
The moral of the story is; A good carer will always carry a change of clothes in their car and no, she didn’t smell of pee…
Pointless things to say and your cat. I love (note when I hear the opposite) when parents of children argue that being a parent of a fur-child is not the same.
Gave Jamima her three-monthly worm tablet last night in a rather expensive tin of food. Twenty-four hours later, it’s mostly still there!
“Come on, Eat your food”
“It’s got your medicine in it”
“You will feel better – I promise”
“It cost mummy a lot”
“There are starving kids in Ethiopia”
OK, I didn’t really say that one…
I guess this is why I buy three of the worming tablets at a time. The man in the shop, warning me not to poison my cat. Never fear, not much chance of that.
Usually the first tablet goes down a treat, three months later when else her next dose she eats some of it. A week later I’m trying again, placing another of her favourites. Again, barely touches it.
I’ve tried not feeding her more wet food to encourage her to eat it but all else has failed.
This weeks “Today’s Lunch” has been postponed until next week.
This post is going to be exactly what you imagine it will be. So, if you are a guy (not sure I have many male followers to worry about) but if you’re still reading, strap yourself in!
My periods started at the usual time as most girls in my early teens. What we never realised is that those special blue pills that stop us killing men? (commonly known as Naprogesic) are blood thinners.
You add ½ a dozen of those, every month. Something probably happened more often than I realised, but didn’t realise exactly what, it meant was that in a perfect storm I was probably lucky I didn’t have a stroke.
One morning not long before my diagnosis I recall a bitterly cold morning, getting up to go to work. Conveniently a day Aunt Irma (IT Crowd reference) was coming to visit.
I conveniently had to wash my hair that morning and being so cold I made sure I had it hot.
Turns out water also makes your blood thin. When I had more blood in and around my brain, than normal I would get dizzy and I mean I was dizzy, I recall drying my hair a little with a towel and putting it up (in a bun that I still wear as my style) I recall drying and putting pyjamas back on, setting my alarm and going back to bed to sleep it off. I woke a few hours later to restart my day.
When I was finally diagnosed, I was told emphatically NO MORE BLOOD THINNERS!
After several years on and off the steroids (Dexamethazone) for brain swelling, sometimes my period just didn’t come for 6 months or more.
About 4 years ago, I actually went on the pill, because once a month I was an emotional mess. Rather than the previous five months, I just wanted to kill someone. I traded up to a whole day where EVERYTHING upset me EVERYTHING MADE ME CRY.
Get up, get undressed, cry! Get in the shower, cry! Get out of the shower, cry! Get the point?
Not let Helen take her second coffee in the cinema when she’d previously taken her first coffee in. Cry!
Have I mentioned, you don’t mess with me and coffee? No seriously!
About a year ago, I came off the pill to find out if I was menopausal. Yeah, that word. I was only 43 years old and no I wasn’t and still am not, to my knowledge.
Turns out it was probably a good thing I didn’t meet my soul mate (yeah, I believe in that crap!) because I might have wanted children. I always imagined I would, but if it had I might not be here at all.
When you’re pregnant ladies. (presuming only the ladies kept reading) your bodies blood volume doubles. My AVM would not have coped. If my child had made it (there has been no child) I might not have made it.
So, babies, right? Not for everyone.
Privilege not a right.
Anyway, a lot of background to get to my point!
Had a bit of a tummy ache this week. Would have been mistaken to think it was Aunt Irma and except she visited last week for all of about 12 minutes. Felt that way anyway. Think I sneezed a few times and it was over.
Meanwhile the app on my phone last week had told me, it was due in six days, on the 2nd February, 2017 and its currently early October.
Don’t know when you’ll be reading this but my point ABI/AVM/Crazy Lady hormones.
Not happy Jan.
Oh, and with the no blood thinners, it’s hard, I just upgrade to Opiates – Oxy Norm!
And this is why I love Fridays! OK, so it’s nearly 6pm and I just had ‘lunch’ and I’m yet to actually have my coffee/custard scroll perfect combo that marks the end of the week, but still.
Had shopping with my carer today. Did a provisional shop and still justified buying some socks from the supermarket, got some meat from the butcher’s? (I ring on the drive over and order, so they have time to cut it up since I can’t).
Did the standard, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, tour of my local small shopping complex. Clearly, not exactly like that, but butcher, baker, supermarket, Greek Deli, Chemist, maybe K-Mart, German Supermarket, fabric/craft shop etc.
