Side Bar

Published September 29, 2026 by helentastic67

Side Bar

This might be a question for parents. If asking for a friend were walking my dog and let’s say there was flooding, If I saw your children unsupervised by their parents. That would be you, not me. You they who had these children. What if said children were out in said flooding areas and I want to know would it be up to me to rescue your children if they were at risk of drowning?

Or at what point would it be acceptable if I yelled at them to deter them from potential mishaps? Keeping in mind, I got the version of child I could manage, and my recent new addition now a full year old and officially no longer a kitten, has taught me I would have been a yelling parent. The kids I didn’t have are so lucky because while Freddie doesn’t pay attention, I’m good at yelling.

I remember, asking for a friend. I was discussing this scenario earlier with someone who was in the above potential scenario. We all know the moral and ethical answer. However, nobody wants to get in trouble for yelling at somebody else’s child. So, feel free to comment and provide feedback.

In the early days of having hellonwheels, I was fangin’ it through a park in Clifton Hill on Hoddle Street when I saw two young kids playing on piles of bark chips. I stopped to talk to them. I quietly told them I knew it was fun but maybe they should try not to spread it all over the grass and keep it to the designated garden bed. From out of nowhere, grandma hung up her phone to and stormed over to ask me what was wrong? I told her nothing was wrong and repeated the above to her and she took her two young grandchildren away. Which had not been my intent.

People Have No Idea

Published September 21, 2026 by helentastic67

People Have No Idea

So, every now and again things get added to the already full bucket of shit to deal with, and it’s a long process to get answers and solutions. People just have no idea.

Earlier 2025, my left foot had started to hurt. While I was already dealing with my base line of my fifteen years plus disability and the recent hernia surgery, vertigo, etc.

For a while when out in the community I was alternating between grunting/growling or swearing every time I stepped on my left foot. People with chronic pain have become really good at hiding it from others. Because nobody knows how to react when we answer honestly to the age-old question “How are you?”

I know I’ve started being blunter because people will never know if we don’t tell them, and then I must remind them I don’t expect them to fix anything. Because they cannot. I remind people this is why I have such a dark sense of humour and that I appreciate the gentle laughs we share.

Several conversations over time with all the people. The OT, the Podiatrist, my AFO guy in Richmond and to be clear my AFO guy stretched out the side of the AFO using a neat trick of putting lipstick on the raised calluses on my left foot of which there are two.

One particular day in this process I had mentioned it to my Neurophysio while she was working on my left calf and foot.

There was a moment of quiet contemplation where we were not chatting as she did her brand of torture to the muscles in my calf and foot. She sits slightly in my blind spot on my front left but I look down and she has removed her shoe and she is very clearly checking if her foot has the same bumps and bones where mine now has.

She catches me watching her, She’s twenty plus years younger and from the UK. I really like her. I snort a little laugh at her as she thinks she needs to explain what she’s doing. It makes perfect sense; this is not the only time someone alludes or outright tells me I have weird feet. If you haven’t gathered, the point here is it’s a process of elimination.

My GP sends me to the nurses at the clinic he works from and one of those nurses is the other Helen. We now have history also. At that appointment I’m lying on the bed in the nurse’s prep room and checking my foot she calls in the other nurse and I mean, why not make it a party right? Helen says to her colleague, sorry Helen. I don’t mean to offend you, but you have weird feet. Like I hadn’t been telling the beautician this on the few occasions I had her do a foot treatment, me trying to tuck my toes from one foot behind the other, in an effort to hide the very things I was there to have her make them soft and pretty.

I also moved to a much better podiatrist in this process and how to get even more by using tape on my foot to rotate it even a little for her.

Again, I snort a little laugh and my GP finally decided I needed an X-ray and an Ultrasound. I know, sounds extreme right?

One early evening in 2026, my GP calls to tell me of my results. I prompt him with my brand of dark humour. “They say amputate at the knee?” He returns fire with “Yes, the neck down!” Touche!

The diagnosis was a really big cyst of 4mm by 2mm. I know. Huge! It sounds tiny so why does it hurt so much? You know there were ways to put more swear words in there.

So, I don’t know if it’s too late to warn my delicate readers but here’s a picture from only yesterday. So, even after a year this still hurts like a Mother trucker!

Apologies if people needed a warning?

