Currently waiting for my new washing machine to arrive. But that’s cool, apparently we’re the next delivery and since they gave us a 3 hour window it’s been pretty easy for a Sunday morning.
Waiting for mum to get an aged care bed. Waiting for her to move to a different hospital to wait for that so she’s not in a depressing dungeon ward with old men dying across from her. The staff are lovely but she really needs to get out. She has a loaner wheelchair so we can take her into the fresh air each day for coffee and a break. Trying to not feel guilty for staying home today but also telling Dad to stay home and rest because he’s really not well and we’re now waiting for his Haematologist appointment on the 24th. His white blood cell count went up again since his last blood test. Mine are normal though. I did bloods last week and they’re all normal.
Waiting on Bruce’s colonoscopy. We’re been waiting 4 months, been told to expect 6. Waiting for mum’s wheelchair of her own. We were waiting for Dad to say okay to building a ramp to the house so mum can at least visit. But he’s said yes to that at least. Now to get him to okay us going to buy a wheelchair friendly mini van.
Ahh the Golden days of mummy blogging – or whatever it was us peripherical misfit non-mummy bloggers were doing at the times. Whatever it was it really was about the friends we made along the way, and one of them was Kim of Frog Ponds Rock, kinda a mummy figure to many of us, Mum to Veronica, and one of the first middle aged women I knew diagnosed with Autism (Think she was fifty at the time) with many more of the blogging crowd to follow. They’re in Tasmania, and I had the privilege to be picked up from the airport by Kim and visit her home and studio and visit Veronica at home – she was pregnant with her youngest who’s in highschool now. I was down for a speech pathology conference, it wasn’t a great time in my life but I remember those visits fondly. I was devastated when Veronica’s house burnt down, it was always a work in progress before that and I remember parts of it from my visit and ugh, why do bad things happen to good people? (Check your smoke alarms, it’s the reason the humans were able to get out at least).
This is an amazing tribute to Kim. I was sitting with my own mum who’s in the rehab hospital when I saw Veronica’s post that Kim had died that morning. Kim was 60. Mum’s 69 on Thursday and was in great health until the sudden brain bleed January 28, with another a few weeks later. She’s back in good health now, but is disabled by it, will probably have to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life, needs hoisting in and out of bed, is getting function back in her right hand – at least she’s left dominant right? But for someone who truly prefers to do things for herself it’s a huge adjustment, all the other stuff aside.
So mum and I were watching a gameshow, she was back in bed after a busy day at rehab – gym, arm exercises etc. I as scrolling my phone and the post seemed so sudden, because it was. Kim had been in hospital but was meant to be getting out that morning.
I know Veronica’s worries are now with her father – how will he cope with her suddenly gone, no matter how beautifully maddening Kim could be at times with her wonderful creativity and neurodivergence and just being a good soul. I worry the same for Dad. He’s been in crisis mode since the stroke, and hasn’t really come down from it. Still visiting every day. Still off work, but not ready to retire officially, even though age and his own health wise, let alone mum’s would make sense. He’s still overwhelmed about the prospect of renovating the house to get mum back but I think is more confronted by the idea of her going to a nursing home, either while that’s done or permanently. And I worry what would become of him then?
Mum keeps saying her first reaction to the rehab teach recommending aged care was that she’s not old. And she’s not. She’s also the healthy one, the one that looked after herself, did all the right things. And was there for everyone else. So being the one needing care is a big adjustment.
I still hope to get her home. But in the meantime, her wheelchair’s been approved (manual but she’s warming to the idea of getting the power adaptation) and we’ve been looking at vehicles to get her around in regardless of where she’s spending the night – the Voxy is one cool little option dad’s warming to with encouragement.
So, it’s all a big thing, but something I’m even more grateful for after Kim’s sudden passing. Grateful we’ve had the last four months no matter how hard they’ve been and that we’ll have whatever time is ahead. All mum can do is keep her blood pressure low (it was never high) and no take anything blood thinning to have to best chance of not having another bleed. But it may be sudden or, like I said to her, we might have another 20 years ahead of us and I want to get the house and equipment right if I’m going to be caring for her til I’m in MY sixties.
