Problem Solving

Published November 10, 2025 by helentastic67

Problem Solving

I’ve been trying to solve a problem in my new home since moving in last November. It’s such a mess.

There are so many moving parts and potential solutions but more people to ask permission from before implementing solutions to the problem. So, the work around feels like a real fuck around.

Sometimes, I wish a clairvoyant or divine entity would just point you in a direction and narrow the field for you.

Here’s a real estate example which has been the perfect example whenever I’ve been on the hunt for a new home. I gave this example to a friend earlier:

If you wanted to only live in Ivanhoe and you had a set budget, and you wanted a certain number of bedrooms, bathrooms, car spaces, etc, etc. And if you couldn’t budge on any of those parameters. Maybe money wasn’t a limiting factor and you absolutely had to live in Ivanhoe; you would spend what you needed to spend.

If budget was important you would start to compromise on different things depending on what you could live with. Maybe less bedrooms, or whatever, but eventually you didn’t even live in Ivanhoe.

Maybe a clairvoyant could point you in the right direction and suggest Ivanhoe. Yes! But start looking for something a little smaller, or …..xyz. Then you wouldn’t waste your time trying to find all these other solutions.

Just an FYI, I didn’t have Ivanhoe money so I’m just giving that as an example. People that live in Ivanhoe have Ivanhoe money. You can’t hate them. You just appreciate them.

This is one of the major things on my list I’ve been chipping away at and made all the worse by a “friend?” suggesting I needed to get on my issues, like I was being lazy? Who needs enemies when you have friends like this?

So, the problem? I feel a part two coming on

I’ve had my mobility scooter AKA Hellonwheels for the last 15+ years and every time I’ve moved, I’ve had varying degrees of storage and weather proofing, security, etc in storing my Hellonwheels.

Some places I’ve lived at were easier than others for scooter storage alone. One house I rented didn’t have room to put my shed up for the scooter, so I ended up putting a BBQ cover over the scooter in the backyard close to a power supply and using locker straps around the cover to secure the cover and waterproof my scooter. It was a fuck around solution.

At my last rented home, an apartment, my car space didn’t have power so I was able to swap with a neighbour so I could erect my shed, park my scooter inside and charge it. I also stored my gardening supplies, and at one point my oversupply of pasta and tinned tomatoes, and my panettone.

I am such a Nonna!

My landlord queried what I was storing in my shed and I suggest Owner Corp and landlords do not have a sense of humour. Don’t say what I did? I responded to their original query that I wasn’t cooking meth or anything. My shed wasn’t big enough for that and I ended up using the lights on the front of my scooter to illuminate the inside of the shed to show them the contents. Seriously!

And while I was living there, I could go in and out of the only entrance to the garage on my scooter, I could go straight into my shed or go up on my scooter in the lift without causing damage. Parking near my apartment door and transferring items gathered into my apartment one item at a time before returning my scooter down to the shed to store and recharge. When I had more to take up and less time, I’d unpack items into a market trolley I stored in my shed and take that up.

Every pedestrian entrance to that complex had zero access for a scooter, and therefore no access for a wheelchair, except the B1 level or the carpark, just to give you a bigger picture.

Good thing I only have used my scooter for solo shopping missions locally as well as prompt local appointments where I get to maintain a level of independence.

So, when I moved to my forever home, the real estate agent showed me the apartment. My car space, the lift, the direction of the closest power supply to my car space and basically gave advice on both my disability and access to things he had no working knowledge on and directed everything to be sorted by the owner Corp when the time came.

I don’t know if anyone else has had to deal with an owner Corp, or had to solve problems of access for someone with a disability? And under the NDIS I have people for that right?

I prompted my support co-ordinator if she could get on that and sort things so when I moved, I wouldn’t lose my independence around needing my mobility scooter. After multiple prompts I was provided with a company name and the comment that they were expensive.

You might imagine the title of that person, being a Support Co-ordinator would mean they um, Support and Coordinate?

