This is probably not the post I intended to write when I sat down but maybe I’ll stay tapping at my iPad long enough to do some catch up.
There’s nothing like going to see your doctor and they throw a random question at you and you are not sure how to answer, like “Do you bruise easily?”
It means to find a bruise you don’t remember how you got it, hate to have dementia. How are they going to remember?
I currently have a bruise on my jawline. NFI how that got there but every other day my carer tells me it’s there, asks how I got it and puts a dab of arnica on it.
But this is not a diagnosis, generally, I get a bruise often and I consider which piece of furniture I’ve collected. Often, it’s when I repeat the knock or bump and it hurts the original bruise while it’s still bad enough to hurt.
I’m not crying over spilt milk. Bruises are not killing me.
Don’t know if I’ve mentioned recently, HellOnWheels don’t do hot weather. Summer in Melbourne over Christmas often means storms and even rain. But this year it included a level of humidity nobody has been excited about.
I am generally out all day on Fridays with my carer Girl-Friday, doing all my Hunter-Gathering and solving the problems I have not managed to solve solo. However, this Friday, it was 34 degrees. That’s not even in the shade. Even on stupid-humid days I can make a joke.
We stopped briefly at Officeworks today and as we pulled into the car park I commentated and suggested Park in the shade. She suggested she thought that would be impossible, I was surprised she even bothered to answer.
I still managed a lazy 3,700 steps in this heat, although another friend informed me, she’d also had a lazy day, just 23,500 something, her son is in a wheelchair and I suggested I might need to start asking and competing with him. He has also completed some laps up and back in the hallway with his walker. And they don’t have Air con. Doesn’t seem sporting of me to try to compete with him. Not because he’s in a chair but because he has no AC.
Yesterday, I had to decide about whether to bother putting on a bra or not. This is generally half the part of Adulting, bra and shoes means I’m going out. As you well know, yesterday was a Sunday and I don’t do Adulting on Sundays, I didn’t even go out. I’m not talking about Out-Out. I just mean leave my apartment.
As you might have gathered my birthday last October set the tone for both Christmas and New Year. So, I planned a Ladies High Tea.
Lunch thing with my Real Family and that’s my carers. All my carers bring me a little something different. They bring me stories, family, friends, and treats. And I share their stories between each of them. Yet they rarely encounter each other. I share their stories as I am the water fountain in the office tearoom and I’m the holder of the peer support opportunities. So, it was finally a chance to hold a Ladies Lunch.
I even pulled out the Fine Bone China and the French Gourmet Side Plates. We started with the savoury. Homemade sausage rolls, triple cheese croquettes, arancini balls, even cheese and spinach and some other pastry things. The sweets included the ginger Christmas pudding I had yet to get to, the chocolate and orange Christmas pudding, the scones one of the ladies bought to go with the hot jam donut a friend hand delivered before Christmas, with whipped cream. Ginger kisses and the brandy snaps I didn’t get to over Christmas. (These are still uneaten in the fridge) I have been chipping away at the contents of the fridge for weeks and alas, still not getting anywhere.
One lovely lady dug around in my fridge for something, I had to direct her to the crisper. FYI. That’s the section or drawer at the bottom designed for fruits and vegetables, or in my home the containers of things that don’t fit anywhere else. Then when the girls were all departing the mother-load Brownies were still in the crisper. Guess we know what I’ll be sharing out for the next few weeks.
Finally, I should mention my carer in the morning did point out, I didn’t need to bother with the bra since they had all seen it before. Great to be roasted by people that know me the best.
I did wear a coloured T-shirt the girls wouldn’t normally see me in. I bought a few cheap T’s this early and I wouldn’t go past an aqua/teal tee that was everywhere in the men’s section of Big W. I don’t go there often, but it’s where I get my standard black summer pants.
It’s after midnight as I’m tapping this out on my iPad and not long ago, I realised some gifts remain under my tree. A particular carer had been working her other job and it had been too busy to get away. I had suggested I could call in a bomb threat, but we all know I was kidding. There are plenty of treats saved for all the others that could not make it. Note, the gingerbread house one carer delivered before Christmas She said it took five people to make it. It’s going to take more than that to eat it.
So, however you spend your time with family sometimes the people that love, respect and take the time to understand you are not the ones related to you by blood and as a few of my invited guests had not been able to attend I would say, I definitely want to make this a more regular event.
How is it 2024 already? Where does time go? I mean don’t answer that! I’m still trying to wrap up 2022 and ten years of my taxes, it’s on the list. I stopped doing those when I had to claim financial hardship about ten years ago, the last time I bothered to do my tax.
What? You think we get to start a New Year all rainbows and unicorns, since when? I’m still trying to get a better sleeping pattern and the right number of meals in a day. Let alone get through my Tim Tam collection in my fridge. I have implemented Tim Tam Sundays, if you’re in my area on a Sunday and want a hit of amazing goodness. Hit me up.
I want to propose less is more time for me in 2024, last year flew past with way too many appointments and zooms and less days just for me. Stuff gets thrown in the mix and I still deal with chronic pain and shit still hitting the fan, so what to do? Let’s put it out there that 2024 has more wins than losses.
