Category: Diary

Seems I may have got a little ahead of myself yesterday. I just logged in to check the status of my back up glasses and it seems that, unlike Rae’s, mine are coming all the way from the States. Carlstadt, NJ, USA to be precise. The helpful database at i-parcel tells me they are ‘in transit to country of destination’ and should be here on March 2nd. So that’s down to two deliveries this week with a little luck.

The good thing is that if someone was to ask me where I got my new glasses from I can say ‘New Jersey’.

Big week for deliveries this week.

First off I’m waiting on a new pair of glasses. I’m for all intents and purposes blind without my glasses, I have a focal point of about 5cm in front of my nose so I’ve been tempting fate for far too long by only having one set when I am so dependent on them. Rae had great success with Clearly Contacts recently so I’ve ordered myself a back up pair. I’m a bit restricted in the frames I can get given the thickness of my lenses but they should look cool.

Second is a coffee machine, which I wish I hadn’t bought. My old machine gave up the ghost recently – it floods the bench whenever you use it. I found a great deal on Ebay for a replacement and feeling good that all of our major bills had been paid I thought ‘why not?’. Foolish, foolish me.

Over the weekend my phone, my lovely lovely phone, began to play up. It would restart itself instead of turning off, it would not respond to touch, it became almost impossible to turn on, it crashed for an hour when I tried to start Navigator and this afternoon it began to ring but the screen stayed blank. There was no way I could answer the call and now it won’t turn on again. The phone is crucial for my business, it’s the one number everyone has to call me on so I can’t be without one. I also use it a lot for email, calendar and notes for the business too so it’s not something I can be without for too long. I’ve ordered a replacement today which should be here in a few days and while I haven’t spent a fortune I wish I had the coffee machine money to put towards it. Sigh.

Hopefully by the end of the week I will have forgotten the expense and will be enjoying my new toys. Until then I reserve the right to mope about the money flowing out the door while I wait for the delivery vans to arrive.

Due to popular demand (hi Helly) here’s a look at what Rae has done to our room. I can’t find a ‘before’ pic but it was a lot less red and a lot more beige.  New curtains, new lamps and couple of pillows have made it look like a completely new room. It’s all very rich and luxuriant and now feels like a proper grown up bedroom, well done hon.

I remember reading years ago, even before having children, that kids do better at school if they see their parents are actively interested in the school and their schooling. This must have really stuck with me and it’s the reason today that the young ones and I went to the school early for Bert’s class assembly.

It was held in his room, sorry, ‘learning space’. A few parents were there and we watched the kids report on what they’d done during the week, some awards were given out and happy birthday sung for those with a birthday this week. It was fun to watch, especially as Henry couldn’t get far enough away from a little girl who took a shine to him, and the half hour or so went very quickly.

On the way home I asked Bert, as I always do, what the best part of the day was. “Assembly.” I was bit surprised as he wasn’t involved in any way so I asked him why. “Because you came dad.”

Now that’s how you end a week.

My first copy of The Guardian Weekly arrived in the mail today. One subscription down, one to go. It’s still in its wrapper and will be my reward tomorrow if I get all my work done.

We don’t really ‘do’ Valentines Day. A card, a kiss, a coffee is about it. Tonight though we were lucky and Zita gave us the night off.

It was wonderful, a picture perfect summers evening. We went off to Williamstown, had fish and chips at Nelson Place, went for a stroll in to Williamstown and then back for an ice-cream. You couldn’t ask for a better night, or a better valentine.

Waiting, waiting, waiting…

We went to Shepp for a little holiday just after Christmas and while we were there we went shopping. Rae disappeared so I checked out the magazine display and ended up buying one. No, not a PC magazine, or a men’s health type one or one with scantily clad ladies. No, I bought a copy of National Geographic, and what’s more I read it cover to cover.The thing is I enjoyed it so much I decided to take up their special offer of $40 for a 12 month subscription. How old am I?

Then last week I was perusing OzBargain when I saw The Guardian Weekly had an amazing offer – $20 for a year’s subscription – so I took one out on the spot.

Now I’m waiting, waiting, waiting patiently for both of them to appear in my letter box. Both should expire at the same time so I’m going to have to keep an eye out for offers later in the year, I trust one of you will remind me.

My lovely wife celebrated a birthday yesterday, one that ended in a zero so we had a party here at home for her. It taught us two things.