But it often means THEY DO NEITHER OF THOSE TWO THINGS!

So…

Problem Solving

Published August 19, 2024 by helentastic67

Problem Solving

Sometimes, family that don’t spend time together, having to work on a problem together helps form bonds.

Once upon a time, the first time I moved house after my disability and after my removalist cancelled five hours after he was to have started the job, by which time when he rang me to tell me he’d had to go to hospital and I would have preferred to have heard from his next of kin to tell me he had DIED.

My Mum, then early sixties and me one-handed, arrived at my new home to find my bed had not been put together by my removalists. To their credit, it wasn’t actually their job to put things together and I had been warned because when I was contacted for payment, they told me they had eventually given up and left because they didn’t want to waste my money. In both of our defence mum and I were both exhausted. Mum with upper back problems, me with recent lower back disc bulge surgery, we walked in the door and mum had already decided I would sleep on my mattress on the floor.

Not far from the front door I went to my bedroom door, took about two seconds to assess and problem solve what the men had not managed to work out. “The base is the wrong way around!” Mum literally dismissed this and told me I could sleep on the floor. I, however, was not going to make this bed twice, nor make her. I should probably mention, my bed was made by my dad, a builder, or a carpenter (a Chippy!) back when I was twenty-four-ish. It’s a timber Sleigh Bed. Although wisely at the time he convinced me to not shave the foot of the bed as tall as the bed head. Half the bedrooms that bed has been in, I’ve not been able to move around even three sides of the bed. Even the bedroom I have now, getting down the end of the bed to my ensuite, I hover to go sideways and my bedroom door does NOT close. So, the base of my bed is a slat base, I’ve recently described it as glued and screwed and built into a sturdy box, so it doesn’t move. Even twenty-five plus years later.

I encouraged mum to push boxes with heavy art books in them across the floor to put under the timber mattress. I helped and using only four or five, it took the weight of the base. I wriggled the foot of the bed and leaned it against the wall. We both pulled just a fraction on the base to detach it from the bed head, leaning that also against the other wall. We then carefully replaced the base, reattached the bed head then perfectly slotting the foot back onto the base. All the bolt holes matched. I recall we were both spent but I was determined. I think mum left me to sort the bolts. Fair, wriggling on the carpet to each corner then two bolts into the middle of the centre of the base into the bed head. With the shifter to tighten and it was done.

Handwriting

Published April 4, 2022 by helentastic67

Handwriting

Handwriting can tell so much about someone, doctors writing is said to be hard to read. I’ve found often illegible, because apparently, it’s because there don’t want to tell you everything. But alas, my handwriting in recent years has proven to be absolutely diabolical.

I write very small and often times my carer pulls out the shopping list in the supermarket and states “Okay, I’m good except this one?” She points out what she can’t understand. Often, I look and can’t either. “I’ll give you that one!”

Another customer might be close by and she will not realise it’s my handwriting. I think others assume we are shopping together for someone else.

Today, my carer held the list and she said “Blinky Bill?” It was a kid’s ice cream back in the day (80’s) It was about 3 ‘B’ words and I problem solve like this. Let’s just keep shopping, I’ll see it and remember I need it. We were in the dairy aisle, I called out, “Baby bocconcini balls!”

Luckily, we had already purchased them close to home. I guess I would put it down to my carpal tunnel and the sometimes RSI injury.

Osteo student and one of my Japanese carers who does a tape version of acupuncture, manage both of these issues for me but, it’s lockdown in Victoria during Covid 19. I’m lucky to have kept all my carers but, my osteo students who must cut their teeth with free clinic hours before they graduate. (They need to practice and cut their teeth in order to graduate.)

Expectations

Published November 8, 2019 by helentastic67

Expectations

It’s really easy when you have an emotional detachment from issues that you can problem solve or find a solution to things when they are not your problems. You can assess the pros & cons and have a realistic expectation.

It’s easy to notice when people change and ??? when things in their live don’t go the way they would prefer.

