It’s Still a Win Right?

Published July 21, 2025 by helentastic67

It’s Still a Win – Right

You know those days, this is literally how my Monday went. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

Went to bed early, 12.30am, that’s early for me, trust me. Still awake until 5am, but I had an early start plus a full morning planned. First mission, fucking disaster.

Carer arrives at 8am, even my cat is listed off and confused. She knows when I should write off the day and go back to bed, but I had a specialist appointment that is every three months. On a Monday, at 11.30am, because it’s the last appointment for this clinic on the day.

This is often a Team Helen mission. Mondays I have a carer called Helen; she’s a Heavy Hitter! (I’ll circle back to that later!) We taxi to save parking dramas or me going in without her. Her agency also hits me hard for kilometres in my carer’s car. (ie. they hit me for it instead of my funding.) and the carer always is worse off. I digress, taxi to appointment, I inhaled my entirety of pills before I left and pack something to eat on the way. Learnt from the driver that burnt toast smell I always catch on the way is a coffee roaster. No, I’m not having a stroke. (Apparently, that smells like burning car tyres?)

Arrive safely and early. Hear a Code Grey while we wait this triggers a Google search of the different codes that are used in a hospital. My carer is on my left and that is my worst blind spot. I regal her it’s a story of a visit to hospital over ten years ago when a code was called for me when I’d tried to get a sleeping pill at 1am when they kept putting me off. “Just close your eyes and you will go to sleep!” I was told, like I’m a four-year-old child not a forty-year-old woman who never slept at the correct time. Anyway, started to feel a little seedy while we waited. Helen asking if I was OK, did I want a drink?
You know when you just want to power down and not be present? Started to feel sick. Suggested Helen should move to my right side. We had discussed it, but we went with it anyway. So, I threw up. (Just saliva! Not my breakfast even but worth noting!) and peed my pants. Honestly! This has never happened before in public.

I used the bathroom and when I returned Helen mentioned the Doctor had asked if I was still OK for my appointment? Like, I didn’t come all this way to throw up in the waiting room and not get Botox in my leg? It’s also usually these times my carer comments on how pale I look and after throwing up how much “better” I look. I am generally sun-averse anyway, but “pale” is normally fine by me.

My recent visits for Laser hair removal start with the question “Have you had any sun?” And my witty response. “Not if I can help it?” Anyway, asked for something to put on my seat on the way home. This was granted and off we departed for home. She asked me if I was OK, and I reminded her if I wasn’t I’d come to the right place. It was a hospital after all. Mission to get home, half showered and into clean clothes and back to bed my only goal for the rest of the day.

My lovely carer departs and I manage to sleep for two hours. Wake in time for an appointment with someone that thinks my appointment is on Thursday. Don’t know why this keeps happening, but it’s about the only thing I can read in my diary. Lazy standard rest of the day. Prepare the next week of pills, while standing in the kitchen. Feed Mika, eat standing up to better utilise time. Hope the Botox doesn’t kick in while I’m moving around my home. My leg will give out mid-step. Botox in my leg doesn’t make it look younger, just work better.

Botox puts over worked muscles to sleep for a few months, so other lazy muscles have a chance to build and take an even balance when the Botox wears off. This is to manage my drop foot and hyper extending knee so, I don’t need a knee replacement one day and I move and walk better. Who knew right? So, that was my Monday. Am I done yet?

Moving Target

Published June 17, 2024 by helentastic67

Moving Target

I often use the term each day as a Moving Target and I use this in the context that every day is a moving target. By the end of each day, I need to be in less pain, be less tired by the end of the day, have chiseled things on my mental to do list. Have eaten three meals a day. This rarely happens, FYI, I’m ok if it’s two meals and a coffee. My day revolves more around getting sleep, getting to appointments and home again, plus meals or sustenance slots in around these things.