Once home, groceries unpacked, lunch in over, water a few plants with recycled water from kitchen, sprayed the aphids on the roses, put away clean folded clothes, had to spot clean the floor and eventually I eat “lunch” and I hit the wall.
Now I’ve got the rest of the day, now 6.30pm to finish my ‘Admin’ (or what I call ‘Admin’) and check my email so I can put it all aside again until late Sunday night.
Just gotta get past danger hours, that time I really want to have a kip that is intended to last 30 minutes, but goes for 2 hours.
Every time I see some TV personality on TV, talking about when it’s acceptable behaviour to have sex in a public disability toilet, it sends the message that it’s acceptable.
It’s really a culture of anyone who doesn’t have a disability to not use those toilets.
It’s particularly abhorrent to me when I’m trying to get to and use a disability friendly toilet in public, when people are inside it using it for their own selfish gratification.
Hear me when I say, choosing to be celibate doesn’t make me a prude. I just think it’s totally uncool. I mean, really, are you 14? (that being an age of childlike behaviour still) not acceptable, just ‘young’ I mean. GET A ROOM!
Should mention Jamima was also called Meimi for short. Or chicken, but that not really, should I mention like many occasionally naughty pets she rarely responded to her name.
Probably should mention, Jamima was an indoor cat. She did her time in the backyard during the day when I let her outside. It’s a small concrete jungle where all of my plants are in pots.
On a very rare occasion she had made a brief escape out the front door. While she didn’t respond to her name, she did respond to tone. I will growl a ‘Get Back’ and I barely needed to say it clearly and she would scamper back up the front steps and inside…
I know, I know, I fucking know! I have said those words so many times to my mother alone, that I’m getting a sign made. On one side, it’s to say “I know” and the other “I fucking know!”
I have even started holding up my hand as if I’m holding a sign until I get one because I’m sick to death of saying it!
I’m sick of hearing about how services should be delivered, how people should return my calls and sort out my requests. I know now all of these things and more should be happening.
This one is for TRT (Tummy Rum Tuesday) which is my absolute favourite post to read on a Tuesday. I always save it for last.
Jamima Patch Pirate Cat Puddleduck! (Is her official name) Jamima Puddleduck was the name she kinda came with and we added the rest because of the patch of colour over her eye and early penchant for liking to sit on our shoulder. Just like a Pirate’s parrot…
Jamima came from a house across the town that had 5 cats! 5! And there were three litters of kittens all at once. I know. Bit extreme that all five cats were not fixed. Jamima was a runt of her litter apparently. She came home with my housemate and I when she was five or nine weeks old. Two of the other kittens (black and white boy and a girl) were adopted by B’s mum who paid for all three to be de-sexed, which was nice.
I would love Jamima to have had kittens as she would be much more settled and calmer now, but I also know her kittens would have been even harder to part with.
I bonded with Jamima early, I guess I kinda become her mother. B, the cool now housemate previously mentioned would put her on his turn-table and played with her a lot.
But he also did the “Bad-Parenting” letting her scratch the bejesus out of things that should not be scratched.
Jamima and I have moved four times now and she’s now 15-ish. Housemate ‘B’ lived in the first two houses and then sadly, he decided he couldn’t afford real rent. You know, to have had a proper roof, a bathroom that wasn’t falling apart and we were no longer housemates.
He was really chilled-out ‘cool’ housemate and I miss him, but I made it clear when we weren’t housemates anymore I was keeping Jamima.
Makes it sounds like he was my boyfriend? Read it again! He wasn’t. So Jamima is my greatest companion in these lonely days of being a barren, single, crazy cat lady.
Yes, I’ve got the crazy cat lady mentality despite only having one cat.
There are evenings she just stays in bed until I chase her out, insisting this is why I have her. Love her, feed her.
So, I don’t spend every single night on the couch alone, this is her job.
If you are a new Hellonwheels visitor/convert, you might like to check out some earlier posts.
Sadly, earlier in 2017 my last responsibility as Jamima’s fur-mum was to take her to the vet one last time. Still now, it makes me very sad. I have not yet welcomed a new fur-child into my heart and my home as moving home has needed to happen first. I miss her every day.
But it’s still nice my followers get to hear how weird and special she was.
PS Meimi
Hell onWheels/Life One Handed 