Happy Mother’s Day

Published May 15, 2023 by helentastic67

Happy Mother’s Day

So Happy Mother’s Day, this should go for Fur-Mothers Too. As it seems I forgot to have kids, or did I? To be continued.

As Single Barren Spinster we know the last thing parents of actual little humans is unsolicited advice from someone who has not spawned a baby. However please read this whole post to get the context to this brilliant parenting advice.

Last Monday I had an adventure to a shopping complex my carers and I call The Bad Lands/Knife Land. After a few purchases I visited the bathroom near a food court. Upon exiting to leave I could hear a screaming child. Immediately making my ovaries dry up. My eyes wild I searched for my carer to communicate to her to get me the hell away from that screaming child. Then we encountered said child and I felt awful. Said child and mum were sitting on the floor. The Mum trying to console her three or four year old daughter. She had run headfirst into a glass door then slid over. Probably in her own blood. I would guess this family, including the father standing nearby not knowing how to help were Indian. Another Indian woman was behind the mum on the floor looking on assessing the situation. I pegged her as staff of the shopping complex. She looked to be assessing if they should call an ambulance. She was looking to the Mum to make the decision. I made eye contact with the staff member hoping she read my non-verbal communication, as “Call an Ambulance!” Here’s the unsolicited advice? “If there are inconsolable tears and blood? Call an ambulance!” It’s not wrong though, is it?

I imagine the Mum had big plans that day and probably didn’t have the time to be waiting in a hospital emergency. But that little girl needed glue. They don’t do stitches these days and I suggest this because guess whose birthday it was that day? WORST BIRTHDAY EVER! She was going to have a scar from that memory.

Now, before you judge me for jumping the gun, take this into consideration. My father’s passing bought family from New South Wales and Queensland I either don’t see very often or haven’t seen since I was 18. Nice work Dad. My youngest cousin has a sixteen month old and her fiancé was sitting next to me at a catch up dinner around Boxing Day. He outsourced babysitting to another young second cousin, I would guess twelve. This was so he could eat dinner and so could his wife to be. The second five minutes of outsourcing babysitting the toddler was returned with a confession, “She had fallen over and hit her head!” Dad was brilliantly dismissive, with a “Don’t worry about it! Is she crying or bleeding?” I complimented him for this and I was informed “Ain’t my first rodeo!” (He has older children) I’m just saying they breed them tough in Queensland.

Lastly, I may not have had children, so people generally dismiss any advice I offer but people forget or don’t know I’ve been the older sibling to two younger sisters, the first of which was born on my 8th birthday. I used to bath her and do nappy duty. My second youngest sister I was studying full time, working part-time and still doing serious babysitting duties. I was then 16, it’s not only actual birth mothers that do the heavy lifting.

This is my fur-baby, Mika! She is desperate not to be a Lap Cat. She is very close on the back of the couch.

Cool Teacher

Published April 19, 2021 by helentastic67

Cool Teacher

So, my cool teacher. We all have a cool teacher, right. My favourite teacher was the Art teacher. Of course, he was.

As an Art teacher, he would listen to you, discuss techniques and he would allow you to do things the hard way so you would learn and then he would suggest a far easier way for next time.

If students thought to do art in their final year, to get an easy class, he didn’t pander to their demanding insistence to be helped. He was very firm, he couldn’t or wouldn’t help those that didn’t help themselves. When I had insisted to be moved to his homeroom for Year 12 as I had been put into another homeroom. My form teacher (Let’s just call him Art to make life easy) Art had, had some elective surgery over the Christmas break (don’t know, not relevant) and something had gone wrong. I think they had accidently given him nine times the correct dose of ‘something’ and he had ended up being taken to Melbourne in an ambulance, in Intensive Care. He survived. Thank God.

When he returned to his first homeroom, back rather nonchalantly he stood at the front of the homeroom behind his desk, facing the class and announced he had been absent for the year, until then with a “Sorry about that”, which was perfect. It was really blaze. Although I imagine now knowing what I do about the brain and surgical fuck ups, that it had been a road to recovery.