Old Friends

Published September 13, 2026 by helentastic67

Old Friends

I’ve also had a friend staying in Melbourne. Although for him, it’s not a holiday. It’s just a change of where he’s lying in a bed — and no carers, instead nurses.

We went to high school together. We were not friends but have become friends in the last ten years or so. At high school, we were both outsiders, but his being different made him much more of a target for bullying. That didn’t sound right, I was bullied too. It’s just girls do it more subtly. I know!

When I was young, bullying was called being “picked on”. It was indeed bullying, but you weren’t told by strangers that you should kill yourself. You just ended up wanting to kill yourself. And people had to come up to you and tell you to your face they didn’t like you, at which time you or I would tell them to their face to “Fuck off!” Anyway. I digress.

A few weeks ago, said friend, “Dear John”, rang me on a Sunday night, starting with a profound apology. I cut him off with a, “You never need to apologise to me!” That’s when he explained he had been down already for three weeks, at which time I told him he was dead to me.

My thoughts and feelings on this are that I don’t get back to the country often, so him being closer to me means I’m going to take advantage and hit him with my form of love language. If you’re new here, my love language is food!

Now, what it helps to know about said friend is that he has a spinal injury and has had it since we were only seventeen. He was the tallest, oldest kid at the Royal Children’s Hospital back in 1998. He is considered an incomplete quad. That means for him, he’s in bed most of the day and week. He has the use of one arm from the elbow to his hand, with the ability to reach his phone on his bedhead. It is to say, he cannot feed himself.

The first time I visited him a few years ago with a bag of sweet and savoury treats, I did not know how much help he needed. I prompted him with a very silly suggestion, and he simply told me that nothing gets in his mouth without somebody putting it there! And there is something really humbling about being able to go and feed someone something they could not otherwise access or feed themselves. It’s a humbling experience and a privilege. I’m not friends with him out of pity.

I’ve definitely had many life experiences he has not. I’ve had friends who have lived lives I have not, and I share stories with him he would likely not prefer to hear, but it’s always a starting point. I think he is entertained by my stories and banter. Definitely the d’Affinois I’ve introduced him to.

And more recently, my mushroom baskets and homemade sausage rolls. I usually start his stays in Melbourne by taking him a halloumi pide. It’s something he would not get or bother to try in the country where he grew up and still resides.

I grew up an hour from him, but our lives, as mentioned, have been very different. My first visit was assisted by a friend who drove me there and helped by collecting pide in Heidelberg on our way. I introduced both friends. She went to do her thing and upon arrival, I enquired where his laptop was. He no longer had a small TV hanging from the ceiling, and I was informed his laptop had arrived that morning at 9:25am. After consulting his phone, I discovered that was, in fact, the case. It’s always a challenge being in hospital.

If it’s not a planned visit, you may have found yourself in hospital without so much as a charging cable for your phone. He had also reported to me that he had the “black screen of death” on his laptop! His carer agency had arranged for a new laptop and had it sent. I went to ask at the nurses’ station. It arrived in the time I was there and I prompted him as to whether he had any carers to help set it up. He seemed nonplussed.

My friend returned, and hearing my concern as to who would get it out and set it up for him, my friend got up and went to work. She held out the barcode on the box for me to get a photo and send it to him. I couldn’t even do that, honestly, what a princess I am. I got the fuck out of the way. I asked who would set it up for him, and he said he would. I know for this he uses a stick between his teeth. I asked how long this would take, and he said, “Not long.”

Over the years, we have had many conversations about patients and how this existence has taught him to be patient. I know in comparison to this friend, I’m an Olympic sportswoman. And let’s call her “T for Tech” because however long it takes to set up a new computer, it’s too long. I am so impatient.

While visiting, I gave him a little sass, and my friend — let’s call her “T for Tech” — gave me a look that said I was pushing it too far. I responded with, “What? It’s not his first day!” He snorted a small laugh. You can imagine any more effort than that hurts. I like to laugh out loud.

I like that birds scatter and people might notice and wonder where it came from and what might cause such an outburst. I guess this happens with me too. I imagine people wish they were a fly on the wall in these conversations. I spend actual time with them and not with actual family, as much as I’ve tried.

When I’m out and about with my carers, there is always banter, sweet conversations and a feeling like I’m part of a family. It’s not my actual family, but it is a family.

So, I know I’m in high regard somewhere.