One. We are incredibly lucky to have the friends and family that we do.

Two. We can control the weather. Seriously, if you want rain just ask us to organise a bbq for a largish group of people and we can offer a money back guarantee that, at least for Derrimut, you will get water falling from the skies the night before and day of the bbq.

Thanks again to everyone for making it a wonderful day. It’s not often you get to see Jimi Hendrix chatting to Janis Joplin, or Band Aid Freddy fighting Wembley Concert Freddy for a crown. Lots of good memories to take with us.

 

I’m just back from attending The Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular with Daniel Bowen and his boys. It lived up to its name, the event was truly spectacular. The music was amazing and the guest appearances by Matt Smith (via video) and Cybermen, Sularians, Judoon, vampires, Ood and The Silence (in the metal/flesh/slimy scales) kept everyone entertained. The composer, Murray Gold was there too and would have to have been thrilled with the reception for his music.  Funniest part was when there was a technical hiccup that delayed one piece from starting. Suddenly, and completely unprompted, dozens of sonic screwdrivers were being waved in the air by audience members, buzzing away to try and help. It was wonderful to see and got a round of applause.

What truly amazed me though were the fans. Growing up Doctor Who was such a cult show I could never have dreamed of being in the same room with ten, let alone 1500 other Who fans. They ranged from a baby to seniors. There were bow ties aplenty, great home made outfits and a few spot on Tennant’s wandering around. I couldn’t help but smile at the thought that my show is now so popular.

The second most popular sequence, after Matt Smith’s video, would have been a montage of all of the regenerations starting with William Hartnell. Using the purely unscientific method of me listening to the applause and shrieks David Tennant is the most popular doctor, Matt Smith a very close second. My poor Peter Davison trailed a long way behind. SIgh. I do wonder how many of the young fans wondered who on earth Paul McGann was when he popped up.

One fan stood out for me though, he was wearing a Sylvester McCoy t-shirt. He must have been hanging on to that baby for over 20 years just waiting for the day. To you sir, I tip my fez.

I had a little adventure a little over a week ago, one I wouldn’t recommend.

It began on Sunday morning when I woke up with a seized back, I could barely walk. Of course I let Rae know about it as we ate breakfast and she just rolled her eyes listening to me whinge again. That pain went away as I read the paper and all was good. For a few minutes. Suddenly I was whacked between the shoulder blades, up my neck and across my chest with the most horrific pain. I couldn’t move without the pain getting worse and lying down or leaning on my side made the pain even more intense.

Being the bloke I am I ignored it. Do not do this if you’re playing along at home.

For the next few hours I tried to stay still and complained to Rae that I wasn’t feeling well. I couldn’t lie down so I thought I’d eventually try and ignore the iron bar being pressed across my chest and do some work. This didn’t distract me so three or so hours after the pain began I thought I’d call Nurse On Call and they’d tell me not to worry, it will go away.

Three minutes in to the call Dianne said “Mr Malloy. Based on what you have told me I am now calling you an ambulance. If we are disconnected do not call us back. Call 000 straight away.”. Oh, that wasn’t what I was expecting. I went out to tell Rae that an ambulance was coming and she looked a little confused. It ends up I hadn’t told her my back had got better and she thought I’d just been complaining about a dodgy back all morning. The fact I thought I was having a heart attack came as a bit of a shock to her.

It took six minutes for the MICA guys to arrive. Six very long minutes. It was only now I began to feel worried. Rae locked up and we were ready when they arrived. As soon as the ambulance guy saw me he said “Wow, look at that.”. Apparently I had a vein fairly bulging out of my neck. They did a couple of quick checks and decided that even though I probably wasn’t having a heart attack they would treat it as such. In went the cannula, popped some pills under my tongue and wired me up to an ecg. They were amazing in how the went about their work, so calm and professional.

Before long I was in the back of the ambulance and off we went to Western Health. Along the way I had so many different drugs to treat the pain and blood pressure I lost count, but nothing could get my pressure under 202/120 (or it may have been 140, I was a bit distracted). They wheeled me in to Emergency and it was there I stayed for 19 very long hours on an emergency trolley. I was well looked after, that wasn’t an issue, but 19 hours on a trolley is a very long time. I was still having chest pain and nothing they tried could get my pressure down to what they wanted.