Lastly, he was so cool, I once overheard a conversation between two older guys (Year 12) talking about driving or flying somewhere at high speed. Art ducked his head into the conversation, stating “Try being in an ambulance on the freeway, 200 miles an hour.” With the sirens blaring.

Totally chill, Right!

Apartment Living

Published May 27, 2019 by helentastic67

Apartment Living

It’s noisy, but quiet, it’s a very odd contradiction, so I shall need to explain. When I moved into my apartment (I rent) over a year ago, I was concerned about if it would be noisy or smelly or if I would never see my neighbours.

Once you are inside your apartment, you can’t really hear loud TV’s or dogs barking or loud thumping music from your neighbours. Once you close the heavy front door, you don’t hear anything from your neighbours. I sometimes hear people race past my front door to get to theirs or heading to the lift.

Sometimes if I’m heading to the lift and hear a door slam behind me, I’ll hold the lift door for anyone behind me. Then we proceed to have a brief awkward conversation about good timing and never seeing anyone else. So, yes I rarely see anybody from my floor.

I’m in an apartment block on a very busy corner. There is a main street where at my corner it forks off in a slightly north/eastern direction on the tram line and at the middle of the ‘bits’ (not sure how to best describe this) there is a pub. Across the street are more apartments. In my block, we are six storeys and across the street they are even higher.

The noise from the traffic, the trams, the pub. It’s ridiculous, the cars and motorcycles, the service vehicles, I can’t tell anymore, is it an ambulance, police car? I hear several of those every day.

One morning my carer arrived after I’d woken early and attempted to get back to sleep. An alarm of some kind had started and been going for about twenty minutes. My carer was with me for about ninety minutes. You tune it out after a while and the silence between seem to get a little longer and we looked at each other. Hopeful? Did it stop? No! Damn it!

I heard noises before, but never been able to workout where it was coming from or what it was to alert us to. I presume it was the apartment building across the street. I don’t know what it’s to alert or for what. If I could call someone, I wold but who would that be? If that person knew already, why weren’t they doing something about it?

My carer left and ten minutes later after a migraine had set in and taken hold, it stopped. Posing the question, WHY? And of course, can it stop?

Fighting the Big Fight

Published April 30, 2018 by helentastic67

Fighting the Big Fight

You know those days you think “Wah” (like a baby) why do I have to be the one to stand up for when people are idiots? And if you don’t do something to make a change, they will keep being ‘idiots’. I had that moment as I often do a few days ago.

Now, by all means we all do it, sure, but then there are times it can be beyond painful.

Then there was yesterday.

I do like to upsize my meeting with my CM (Case Manager) to be help at my favourite café (Where I also go on a Wednesday) and then I wandered down to my GP appointment, so far, so good. Left the GP’s clinic and walked a short distance to the tram stop. I would normally walk to the next stop near the café so I get a little exercise.

Now the weather report. It’s a lovely day in Melbourne, it’s summer, there is blue sky and it’s not hot and muggy. T-shirt weather, everything is right in the world.

I was waiting for about four minutes for the tram, I could just hope the tram would be a flat-bed tram (Disability friendly) so I wouldn’t have to work so hard to pull myself up and get a seat. Then along came a woman, she literally huffed within a minute and she complained about the lack of trams. I told her they shouldn’t be far as I’d already been waiting a few minutes. I don’t normally check the timetable.

I decided to check the timetable myself out of curiosity. It was just before 5pm so trams run everything eight minutes. After 5pm, every six minutes. Not bad right?

A young lady came just as that time and checked the timetable and had her head in her smart phone. Then announced it’s twenty minutes until the next tram, but then there’s three of them.

Negative Nancy and her sore legs.

I asked the younger woman how she knew this? She mentioned some Apps on her phone. I felt so old. I have a smart phone, but it’s under utilised and I refuse to put Facebook or my blog email on it, because the excuse I use is that I’m not 14…

I have my personal email on my phone for convenience, but mostly so I can cull the rubbish and anything of value waits until the end of the day.