More importantly, I encounter less people I want to kill or deserve to be killed. Harsh words I know. Not advocating to be set loose with free rein here. Not killed anyone yet. Don’t intend to start, but I also limit myself around people and groups that piss me off. Also, the most important thing every day is to get through the day without a migraine. Can we do just that?

Everyday life seems to throw challenges in my face to make that nearly impossible and if I do these things in the earlier part of the day. What will I not be able to do later in the day? It’s always either/or never both.

Jokes and Things

Published June 3, 2024 by helentastic67

Jokes and Things

My family, two sisters, their partners and I have a group chat like many families do, currently the chat is thick and fast due to the process and impending deadline of emptying our father’s home to sell. Yeah, it’s that’s time already.

I’ve obviously not been there much at all and it’s a few hours away plus I don’t drive, if anyone was wondering? I knew my older sister was going to be there this week to arrange real estate, etc for selling, styling, emptying. Etc.

Just want to remind people, I found a home for the weird and prolific meerkats that were hidden around the living spaces. That was a feat, but I actually rehomed them to a young carer I had while I’d been there. OMG they made her so happy, well pleased.

Now that I think about it, I should have hidden one behind a bush in the garden as a momento to see if anyone noticed.

So, I digress, my sister’s long road trip and imminent arrival, she messaged that she could pick up coffees for my younger sister’s partner, then by extension, my younger sister as they have been living there and my sister was working from home this particular day as the internet and phones were down at her work. It’s context and necessary. Coffee orders settled, and there’s nothing like being excluded by not being included. I know I wasn’t there, but thought I’d humorously add my presence, I wrote “I’ll get my coffee!” You know when you know they won’t appreciate your humour. I added, “My carer just laughed!” Nothing! Just dead air!

It’s always worth a try right.

Who Names These Coffee Varieties

Published March 20, 2023 by helentastic67

Who Names These Coffee Varieties

A recent trip to a coffee roaster saw us answering the questions about what kind of coffee is drunk in the household?

Just imagine I’m the latte drinker. Yes, my favourite meme for this is, “Latte is Italian for: you paid too much for that coffee!”

I described and created the coffee roast “I drank too much Sake last night!” Speaking for a friend. Poor young sales assistant looked at me questioning. Did you read the above? I drink latte and I was THERE!

Note! I’ve not thrown anyone specifically under the bus here, but this relates to the time around my father’s passing, she says diplomatically.

On a Happier Note

Published November 21, 2022 by helentastic67

On a Happier Note

Had such miserable posts of late, but here’s a little something amusing that comes from family spending time together even for the shittiest reasons.

Five ladies taking up residents in my father’s home. We all do our coffee a different way. My sister’s partner on the percolator to make sure everyone had their “Medicine” (as I call it) when they needed it. One morning, well around 10am, I walked past my older sister throwing her a simple question that required little thought to answer. She stood holding her coffee cup asking if I had dared to ask her a question before her morning coffee. My younger sister looked empathetic towards her plight, even though she only has one coffee every day. I told her fair enough and she could get back to me after her coffee.

I later explained to the marker of coffee, “I like to start the day with my natural enthusiasm for life! But I need to have medicine towards the end of the afternoon to get through the rest of the day!”

I think it’s a bit ironic considering I spend every morning looking stoned and I’ve never even smoked a cigarette. Definitely not getting into the Mary Jane.

The bringer of coffee and I got a coffee the day after my father’s funeral at a fantastic cafe/coffee roaster in my hometown and while there we bought a supply of roasted beans. The worker in the café were really good at the customer service, that such roles require, offering us all the different kinds of beans available. I really wanted to suggest, “give us the one for, I’ve had too much Sake last night Asking for a friend.” It wasn’t me driving the porcelain bus at 7am the day after, but enough said.

Hope you get the Up’s and Downs in life right now and can hang in there for me to return to normal programming. Must I remind followers. Please hit Like.

Noelle will be impressed she can post on the Monday, so things are getting back on track, I aim to please.