Sheds and Landlords

Published August 3, 2026 by helentastic67

Sheds and Landlords

These days I like people who offer me more solutions than problems. It is to say even if I’m not paying them out of pocket and its coming from my NDIA funding I want solutions. Efficiency is also ideal. One of the many conversations trying to solve the problems around my scooter and storing it and powering it, etc.

Oh my God and when I moved almost a year ago now, I cannot tell you what I would have given somebody to not need to discuss dishwashers ever again, but my scooter. Just kill me.

Had a meeting with an OT, who I will add should probably have been project managing solving this issue! and when she looked to depart, I said to her “Aren’t you going to stay to discuss shed’s and storing solutions?” I was informed she had another client to go see and she didn’t know anything about “sheds!” Fuck! I didn’t either but I might have considered she could have learnt.

I will point out now for over fifteen years when my first OT sorted my scooter, the funding for which and separate funding for a shed from a separate NGO, for which every place I’ve rented since I’ve been able to put the shed on the property somewhere to house and charge and secure the precious hellonwheels.

Landlords came to the party with little effort to install a live power supply. One property manager when I dropped in for a friendly chat to let him know I would be formally giving notice to vacate he told me, “You’ll be leaving the shed?” My landlords were wogs. As was he, and I had no problem reminding him the shed was mine and he could “Fuck off!” so it was never mentioned again. They are lucky the police had not been contacted after my landlord had gotten handsy and I on a second occasion took the time to explain to him he had no right to ask what he had of me and no right to imagine what he had. I will hope you get where this was going? He did not think he had done anything wrong and he was only dissuaded from his thinking when I suggested we ask his son to join the conversation and see what he thought. His son parked out the front to deliver his children before breakfast, then he collected them after work at the end of the day. The landlord lived very close by. The son was close to my age, I know he would have not been impressed by his father’s actions.

I’ve not told many of what happened on several occasions in my home where you should feel safe, where you pay money to someone who therefore has power and responsibility over you, but the few people either did an incident report and another told me I definitely had a skill set that many did not.

In case you are concerned I was not assaulted. I’m not a victim or a survivor; I just didn’t appreciate his hand being anywhere on my person he thought he could put it for whatever his intentions. Not complaining. I think I look back at all the jobs, in clubs or elsewhere and they all gave me certain skills, a calm confidence to deal with situations most do not have to in a workplace.

You should take it for granted that I’m nice, I’m sweet, but you don’t mess with me. Few people have learnt this the hard way and karma is a Bitch! And so am I.

That got dark, didn’t it? I just mean when people do me wrong, I point out to them the error of their ways so they are not misled to think they can take advantage of me or others.

I should also say if you have been inflicted with attention you did not ask for whatever the outcome, please talk to someone you trust, a friend, a person in a position to help guide or navigate unfamiliar territory. But tell somebody. It’s not your fault and you didn’t ask for it. I wonder if I should have offered a trigger warning at the beginning of this post. It is not where I intended for it to go, so I apologise if anybody has reason to feel traumatised.

Word of the Day

Published June 14, 2026 by helentastic67

Word of the Day

Today’s words of the day – Nose holes, I mean it, um, What? I hear you ask? Yes, exactly. A youngster announces these words to me with great confidence. I comment we already have words for those; they are called nostrils. But to my great amusement she is sticking with Nose Holes. They have been causing much grief with both hay fever and blood noses and she tells me they are both suffering equally.

I have suggested she needs to eat more meat as she might be anaemic. I’ve suggested to go be seen by a doctor and even my Crazy Lady Hormone Doctor because the report back for my bloodwork is very specific and a normal GP will likely glance at some things and be rather dismissive.

My recent report has provided me feedback that I have Way Too Much B6. WTF I’m paraphrasing but that’s in most things that goes into or on my person.

I enquired at a Health food Store and he told me it’s in a lot of supplements. All I could say was “That’s all I take!” I had been planning to die healthy one day. Now, it looks like I can die healthy or I can die in pain. These are not great options.

Today I bought the only Magnesium on the market that doesn’t have B6 and I went home dug out my supply of magnesium and gave it to the Nose Hole Inventor of great joy and humour. And while I’ve given her as much direction and recommendation I can as “Not a Doctor.” I’ve already been nudging her towards getting appropriate medical advice. Best/worst case scenario, it helps her with her aching muscles, her sleep, period pain, and the worst case she doesn’t take it at all. Time will tell.