So, we take it as it comes. We enjoy the little things, eat the little cakes, look after our own health so we can all look after each other. Gp for my partner today, looking into some of his own health issues after years of ignoring them. I’ll see my own GP Friday for my scripts and will probably get the form for my annual bloodwork that hopefully still says that I many be fat but my numbers look good. Harassing my father to try to follow up things so he can care for mum – physio mostly since his own knees are not young and spritely any more, and trying to help my sister to where I can.
And of course Maxi. Maxi just has sensitive skin so it’s baths and creams and anti-allergy pills wrapped in cheese for him.
The change in seasons, times. Everything going on in the world, existential dread, needing to keep going with everything in the meantime, needing to keep daily habits.
Taking meds, making and eating meals. Looking out for others. Looking out for myself. Trying not to take on what’s not mine to stress about. At least not too much.
Hit a few walls lately. Trying to reset by going back to having meal kits delivered, by making sure my meds are sorted. Making sure I go to next week’s GP appointment for the next repeats.
Keeping on top of the car. Shuddering at petrol prices but keeping calm and carrying on. Being grateful for small wins, like when the carpark guy puts my parking through as free instead of $6.80, or when my favourite little treats are on special.
Sleeping. Taking the dog out. Those sorts of things.
One of the many emails I deleted this morning said there’s 100 day left in 2025. Unless the rapture’s tomorrow, but then I’ll still be here and you probably will be too, so we might as well plan as if there’s still 100 days to go.
I lost another month through other things, not sure if it’s worth even looking back at what I was hoping to achieve for September, we’re already in the downslide – I’ll be supervising HSC exams again this year, including some that will be on computers at the school. So I’m doing some of the training to make sure I’m across that. Which should be fine. But that will all come and go.
I’m making sure I get my meds and appointments all sorted. Making sure my dinners are ordered. I still haven’t gotten to the optometrist this year even though I first planned to in January. I’ll probably also come up on the public dental waitlist in December or Jan, hopefully they’ll agree to take the other wisdom tooth out and that will hopefully go more smoothly.
We got to sign on for another year at this house, so we’ve got a least til end of November 2026. Which means I can think about fun things like fairy lights for Xmas, and putting out my meerkats. We also replaces the corflute in the window with the air con with some wood so that should help with cooling efficiency this summer.
Like seriously, a few days after my birthday I broke a wisdom tooth. I only even had the bottom two, and broke the other one a month before that but since it didn’t give me any pain I wasn’t eligible to get into the public dentist earlier so was just leaving it since aside from being a tongue magnet since it felt different, it was fine. But then I broke the left one, and damn that one hurt. So I called up public dental and got an emergency voucher for a local private clinic for the next week.
Had a fun few days trying to balance pain relief, but then I got seen, and she recommended extraction and said she could do it right then. So I agreed and off we went.
Problem is, I’m apparently a bleeder. And she’d gotten partway through and the blood just started and wouldn’t stop. So she stitched me up with 1/4 of a tooth left there so she could focus on the bleeding :/ Said she nearly got the Ambulance. Yeah that wasn’t fun, nor was the two weeks after til it’d healed enough to go back in for the rest.
But it’s gone now. And I’m gonna hold off til I come up on the general public dental waitlist and then will probably get the other (also broken but not painful at this stage) tooth out. Yay.
I’d also got blood tests the week of my birthday one going on the Friday after failing on the Thursday. Going back with 2 litres of water in me after getting up for fasting tests. Just tried to get some blood out of me now to check out what might be behind the extra bleeding, but no dice – I’ll go through the week after drinking a tonne of water again. At least this doesn’t have to be fasting. I reckon maybe my veins fear I could bleed out so they wanna protect me.
Ugh.
Anyways. Raging against the NDIS changes, and all the news about mutual obligations/TCF illegality but now my tooth is settled I may have capacity to blog about them
Maybe.
In the meantime I’ve spent 77 hours in Hello Kitty Island adventure, mostly streamed if you wanna check it out!