Really Wrong

Published April 18, 2022 by helentastic67

Really Wrong

And then there’s where it goes really wrong.

Sometimes, when I get a new carer and I do my induction phase and ask how long they have been a carer and who they have worked for. I get an early impression they are ‘Good People’. “Oh, you have done palliative care”

Then I work out she loves an environment she doesn’t take direction; she takes over, which is fine if the mum is dying and the husband is just trying to cope, the kids are losing their mum and their dad is not completely there either.

That’s not my home and they can’t shift gears to cope. Nobody comes into my home and takes over; I don’t need that. This particular carer, some ten years older than me. Very early I worked out, did not have friends her own age. So, she quickly got all the naughty girl talk sorted. Even when I do that talk with my carers, I try to keep it G rated and I worked out she was a complete narcissist.

This woman very obviously wanted to leave early on a Friday so she could go be with her 13-year-old daughter. She did helicopter parenting via phone while she was meant to be out shopping for my groceries, then doing my home care (cleaning). When I mentioned while out with her that I have a blog, she rather loudly enquired if I was going to write about her. I did not answer, already knowing if and when I did, she would not be bothered to read it, nor would it be complimentary.

The nail in the coffin was at some point and when it comes, it’s the final straw. The week I took Jemima to the vet the final time back in 2018 and I made the decision hastened by the fact that I had tickets on the Friday to see a band in my neighbourhood I have loved from my teens and while Jamima had been getting older, I’d been putting off the decision and she might have lived longer, I felt I couldn’t enjoy going out for the evening and enjoy myself if I was concerned about Jamima at home. It was a shitty, rough week, I cried before, knowing I was going to have to do it, I cried before I even booked, I cried. Let’s just say I cried. Shitiest week ever.

On the Friday, I had the carer from Hell, who tried to cheer me up by saying it would be a good night and I deserved it as a distraction. I’m picking up the thread of this post three weeks later, let’s see if I can do it justice. Anyway, so Friday carer arrived after a shitful week of saying goodbye to Jamima and then doing all the spring cleaning and cleaning up after Jamima’s last evening in our home. So, pretty quickly, I told said carer about Jamima going to God! (Apparently the term is crossing the rainbow bridge!) and that I had an exciting night planned to go see a band in my neighbourhood I’d loved from my teenage years.

I kept saying to my carer it was a little hot and sticky, towards the end of her shift so I might need her help after to shower so I could go out feeling fresh and clean. She was one of my standard PC (personal care) carers so it’s not like it was a huge imposition. It is not like she hadn’t seen me naked before.

We went shopping, we did all the standard hunter/gathering and towards the end of my shift. Always planning to have a shower, I made notes to do so. This carer often became very distracted around 4pm, which is about the time her kids get out of school. That’s when she’d be checking her phone all the time and the helicopter would lift off. She had a 13yr old and her behaviour altered around her noticeably. Offering to water plants then ignoring me and going ahead and doing it anyway and ignoring me asking her to stop. My indoor plants are a very careful balance of how much/how often. So, I think she just wanted me to dismiss her early so she would still get paid.

A friend dropped in to commiserate with me over Jamima. She had been a carer through the council and had loved Jamima from the first time she met her, threatening one day she would leave here with a big bulge (of Jamima) in her pants pocket. I told her if she could get her in there, she was welcome. She also had a cat the same age as Jamima so was grieving her cat that would one day soon cross the rainbow bridge also.

While I had a visit from Mrs T, I closed the door to the lounge so I could have a moment of peace from the carer who was getting paid to be there. She did not like being left out. She pushed open the door separating us to join the conversation.

“I know how you feel!”
“Yeah!”
“That pearler!”

Then she told us how she once had to take the tube from her son’s throat surgery years earlier. Now, we all know it’s not a mother’s job to take a tube from their child’s throat after they have had an anaesthetic or surgery, right? If you are unsure? The answer is no. It’s the doctors or nurses’ job, because your kids will hate you for doing it, the doctors and nurses get paid for the privilege. Your mum has the soothing and parenting jobs/roles you love them for. You have a Boo-Boo? Mum kisses it to make it all better. FFS!