Anyway, I digress Ms Apps (not a negative term) mentioned there had been a medical emergency on the tram, hence the hold up.

Negative Nancy: “Oh those people on drugs! I just want to get home!”.

Seriously? Was there a Zombie Apocalypse I didn’t know about? I tried to level the situation by saying “You know, if someone is sick or ill or had a heart attack on Public Transport, they are legally bound to get them an Ambulance. If no one dies, it’s okay!”

Negative Nancy (you know she had something to say about that) “How long does it take to get an Ambulance?”

Don’t know if you’ve had to get an Ambulance, but I have and I wasn’t dying nor did I think I was dying and I was cosy in bed waiting, so it was no drama. It takes as long as it takes.

Again, I suggested whatever the commuters need, they would be triaged with everybody else.

Ms Apps stated she would walk to the next stop, it’s normally what I do and I nearly went with her, rather than submit myself to anymore shitty energy from Negative Nancy.

About a minute later a tram came around the corner down the hill. So, I decided our time together now had a deadline and decided she needed to be told. So, politely I started:

“I know you have maybe had a tough day and your legs hurt”

She attempted to cut me off thinking I would pander to her delicate temperament, but I did not let her.

“Yes, Yes, I know! But what you don’t realise is that right now, I can’t feel my left foot and most of my left leg.”

I started to also indicate a part of my left side and back I used to lift my left leg and despite my

“I have low vision badge,” she didn’t notice. I told her I had half my eyesight. Her demeanour changed instantly and she stated.

“I’m so sorry! Had I known I wouldn’t have.” and she told me I looked ‘Great’ and good.

Hidden disability is a curse isn’t it?

She really hadn’t had her eyes or paid any attention to my cuff and collar on my arm or my walking stick.

The tram arrived and she eventually stepped aside to allow me to get on first to get an appropriate seat for me to not fall over getting on or off.

Two people got up to offer me their seats and I took one of them up on the offer, very much appreciated.

Negative Nancy took a seat to my left in my blind spot simpering like she deserved the seat.

She started to try to make conversation with me but I was really over it, so pulled out my phone. Conversing with her on my left would have given me a migraine and if you think that meant the trauma was over, think again.

On my right was a guy on the phone, he was talking to a work colleague who was using drugs and driving around with his kids in the car.

Um, does anyone else want to hear about this shit on the tram? Unless it’s broken up with words suggesting they are going to get him help? No!

But instead, he punctuated every sentence with the biggest sniff and hark back, it was disgusting.

Luckily for him, he got off about five stops before me, otherwise I could imagine I would have silently help out with a packet traveler tissues and if he had been offended and told me he was not a child. I would have growled at him. I’m too young to be his mother. But here we are.

Dumb Down

Published September 30, 2016 by helentastic67

ambulance

Dumb Down

There have been three occasions I’ve been in an Ambulance in the middle of the night to go to hospital and a third where my mum took me to hospital in her racing car, but that led to an aeroplane ride but that can wait!

Generally, anytime I have to go to hospital when it’s an emergency, I am feeling beyond ‘seedy’. My head generally hurts so much I’ve already taken every pain killer I can that should work and maybe a sleeping pill so I can try to sleep it off.

migraine-pain

If that fails and because I live alone, I might go to hospital so I don’t wake up dead the next morning, if it’s more than I think it is.

Once at the hospital and the customary poking and prodding and interrogation, I’m usually given a few more pills, oxygen and a warm blanket.

They usually let me sleep and the next day when the staff are in and before they release me they will do a C.T. scan to confirm their suspicions. And that is that, I just have some brain swelling/I did too much/I need to rest and sleep.

I love when they go to do the C.T. scan and to remind me (as if they have to) the difference between a CT and an MRI.

In case you don’t know,

“The CT scan is when you get rolled into the big donut or as I see it (lifesaver) and the MRI is the BIG TUNNEL!

ct-scanner mricutaway