Auntie Chistine

Published March 23, 2026 by helentastic67

Auntie Christine

It was 5th October 2025 I think sometimes I do love to mention people by name. Particularly when it’s for good reasons. But today I’m going to share an antidote about Auntie Christine. There were three at my council at this time and it was rather comical. In this instance Auntie Christine was the first to get the endearment Auntie. She was Jamima’s Aunty first and she was best known for teaching me the terms “Apron” and “Terrarium” These were the parts of your body that when drying require lifting to dry underneath. The Apron I think named after a 1950’s housewife’s kitchen garment is the part of your belly, men and women that does not stay flat. One older carer who had come from a nursing background would tell me the older bigger men she would shove her forearm up into a client’s apron to lift so she could dry underneath. She said mine wasn’t terrible.

Then, the terrarium? I heard you ask. She said Auntie Christine again, she once went to her doctor with an itchy belly button. The doctor said she had a plant growing in there. She had not dried it properly over time and it grew something. Obviously, the term terrarium creates a nice warm moist environment perfect for small plants or fungus to grow.

The most important part of Auntie Christine was when I learnt she had been a carer for about forty years. I asked her, “I bet you have seen a few bodies?” and I guess we are all critical about our bodies. And it’s hard to imagine putting all that aside to just do a job. Where everything you do is important, might be the kindest touch they have had in a long time. It’s the sentiment in which we communicate how much we care or even that this person is cared for. Auntie Christine answered my question with such a simple and wise response. “Bodies are bodies.” and when you put it like that it does make perfect sense.

Lastly, Auntie Christine was that carer who had to stand there while a family member tore me apart, even when I knew what was coming and tried to steer this conversation in another direction, she double down and kept verbally attacking me until I was in tears. So, it seemed this family member would not have been happy until I was in that state. This family member while beloved will also decide to throw criticism at me when my friend is merely complimenting them for their daughter. She will try to do this because I’ve found other elders to advise me and receive my kindness. I feel they do this because I am a confident and happy person when I’m living life, trying to smile and make people happy.

Meanwhile, Auntie Christine has been retired for about ten years she and her husband living in the country.

This post leads me to say the young male ambulance person that was standing at the end of my bed while I lay there stark naked. He was too young to have seen enough bodies. I was not delirious but mostly not able to string sentences together except to say I was cold and just wanted to go to sleep.

It’s hard and impossible when it’s most important that I cannot tell people who need to know, how I cannot regulate temperature. My head is not and the rest of me is cold. I need to warm my body and sleep off my head returning to normal temperature.

Unofficial Support

Published February 23, 2026 by helentastic67

Unofficial Support

In the world of disability there are many terms for things you don’t know until you need to and that generally means you learn the hard way out of necessity. Out of your will to achieve something or your need to survive. You learn who your friends are. You work out who you can rely on.

If you don’t have family or friends who can help you do the most mundane things you might find you have a carer who can feed your cat when you go to your dad’s funeral, or you spend a night in hospital.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned but wait for it. Humble brag, Mika is not food orientated, but she still expects to be fed, every night.

Also, kind neighbours, even after I moved were lovely enough to drop into my new home to feed my fur baby and not expect to be paid to do so. That is officially an informal support.

When I moved late last year, yes, still so much trauma around that. The moving day left me with all my tech, TV, AMP, CD carousel, drying racks, lamps, mirrors, candlesticks. So much I valued and needed to be moved and every day I was reaching out to busy people to see what they could help me with.

Now, I’ve got friends, I love and respect their time, I have later discussed my need at that time and that they were not friends I felt should need to help me for things like that.

You would be surprised when you really need help how few of the people you know are not free and I would not have expected people to drop anything to assist me, so I started asking carers who I had no funding to book them and bit by bit over the last week I had friends come from two hours away who helped when they had barely slept going through a shitty break up. Who came and helped for literally me buying them lunch. Fuel to get them through.

A carer who literally treats me like family assisted me with a few car trips and when I tried to sneak some cash into her hand, she vehemently told me that “Anybody that took money from me, shouldn’t!”

OK, fuck it. It’s now almost 1am, better go to bed.