Anyway, not digressing at all. Mrs T departed and I was sad and the night was young. So, I made a move to have a shower, the carer on shift had not been at all interested in assisting me when I finally headed to the bathroom, she decided to tell me she was reluctant to assist me. She decided to be very passive aggressive obviously and inform me if I’d wanted to change some of the shift, I should have informed the office, which by this stage it was Friday after 5pm, so it was closed.

What a stress I did not need, she helped me, but it was very obvious by her behaviour it was imposition on her that she complete her shift and help my get ready. She left, I made coffee, got ready and my friend came when it was closer to the time the venue was to open, we left to go see the band.

It was early. Daylight savings so it was still daylight, the venue was the Thornbury Theatre and I was going to see MIdge Ure, whom you may or may not know from the 80’s synth pop band Ultravoxx. If you are into something a bit less beaty (and electronic) are cruise and good to sing along to. Try this:

https://midgeure.bandcamp.com/

It was great, I bought the CD.

After the gig we walked home again. My friend walking ahead of me to cut through all the spider webs spread across the paths doing her best 1980’s goth arm waving. It was still light out and the streets were quiet. Got home. My friend left and I cried. I missed Jamima.

So, this is what you do to solve having a fucking shitty carer. Monday, I rang the agency and asked to put a block on her. I was asked why? So, I told her, I had a decent rapport with my rostering woman, as I always make sure to do. She was surprised, to be honest she deserved an incident report, but I was just happy to not have her again.

Unfortunately, I’d left a CD in her car, offering to loan it to her so she could listen to something a bit different. It was the BEST DEPECHE MODE CD EVER, Ii’s circa ‘88! (called Violator).

https://youtu.be/AZr7VEeyfIA

I didn’t buy my CD copy until about ‘92 but it was an old favourite. I have all DM CD’s but by far this is the standout best album. I tried to get back my CD but she didn’t respond to my texts and when I escalated it to management, they told me if I’d offered it to her as a friend it was my loss. So, soon I changed all my services from them to my current two providers, with who I’ve barely had an issue.

Over three years have passed and I recently was in a box of CD singles and came across said missing CD. Would never have looked for it there, the carer had bought it in and snuck it in a box. She must have not intended to return. Stupid Cow! No, she deserves worse.

Efficient

Published December 16, 2019 by helentastic67

Efficient

How to learn valuable life lessons and the value of efficiency? Learn to do things one-handed.

The End!

No really, I see a series coming up.

Back in the busy days of my teenage years, I started to have some weakness in my left arm, when doing evening cuppa T (tea) duty, family was impatient and didn’t appreciate me taking my time bringing one cup in at a time from the kitchen to the loungeroom (not far for Christ sake. Be patient).

So, I carried two cups and my left-hand shook, spilling some tea. The carpet (shagpile from the 70’s) was far from immaculate, I was growled at. Then I was instructed to dip my left shoulder a bit. It didn’t help.

But, the moral of the story is, from seventeen years of age I started being much more efficient one-handed. I didn’t stop using my left, I just favoured my right.

I could touch type, however years later in my early thirty’s if I was holding a phone to my left ear while chatting with a client, I could type much more efficiently right-handed, even with only three fingers (thumb, little finger and pointer finger). Still can, had years of practice.

Today’s Lunch – 14th August 2019

Published August 14, 2019 by helentastic67

Today’s Lunch

Good Mental Health Day

Oh my God, is this week over yet!? I cancelled my osteo appointment Monday. It was cold and I needed a long weekend.

Yesterday, I had my follow-up with the sleep clinic. Not a sleep over just an update with the specialist. I checked in and went back out to get a coffee. Thought today I might give you a recap in photo form of my appointment yesterday? I don’t consider myself particular photogenic as I look in the mirror these days and think it is what it is. So, your welcome!

