Project Managing

Published December 7, 2025 by helentastic67

Project Managing

Lately, I’ve cut back on my appointments like physio, hence the lack of motivation or time to blog. I am not looking forward to the grumpy chastising from my acupuncturist who I should be seeing weekly as he is free. He is a GP and covered by Medicare so I really should be getting my ass there. And I think I haven’t been since April or earlier, but while I’ve been skipping my physio/neurophysiology and a few others, my pain increases as does the discomfort. It’s all been because they are using my funding to do report writing. Yes, you heard correctly. I’ve had to prioritise reports over pain management because I’m going to review again with the NDIA! Because I’m running out of funds.

I’m currently on my third Support Coordinator, who is like a case manager. Except, mine has run out of funds to do her job. I’ve been nudging with emails most of this year for her to get reports to people that are doing things for me anyway. So, I think every year I do more and more of that role. I’ve finally got a new Gun of an OT.

I’m hoping now, just celebrating the one-year anniversary of being in my forever home, that I can have a mobility scooter and somewhere safe and secure to keep it and charge it. And the NDIS funding in which to make that all happen and finally, not me to project manage all of that to make it happen. Even getting the Owner Corp and the board of residents, on board to allow these things to happen is a hair-pulling exercise as my existing shed is too tall and gets in the way of the sprinkler system.

I think the OC is largely against my installing a shed because it might set a precedent for others, also wanting to put up sheds. That whole “but she’s got a shed mentality…?”

In the last apartment complex the OC asked what I was storing in my shed. I didn’t immediately take their interest or concern seriously. I answered with my usual wit and humour “I’m not making Ice in there!” Breaking Bad made it seem like a good starting point to run successful manufacturing enterprise in a caravan in the desert. People these days make ice in rental properties which means they are no longer safe to live in. My real answer later was “My mobility scooter, gardening supplies and sometimes my excess tinned tomatoes and passata and panettone” I offered to use the light from my scooter to help better see what was really in my shed and I provided them with photos. It was exactly as my last statement and they dropped the issue.

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…

New Hellonwheels

Published September 1, 2025 by helentastic67

New Hellonwheels

Have I mentioned I’m getting a new Hellonwheels this year? I know I haven’t. I’ve been too busy sorting the permanent housing or garaging and powering location for it in a communal garage.

To be fair, I had asked my support coordinator before I moved back in November 2024 if she could help sort these things before I moved so I would not be without the use of my scooter. The best time of year to be out and about on my scooter is summer. I literally had to pester my support coordinator to assist me with this task. In the end she did neither of those things. Support or coordinate.

I received a text with a company name who helped with this issue and the comment that they were expensive. I have never been angrier. Or so I thought.

At my previous address and all previous addresses over the last 15 years, I had been storing my scooter in a shed that had been funded for me by my first OT and over time it was a method of great importance and security to maintaining some independence for allowing me to get to local appointments without the assistance of carers or doing some hunter/gathering solo, to get ahead of when I did have carers for limited times.

When I moved, I concentrated on the things inside my new home. I don’t know if you have ever moved one-handed, but I’m limited by weight and size. For something without ADHD when I move homes I find I am always moving around, moving things from one location to another until everything settles to where I can best store, access or use it one-handed. Somethings only I can put away as I need to be able to get it out again if nobody else is around. Somethings that worked in my previous home may not work here.

I lagged in storing my belongings in my storage cage because I had to wait for my handyman to bring bolt cutters. I wanted to have him cover the inside with black plastic. to keep prying eyes from my belongings, my gardening supplies and my boxes of bits. Don’t need to explain that I hope. I was not allowed to erect my shed in my car space because its height got in the way of the sprinkler system and storing my scooter there was redundant as there was no power supply I could access and all the other fucking things.

I had been so busy sorting inside my home, I had implemented the theory of Schrodingers Cat to the belongings in my car space.

My neighbour who has the car-space beside me informed me my belongings had been rummaged through. When I checked I found a transformer for my scooter had been stolen. What the actual F. Do I need to finish this sentence?