After a while I realised i was probably going to be okay, they thought it may have been pericarditis, and I decided I’d give an old mate a call. Prakash was a cardiologist I worked with at Cabrini and I knew he’d have a chat to me once I was out. I had a chest x-ray before too long, even though I could barely stand up, and then back to the ED

That first night was shocking, barely any sleep at all as some very troubled souls made their way through the ward. At one stage I heard a nurse finally break and say “Look, you’re out of your head on ice. Shut up, we’re trying to help you.” Another guy kicked his table over, screaming at the nurses that no one was helping him and at 3.00am a patient’s phone went off so she had a yelling conversation for half an hour. It was not a good night.

The next morning I was still on the emergency trolley, still wearing the clothes I’d put on 24 hours before, when rounds started. The curtain pulled back and there was Prakash. Apparently he works at Western Health now and he was in charge! He tried to get me in to a private hospital but we’d stuffed up our policy about six months before so I stayed at Western Health. It was great to see a friendly face, and one obviously well respected by his students.

An hour later someone appeared at the end of my trolley. “You’re off to cardiac.” and off I went. As I was going to the cardiac ward I had to have someone come along with a crash cart, which was a bit alarming because at this stage I still had the pain across my chest and back. Once in the ward I had the luxury of a room to myself for a few hours. I saw sunlight for the first time in 19 hours, but the best part was being allowed to have a shower. You can feel pretty funky after a day and a half in the same clothes. I was then whisked away for an ecg

Before long I was sent off to a four bed ward to spend my first night. I was so tired I managed to sleep through the snoring of my neighbours, although being woken for bloods at some ungodly hour didn’t help. The second day I had a heart ultrasound to see what was going on. The answer was nothing. My heart was a robust picture of health but as the pain was still there and moving in to my jaw Prakash decided they needed to see what was going on with my arteries.

I had to wait until the next day to get my cardiac ct scan, and it took a couple of goes thanks to problems with getting needles to stay in my veins but when it was done it showed everything was clear. This was day three and the pain had finally subsided so with a prescription for four new drugs to try and keep my blood pressure lower than it had been I was sent home.

So, what happened? No one is sure. My blood pressure seems remarkably resistant to being lowered by any means and every scan or test I had came back clear. They started with cardiac issues, went to pericarditis then back to cardiac but couldn’t find the root cause of the pain. I have no doubt Prakash will send me off for further tests to try and figure out what’s happening and to stop it from happening again. The medication is having some effect, my blood pressure is lower now (although still not low enough)

The worse part for me was the stress I put Rae under. The poor thing, I never want to do that to her again. Plus she had to take time off work and run around for me. She’s an amazing woman and a wonderful wife. The whole experience would have been a lot worse without her love and support.

I also want to say thank you to friends and family for visits, messages and helping Rae out. It’s times like this great friends come to the fore, thank you.

What about the hospital? Once out of emergency I couldn’t fault the care from the dedicated nurses and staff. 19 hours is way too long to spend on an emergency trolley though. We’ve fixed up our insurance so hopefully we have more options should we have to find a hospital again. I would have gone insane without access to the world via my phone. Email, Facebook and Twitter are wonderful ways to take your mind off immediate problems and a lot cheaper way of passing the time than squinting at a tiny television that costs you $10 a day to view. I know I’m a telly snob but paying that much for a little 4:3 unit that doesn’t have all the channels…grrrrr.

Special mention must be made of the food. At least I think it was food, it was delivered at meal times so it must have been. Meal time is one of the few breaks in the boredom of staying in hospital and should be something to be looked forward to, not to be afraid of. To put it bluntly the food was absolutely terrible. Shocking. Bad beyond description. I worked in Food Service at a hospital 20+ years ago and we would have been sacked on the spot if we had tried to serve up that slop. I know public hospitals have to work to a tight budget but if you’re serving beans then don’t boil until they are a dull grey lump of slime. Try and make meat look like and taste like the meat you claim it to be. It must be terrible to be working in that kitchen if you care about your job. No one in charge could possibly care about what patients are getting. As Kim said, food is meant to nourish you, especially when you are ill. There was no nourishment to be had in what I was served and if it wasn’t for food brought in by Rae I would have been pretty poorly off.

I have an appointment with my cardiologist in a couple of weeks, no doubt the adventure will continue. Until then I’m being sensible, doing as I’m told and hoping it never happens again (while jumping at any slight twinge).