Me before coffee…

After medicine!

And before I get to today’s offering. You may recall, the lovely Caroline my masseuse has been in Italy. She’s been doing a little gardening while her husband has been doing some maintenance. I think it’s safe to say neither know how to do Holiday.

They are in Casole d’Elsa 11K from SAN Giminiano. South of Florence, north of Siena. And I’m quoting her directly, it is too crowded to go there this time of year. She took these photos just for me yesterday.

And finally, today’s offering is a homemade sausage roll with a burning chilli chutney with side salad and medicine.

I’m in Thornbury today at Cafe Crunch as I was running out of time. So, I’m close to acupuncture.

Cheers,
H

Today’s Lunch – 5th June 2019

Published June 5, 2019 by helentastic67

Today’s Lunch

Good Mental Health Day

Another week!

Actually, had Tuesday at home this week. Multitasking one-handed like a pro. Very good thing I have both a mobile and a landline as I used both at the same time to catch up on serious admin/organizing & negotiating. Also managed to write some posts ahead of printing and posting to my blog administrator next week.

Cleared up the trays that cover my coffee table and my couch. A calm mid-week lunch in my punchy-stabby day.

Today’s offering is a Bolognaise Arancini with side salad and my medicine.

And this, I don’t know what it’s called, but how could I not? And yes, I’m sharing it!

Cheers,
H

Hostage

Published December 24, 2018 by helentastic67

Hostage

There is a reference I often make to what it’s like having a disability and I’m certain people who have more severe disabilities than I, feel this way.

Disability Hostage

Now, I also premise this by saying I’m pretty sure my family don’t read my blog. So I’m good to go. I can write what I like.

Let me just say, the breakdown of my family is this. My parents are both still amongst the living (not complaining), they divorced when I was about twenty-five and I knew it was coming for the ten years before that. I have an older sister by two years, who I see once or twice a year (she lives closest), I have one surviving younger sister (16 years younger) who lives with my mum. My parents both live three and half hours drive away, my father, I see at Christmas when I’m up that way. He won’t travel to Melbourne to see me and if in town, he won’t bother to visit either. He has not seen most of the places I’ve lived, in the last twenty years. I think he’s seen one, he doesn’t call me, I call him.

Family

I speak to my mum twice a week and while that’s five times less than it used to be, we got along much better than we used to. Mum comes down every so often for serious appointments and such.

Ah, background done. Now to my point!

During smiley holidays and such (Christmas, Easter, what-not) I will go to spend time with family. It’s that or stay at home alone. So, I go and then I lose my independence immediately. I have my mum’s bedroom and I hibernate. I want a shower I have to negotiate when someone is prepared to assist me if I go outside, I generally don’t step off the verandah as the last time I went outside my mum called to me: “If you go for a walk be careful by the water tank there’s a snake over there!” I promptly went back inside to relative safety. Motivation to go anywhere is hard to draw on.

Snakes

To go anywhere requires someone to drive me either twenty minutes to a decent meeting place with medicine(coffee) or an hour where I can arrange to meet friends who might visit family once a year at Christmas time. Any of these adventures requires money I don’t have and logistical nightmares of being able to get home again when I need it.

Drive for coffee

I put my things in the fridge and when I go to get them out again, two other people have moved them to get to other things and I might be standing in just the wrong spot/angle and my things are in my blind spot and I can’t see the forest for the trees.

Fridge

The environment is a very comfortable space for the two that live there and throwing me into the mix I feel terrible to put someone out to be able to join in. Everything I can do to contribute, someone has to move things to prepare for me and I feel more of a hindrance than an adult. So, I hibernate.

Hibernate

Oh yeah, where I spend Christmas, I’m also socially isolated by other means, no mobile reception, I divert my phone and if they can’t remember their wi-fi password I’m screwed. So, hostage. Like I said.

Christmas Hostage