At least this meant I poked my handyman to sort out the things by stopping ‘Mr get these things away’ And then…

HellonWheels

Published May 21, 2018 by helentastic67

Hellonwheels

How she came to be? As you may already be aware Hellonwheels was a nickname a friend of my sisters gave me, way back when, even years before I got my license to drive and that wasn’t until my thirties.

Drivers licence

SHUDDUP. I will not take any criticism about how slow I was to learn to drive and get my license. I was a thing and then the other thing and then you will hear about getting it just in time later.

But, today I thought I’d give you the rules and regs of having a mobility scooter.

Rules for Mob Scooter

My process was when I was referred to the council, The City of Yarra a year or two after I developed my disability, it all started to happen.

I was referred to many people to act upon all the things I needed and wasn’t aware of. I thought I’d just start getting carers to help me dry and dress, make my bed and clean my home. An OT (Occupational Therapist) would come out to access how I manage, how I get around, transport etc and she had the brilliant idea to organise a mobility scooter.

Mobility Scooter

Some people just think you go to a shop and buy one and your good to go.

That’s not it at all…

The OT negotiated with my GP, had a copy of all my medical conditions etc. It was deemed I would be safe on a scooter and that the general public would also be safe on the streets and then the man with the van came out from Scooters’ Australia with three scooters.

Test Drive

The first one he told me all about it and I got on and they walked beside me as we did a block on the footpath, we went over some cobbled stones in the guttering, (difficulty rating: some) and along Hoddle Street past my favourite shop there. (It’s called Schotts) Past a laneway, which I did not stop for.

First test drive

Not stop for prompting him to tell me “I just got killed!” Prompting me to tell him cars never come out of there. My left foot drifts out of the footboard, all because of my Drop-foot and if I’m not putting weight on it, it just does what it likes. Back home, the man disappeared into the van and backed out on a second scooter, slightly bigger.

Second test

I got on that one and repeated the ride, being careful not to get myself killed in the same places I’d neglected my basic knowledge of road rules as the first time.

All went well, I can’t recall much about that scooter, it might have been too bouncy or rather big? Big can be a problem when it comes to storing a scooter.

But alas I almost forgot, the man disappeared into the van a third time and came out the biggest scooter. Good to have options and all but I confess I looked at the OT and told her ‘this one must be the big fat Elvis!’

Third test

I think I had a little ‘Go’ on the big fat Elvis, but didn’t bother going around the block like I did with the first one.

Now which to choose?

Choosing scooter

Choosing scooter 1 Choosing scooter 2

Let’s just tell you all the reasons why I chose the first one. It was the smallest, easier to store, the seat comes off, the front handle (part thing) folds down and the scooter (I’m told) fits into my car boot. Except and he rattled off several cars makes and models, so let’s just say most. Probably not a Porsche or Mini Minor or even…. I don’t know.

Mini Minor

My mum has a little Mazda and I don’t even know if it fits in her car boot as we’ve never tried. Point being, if you go to a shopping complex or a day away holiday, you can take Hellonwheels with you. The tyres are solid, so no worrying about flat tyres and I have a satchel on the back.

Mazda

My scooter was the cheapest at $4,000.00. Of which I obviously did not have and she was not at all fazed by this.

The OT got her letter writing hat on and started pounding the pavement to get me funding.

Now, you probably wonder where Hellonwheels lives? When I first got her, I lived in a single storey terrace house opposite Public Housing. I had a small backyard and no cover out the back. Again, no money, again more potential funding.

Shed for scooter

The gate at the front that gave us access was replaced and a power supply was required. The landlord also sorted the power supply in my backyard for the scooter.

Funding was sourced for a shed to go in my backyard. It ended up with the scooter and my gardening supplies. It took up half my backyard and because the clothes line was so loose it was able to stay up and I still had half to use for my washing.

Shed

The shed has been mine to keep, the next house I lived in, the scooter lived under a BBQ cover as there was not enough room for the shed to go up.

Hellonwheels now resides in my scooter shed under the building I moved to 6 months ago, with my gardening things. There is power to the scooter as it needs to be constantly on live power. Not a battery. Every outing on my scooter is a potential adventure. Also, a possibility of a way to engage the community in discussion about disability and hopefully not a chance to need to make a claim on my Insurance. I have up to $10,000 if I injure someone but I’m really not planning to need it. Fingers crossed.

Underground garage