Catching Up

This is my current favourite photo of my grandson Ricky. I've been so busy lately I didn't get a chance to have a peek at the pictures my son uploaded to me on the 8th until today. Gee, bad Granny. I've put the best of the batch up on flickr if you'd like a look.

When you take a test over here, they phrase it as "I just sat my (insert test name here)". So, I sat my Learners. And passed the first time around with 100% correct. The kids in the class room clapped! It was so funny.

The girl I was taking the course with, Kirsty, the daughter of friends of ours, failed the first part of the test (8 give-way questions) and was devastated. You have to pass these 100% before you can go on the the 42 multiple choice questions. The test costs $25, and she didn't have enough to re-sit the test, so when I finished with mine, I went and found her and encouraged her to go try again, and loaned her the money to do it, telling her I believe in her. And I did, too. And she passed!! I'll tell you, I think it gave me a greater satisfaction that I helped her to try again and succeed than my own score. I guess it's just the Mom in me.

That was Wednesday morning, and taking the test required a whole lot of personal ID, and as you know I've been working on the USA disability forms which also required a heap of ID that had to have official copies made and so
I planned to turn in this paperwork on the same day. That way I only had to have this stuff out of the house for one day instead of two. So the rest of Wednesday was spent photocopying all of the USA forms I'd filled out (well over 50 pages worth) and waiting to see someone at the Australian equivalent of DSS (which we're so PC it's called Centrelink). I got in finally and it was nearly 5pm. The person said she wouldn't stamp my health documentation copies unless I had the originals which is no problem - except I didn't have the originals with me. So that didn't get finished but at least it was 'started'.

Thursday morning I completely forgot that my nurse was coming to change my dressing. I'm down to only 2 days a week now that she comes these days. Anyway, bummer... I had a LOT more exudate and the wound once again had a green discharge. The psuedomonas infection is back. I had just finished the antibiotics just 36hrs earlier too. So I had to ring the doctor up and explain this all to him. He gave me the last appointment of the day so he could give me another script. This is a controlled antibiotic so I had to have an office visit and he had to call in to get approval for it. So my appt
was for 7:10 in the evening. The worst bit was he complained I'd left it a bit late. It's not like I can see this wound, and when it's only dressed twice a week... oh, never mind. It was just annoying. And I can't blame him for being a little annoyed as well.

Thursday afternoon I had the original records and started my afternoon waiting again to see someone at Centrelink, but I used the waiting time to sort the papers so the originals and copies were right together. I had a different person this time and she was thrilled I was organised so much as to save her a lot of work. And she even gave the official stamp to stuff I took in that I couldn't provide originals for, such as all the case notes from the RDNS nurses who take care of my wound. (The originals belong not to me but to the RDNS). So 3 pounds of paperwork, forms, documentation, etc are now on their way through Inter-mail first to Hobart Tasmania and then will be sent on to the USA overseas disability SS office in Manila. It's done. Whether it's approved or not is out of my hands and not my worry. It's nice to be able to see my dining room table again. I'll tell you, I was so sick of those forms and their complete lack of sensible English. I was required by law to apply for this, but given a choice, I sure would have skipped it.

After that was sent off, I met Rod and we went over to the DMV where I got my photo taken for my new license. YAY! I will finally have some Australian photo ID besides my passport. We then went home for a couple of hours and then back out again for my appt with the GP. I now have a 1 month supply of Ciproxin. This infection better not develop a resistance to that, because after that, I think we'd be talking about IV antibiotics. We then went grocery shopping.

In Australia, EVERYTHING is closed for Good Friday. It's the only day of the year that even the pubs are closed. So even though all the grocery stores will be open on Saturday, it didn't matter, shopping for groceries was nuts with a zillion people all out doing the same thing. Rod then dropped me off at the shopping centre where the chemist (drug store) is
and went to buy KFC. We met up later and found a good parking spot at the same centre for fireworks. Our local shopping centre has had fireworks on Thursday before Easter for several years now (aside from last year when they cancelled 5 minutes into the show). We had a great spot this year and the show lasted about 10-15 minutes. The great thing about our parking spot was that we were able to literally drive straight home. We had parallel parked on the road, and as we live on the same street (several blocks away) we only had to get through one traffic light (which gave us a green light - so very rare) and a couple minutes later we were home unpacking our groceries and had our very late dinner. I racked up over 9,000 steps yesterday, and more than 10,000 on Wednesday.

Today is Good Friday and a holiday. I'm doing my best to not accomplish a thing today. Rod and I have this ying-yang thing. When one of us is being productive the other is spinning their wheels. Well, he has some major homework due on Tuesday so he's the one who needs to be productive. Me, I'm on holiday and have watched soaps, gone on my walk, and am farting around on the computer doing fun stuff that's not work. And that's what I plan to be doing all weekend too in between naps. :-)

Speaking of naps, I was just dozing off and I haven't even sent uploaded this yet!!!