I have found my circle of friends thin out over recent years, since my diagnosis and disability. Let me give you an example:

Once upon a time, well in last three jobs I worked in, office roles. Doing admin TPO Training Placement Officer) etc. The first job I ended up working up to having admin under my position and I was training them.

One woman, let’s call her ‘Sticks’ (she was tall and slim- don’t real any more it’s it) ‘Sticks’ and I worked there together and the next two places together. I saw her every day or had a conversation on the weekends of some sort.

She and I came from completely different walks of life. She still lived at home, still shared a room with her sister, yet managed to have sex. SEX! Every day with her boyfriend.

To be fair, her version of sex wasn’t mine, however that part is. When we no longer had that common thread, she got a different job (where she imagined she would have more time) and she would see me more.

Spoiler Alert: this did not happen.

For a little while after my treatment and before my hair had grown back and I’d started to see the ‘fall-out’ from my treatment, I’d go do lunch with ‘Sticks’ at the workplace I used to work at. I’d see the people I used to work with also. There was that sense of community I’d been part of, but no longer subscribed to. So for a little while the contact continued. I’d crank her (when you call someone and head up just as they got to the phone – which was something fun I used to do to her in the office, as I’d see her standing not far from her desk across the partitions in the office, so I could tell just how long to ring her and the conversations I’d have over the phone when she was forced to talk in code to have people around her not know what she was talking about or who) and on a rare occasion she’d call me at midnight. Yes, I know, midnight, wait

Because we were both awake and she wanted to pick my brain about getting or qualified for a mortgage. Wait! I know, I asked myself that question already. What do I know about getting a mortgage? Do I have one? No! I do not. But I would have a credit rating.

I’ve been a renter for so long, to sit down and work out how much rent I’ve spent, not on a mortgage and I’ve had household accounts with my name on them and while I’ve not recently owned a car or ever had a car worth much. (I had a poor art student car in the form of a Chrysler Galliant from the mid ‘90’s, but did I mention it was a mid 70’s model?) and I have had a Visa for some time.

So, the moral of the story is the less in common you have with your old friends, the less likely you will maintain that friendship.

And it is no-one’s fault, it just is what it is.

Family – Part 3

Published March 1, 2019 by helentastic67

Family Part 3

Now, it’s a week later since I wrote the previous post, so having lost my train of thought, forgive me if this post seems disjointed. It seems that many people would claim their family is fucked. (had to be said) However, brain injury and disability brings out the worst in families.

Family and brain injury

You like to imagine, families can put aside their own issues to rally around the person with the shittier situation.

But, No! I have family members that don’t understand my brain injury, don’t want to, or just figure they will get on board ‘Team Helen’ when the only team player (my mum) on Team Helen is no longer here.

Not team Helen

My mum is almost seventy now, I love her so and I don’t think it’s fair my much younger sister be expected to take over one day.

My father, who I also love and respect because he’s my father. I only see once or twice a year because I make the effort when in the part of countryside near where he lives. I can never stay over at his house where he has plenty of room, because I’m not having my father help me after my shower. Seems a fair compromise.

Shower

If my father has been to Melbourne in the last fifteen years, it doesn’t occur to him to visit and I’m the only daughter of three that has regular contact with him.

I think my family are all in their own world and my mum is the only my family member to spend any significant time with me, to solve problems, do forms or paperwork and now she is older and because her memory has been affected by a rather lengthy medical procedure, if she starts something with me, but takes it home to complete it. It’s not getting done.

Problem solved

She will have every reason under the sun for why I can live with a half-baked solution even if it’s me being $30 short on my income for a debt I rightly don’t have, and she is happy to keep calling every 3 months when the government agency must be contacted to have them not take any more of this from me, but this is how it is. It’s easy for family to ignore what I need because they don’t need those things. They will offer solutions that don’t consider the big picture.