I can’t see my schedule being any less hectic, so maybe there is always a way to make life more efficient and pain free. Hope everyone scraped through 2023 with more wins than losses.
It’s that tough pointy end of the year again and I’m in a battle of Tetris-Like levels with my fridge and only me to eat it.
A conversation with my cousin on my birthday at the end of October instilled in me, I would be very happy to be able to sleep for the whole week of Christmas, eat and catch up on TV.
Here’s to staying home alone, where I don’t lose my independence and I already know I’m going to be spending time alone. Its weirdly better than being around family, but still being all alone.
I might even be able to talk a carer into making me a ham and cheese toasties and putting it on my bedside table.
Here’s to an easier 2024 and for December not to fly around so quickly. So say all of us.
Once upon a time pre-treatment, I was given some very handy advice for when seeing specialist doctors.
I was told “take a book!”
I was actually going to see her neurosurgeon. So, she knew I’d be waiting. Reading materials in hospital waiting rooms my mum and I would compete as to who had the oldest magazine. Best game ever.
Meanwhile, fifteen years on and I’m still waiting in the waiting rooms and I’ve next levelled and packed my iPad.
Only thing is, I’m one-handed and have half the eyesight. I cannot balance my bag, keep-cup (medicine) walking stick, let alone iPad on top of all those things. So, here I am taping out a blog post on to my phone and I’m now feeling weirdly seedy, Super.
If you recall? I gave the advice early on, any doctor you have to wait for is a doctor worth seeing.
Still true. Next time? Not bringing my iPad. Too heavy.
So, as per usual I’ve had a few new carers recently. One has picked up my Friday shift, so I’ve got a new Girl Friday.
We got along instantly like a house on fire. She is close to my age which is rare and good to have some variety for sure. She has a long red plait hanging over her shoulder with petite features making me want to refer to her as Elsa from Frozen and I haven’t even seen it.
All was well, in my first 8.5-hour shift with her when we got on the topic of football. We were doing so well. Our teams were playing each other that night and she’s a Magpie’s supporter, that’s the team mascot for Collingwood. It was nice knowing you.
Over for the last weeks of the season I made several early morning texts to her, the morning after, along the lines of “I’m your face!” When Carlton beat her team. It’s OK, I knew she could take it. The game was on.
I suggested if our teams faced each other on grand final day and her team won I would get a tattoo of a Magpie on my butt! (it would be my first) and tiny. I suggested if the Blues, (yes, the Carlton mascot) won she had to get a Huge Blues tattoo across her upper chest on the left, it’s fine. She laughed. Stating “not a huge one?”
I continued to mention I would get started designing our tattoo’s. Could have been a limited release. Alas, no tattoos were undertaken. That’s the right term.
Feeling like I’m behind on so many things right now, including blogging. It just seems I can’t catch up. There are often layers of red tape and bureaucracy to wade through to maintain life as I know it now. Let alone try to expect more from life like Normal people take for granted.
Yes, I know. It’s going to be a rough few posts so strap in. It’s that time of year again (October) where I try to keep my head down and avoid getting stabbed in my heart and soul any more than normal. I just can’t take it. This time of year is traditionally hard because it’s my birthday at the end of the month and it’s always shit.
It’s my belief a person’s birthday is special. It’s the one day of the year that they are special, celebrated. I don’t mean fireworks but people showing they give a flying tutti fruitti.
It shouldn’t surprise anybody that I’m single. What!? How? You seem like a reasonable and decent human. Don’t worry, it’s the million-dollar question even my google mini can’t answer. Today’s post will not be about that.
My favourite question of google is “Where’s my husband!” I just want you to know google does not have a sense of humour. She responds with enquiring if “He” had an appointment, seriously.
So, I digress, normally, my family would arrange a Ladies Lunch for the day of my birthday. Often not contacting me until the week before to lock in a location and getting family further away to be included. I am roughly in the middle of my two siblings and their respective partners and my mum. So, travel for everyone but myself was required.
It’s frustrating that these days is considered so late as if I don’t have an offer from family, it’s too late to find a friend to do hangs with so I’m not alone. All my friends are busy. Often away on weekends. Which is fair. They are allowed, it’s just shit being alone on your birthday, to be continued.
So, you might ask yourself, how hard is it to get as jab of tramadol? When you really need it. First, I do have an injectable supply at home. No syringe or ability to jab myself but a start. A nurse can come to my home and inject me, but I’ve not had time to get the paperwork in place to have my MEPACS be able to do that and when I contact them, they don’t have a Nurse on shift.
Isn’t that their one job?
I, of course rang my GP Medical Clinic first and they had no appointments free. I explained my dilemma and they never got back to me. My acupuncturist who is also a GP was happy to stab me as per usual, but not with Tramadol. I’m not getting out of bed, showered and dressed just to go sleep in one of his rooms with needles in me. It was the first thing I had cancelled that day.
One of my newer very cheeky carers inquired as to my wellbeing. I told her it would be easier to get laid than get a jab of Tramadol, she told me that would have sorted the migraine. I reminded her getting laid did not actually equate to an orgasm that might solve the migraine. She reluctantly allowed me to have that.
Turns out it’s also easier for me to beat my carers with my wit than get a jab of Tramadol.
Hell onWheels/Life One Handed 