My Egg Dealer

Published January 26, 2026 by helentastic67

My Egg Dealer

Some days life is full of surprises and the good kind which is rare. I think we can all agree. A few weeks ago, after deciding to make room in my fridge and my freezer it was necessary to go visit my Egg Dealer. I stash things in my freezer to build up a care package for George. When my Tetris skills are pushed beyond their limits an obviously to the market is critical. On this particular Friday, my carer and I headed in the direction of the space George inhibits. As I walked up to his counter a younger woman stood between us. As I walked up to her, she stated, “I love you!” Aw. So, I replied “I love you!” I mean, what else do you do? She repeated herself and I obliged. And she asked, “Can I give you a hug?” So, I gave her a hug. I later shared this scenario with my Sunday carer who looked at me quizzically, I stated, “intellectual disability?”

Back to my hugger, the hug came to a natural conclusion and like the character Alf from the self-titled TV show she ran off. She had left a shopping bag on the counter and I picked it up and offered it to the woman on my right. I confirmed she was with her. She informed me she was her carer, I pointed to my carer to indicted we understood.

So, George, what are you having for dinner tonight? He told me he was being taken out for dinner. It was his birthday on the Saturday. Such good timing, I told him he had eggplant parmigiana for his lunch the next day. I don’t normally deliver people savoury, but I told him I liked him to know I had range. He then gifted me my standard order of thirty eggs. He would not let me pay him, he said it was his good deed for the day.

My Thoughts

Published January 19, 2026 by helentastic67

My Thoughts

Despite the fifteen or so blog posts I’ve written in my Drafts folder in my email account mostly in some stages of just ideas I started with when I was too busy to sit & complete the train of thought, a few including up to 10 blog posts I wanted to finish the train of thought before edits completed by a carer and sending, so don’t be surprised when you can’t keep track of my thought process? Keep reading it will all make sense in the end.

2025 has been hectic and as it draws to a close, I’ll give you this.

Sometimes, the littlest, weird thing I may do the right person is curious enough to ask. And they are usually my carers who are here. I have a system of folding my tea towels in a particular way so the edges are all facing out, you can see the different colours and patterns of each and the edges are at the back of the pile, so the messy edges are hidden. I picked up this habit working in a homewares store back in my twenties. I bought a good selection back then and only about ten years ago started to restock after retiring those old tea towels. I would go into the city monthly about ten years ago to see my shrink and if I was early, I’d stop at a particular well-placed linen retailer on my way to the Royal Arcade and buy a few and eventually I had to stop. That is how you successfully build a collection.

Sometimes, the right carer goes to put the freshly washed and folded tea towels away and after noticing the pile is not to our standards, she will offer to take them out and neaten them. Stating, she now does hers the same way.

The Theft

Published November 24, 2025 by helentastic67

The Theft

Throughout the course of the week as I politely told friends about the theft of Hellonwheels, one friend I did not expect uttered the C-Bomb. You know the one, I’ll never utter the word in print even in this kind of context, but I will refer to it as rhymes with punt or UNT. When said friend uttered this word I cringed and shook my head. She asked if I was offended? I told her no but surprised she uttered the word out loud.

A gay male friend a little younger than me once said “It’s OK when you see your friend across the road and you yell out to them: Punt!” And all I could think was we have very different friends. I have a few friends who do use that word and I appreciate it in the context that it is used and allow it, but it’s not a word I use.

I did do a police report over the phone that day and eventually received an email stating I could do a Victims of Crime Application. Because I’ve all the time in the world for that. I have been advised I’m not likely to have it recovered.

So, by the end of the Tuesday I was a little calmer as I was consoling myself by suggesting there was a fuckwit out there walking around on two broken legs. They just didn’t know it yet.

I had at first wondered why someone would steal a mobility scooter. Getaway vehicle? Spare parts? Just what the actual fuck!

The problem if not obvious is the layers and complexity to solving this problem is so big. People would have no idea how hard it is.

I think there’s a whole bigger conversation about the word that rhymes with punt that is yet to happen. But I feel women should reclaim that word because it’s ours and we should reclaim it. If men think they can use that word because they came out of one. Yes, I’ve heard that line. No buddy! That’s not how that works.

Another carer and I were discussing while in her car one day that twenty years ago when I first moved to this area my voting enrolment district was called Batman. How cool is that? As well, in more recent years it was changed to Cooper. Boo! Because my carer stated bluntly, Batman was a punt. Which means he was a white early settler in this area who killed the original landowners in this area. So, punt indeed. Accurate.