Family

I’m the only person who lives where I live full time and sees the situation in its whole. All the fall out if something is overlooked and the changes to my environment that may impact my health and home. (Referring to build up of moisture in my home from wet laundry or even just if I buy the wrong kind of clothes dryer that leaves more humidity and moisture into my environment) And just how exhausting it is every single night in the colder months to re-hang my washing inside on other racks so they can continue to air-dry inside.

Air Drying

Winter is approaching and it’s looking to be my second winter here without a clothes dryer still having not recovered from buying my front-loader washer a year ago outright.

Not recovered

Now, I’m sure this subject is far from covered, but I’m sure to circle back at another time.

Procastination

Published December 31, 2018 by helentastic67

Procrastination

People have a habit of problem solving my issues by trying to talk me out of needing the very thing I know I need. Anything to get out of having to help me do the actual thing.

Problem solving

We’ve all worked with those people who if they just did their damn job.

Do your job

Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year… May 2019 be all you can dream of…

Busy Brain

Published March 3, 2017 by helentastic67

busy-brain-1

Busy Brain

It’s not something I’ve been officially diagnosed with and I’m sure other Mental Health related conditions might experience these symptoms, but in my case my mind is always (for want of a better word) “ON”.

Planning, problem solving, writing, scheduling, busy, busy, busy! Bills to pay, rent due, incoming, outgoing. People I want to see, people I have to see, brain training, appointments that keep me mobile. And I’m very lucky I can do all these things, hear me?

BECAUSE THEY KEEP ME INDEPENDENT!

independent-living

But at the end of the day, I sit on the couch, amongst my ‘In Tray’ and I attempt to catch up on my admin.

Attending to the mail, scheduling when bills are due, when they need to be paid, brain training (OK-pirating) and brain training (word finders, puzzles, list making) and often it’s around 9 pm, I have dinner.

busy-brain-3

And then I settle into email-mode! I know, ridiculous. And then I have to start trying to turn off the busy brain! And that’s why I like to finish the night with a TV show where I don’t touch a remote or my iPad or my phone or anything.

I call it ‘Single-Tasking’.

Impossible being One-Handed…

one-handed

Week So Far!

Published October 21, 2016 by helentastic67

Week so far

Week So Far!

Monday went to a DDAC (Darebin Disability Advisory Committee) meeting as a BIM member (sorry Brain Injury Matters) and a local resident. As have recently participated in some training (VATT) Voice at the Table Training so I can attend meetings and have my opinion be heard and valued. Rather than just being a token member with a disability.

I’d be happy to go to a meeting and not feel inclined to go to a meeting and find myself facilitating. Impossible!

They asked me to be a member of the DDAC! There were some ‘Service Providers’ at the meeting who are obviously concerned they won’t have a job when the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme in case you missed it), gets rolled out across the North/East of Melbourne.

They like to ‘bang on’ about being there for their clients who have little independent living skills or might be intellectually handicapped, but it take me to tell that person she needs to change ‘hats’ when she’s at those meetings. She needs to put on her ‘Advocacy-Hat!’ and not be wearing her ‘Self Advocacy hat!’

advocacy-hat

People seem to go to those meetings with their ‘problems’ and there never seems to be a sharing of how to ‘problem solve’ these issues.

People don’t know how to solve them or who to go to, to fix said problems.

Anyway, left DDAC and went to have 2^nd x-ray to find out what’s causing pins and needles in my right hand.

FYI That’s my good hand!

hand-x-ray

X-ray of the day was of my ‘upper back/spine/right shoulder’ (Note: despite having to go up a flight of stairs they couldn’t do the lower back x-ray at the same time. Had to book to go back Tuesday.

Had planned to ‘smash out’ the last Episode of Walking/talking Dead before Chiropractors.

Rang Darebin HACC (Home and Community Care) to arrange a Carer so I could get to 3^rd x-ray and spent the next hour being bullied because people can’t read the DAMN FILE!!!

Got a migraine and was in bed by 11.30pm. When I’m in bed that early for the night, you need to consider ‘Will Helen Wake Up Dead??’

So it’s now Wednesday afternoon and I’m still feeling seedy from the migraine.

Super week so far!!!