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You know, SO much has happened to me in the last 6 months, and today I realised that I have truly grown up and moved on from pettier things of the past due to these ‘serious’ incidents.
Like, this morning I visited the Doc for a follow-up, and he decided I should have a blood test just to check my Vitamin D levels. Just in case. It didn’t cost me anything extra funnily enough. But he said it was just a precaution. Cuz if my Vitamin D levels were low he’d then wanna do a bone density test. I informed him that with all my exercise and healthy eating habits of the past, I was sure my bones were fine. He seemed to think they’d be fine, too, but at the same time I do appreciate his conservatism compared to the loser at the ER when I first went in nearly 3 months ago after hurting my back. Anyway, enough about Dr Trevor Feirnbough (or whatever his name is – I have it saved somewhere so I can complain about him to the hospital).
Back to the main point. The blood test. See, I’ve had blood tests in the past. Quite a few. I HATE THEM. I am bloody scared of needles and I hate seeing my own blood in the syringe, and oozing out of the hole in my skin. Funnily enough, I’m fine whenever I have my period and I can watch disgusting, gory movies without batting an eyelid. Anyway.
Once, when I was 18 or 19, I had to have blood taken because I had a fever and the doctor at the ER (in KL) suspected it could be dengue (it wasn’t). Anyways, that time, he couldn’t get the vein in the pit of my elbow so he had to take blood from the veins in the back of my hand. OH GOD DAMN I hated that! The best part is, it was late at night, the doctor looked sleepy, and when he was sucking the blood out of my vein with the needle, he actually stopped, went “Oh, took too much” and proceeded to INJECT SOME OF MY BLOOD BACK INTO MY VEINS. WTF?? Needless to say, on top of feeling sickly from the fever, I also felt nauseous and nearly blacked out from that experience. EWW.
I have had blood tests for student visas, when Ryan and I were applying for the defacto spouse visa thingy, and once more I can’t really remember what for. I was sick and my mum had taken me to the hospital, is all I can remember. Anyways, every time I had blood samples taken (and luckily, the rest of the time the doctor(s) could find the damn vein and just take blood from my arm rather than my hand), I have felt faint, nauseous, and just… generally had a really grim experience with it. Once, I was so nervous about having my blood taken the doctor had me lie down and look away and he gently told me what he was doing – but he was kinda lying, because I could feel the needle pricking my arm and the blood being sucked out, but what he was narrating was like “Ok, not yet, just getting the needle ready…” and when he was done he was like “All done! see, that was fast!” Basically he treated me like a retarded little kid (which I was acting like anyway so… yeah).
Another time, at Tung Shin hospital in KL (ancient, possibly haunted but clean and also professional), I had to take the blood sample up to the lab myself! I was feeling pretty okay about the blood test at first, but when I had to look at and hold the damn vial with my dark blood swirling around inside it, I felt sick and vomit-y. The stars were twinkling at the edges of my vision. I could feel the blackness zooming in. But I fought it as best I could (i must’ve looked like a freak stumbling around looking slightly confused and disoriented while I waited for my vision to adjust and get back to normal).
But this morning, although I anticipated the worst and warned the nurse just how scared I was of blood tests… during and afterwards, even when I saw the three vials she’d filled with my blood… I didn’t feel anything. All I could think of was, so it’s a little blood, so what?? Big deal! What is some blood compared to the rest of the shit I’ve been through, and am going through?
Nothing like perspective to make an irrational fear just that… irrational.
Still… I’d prefer it if blood tests were my biggest fear right now instead of the possibility of winding up a cripple.
I was reading an article about a lady who broke her back and went on to run races and win..
(article located here)
it was inspiring but.. at the same time… sigh. she hurt herself when she was 20 and only started competing and running when she was 25. So… do I have to wait 5 years before I can run again??
Yeah. I’m still in a funk about my back.
le sigh.
Yesterday evening I was on my way to have my car serviced when, ironically, it died. LOL.
Elsa had been following me in her car so she could give me a lift home, when my car just sputtered and died. I had to park/coast and stop in front of someone’s house, which, luckily, looked like no one was home.
So it’s like 345pm, and it seems my car’s outta engine oil. Elsa volunteers to go get some from a petrol station while I wait by my car. She comes back 20 mins later (because she went to three diff stations to look for the specific engine oil, LOL) and we top it up. It still doesn’t start. I call RAC. Within 15 mins the mechanic comes and takes a look and tells me the timing belt’s gone. RIGHT. And I need to have my car towed to the RAC workshop in Myaree (a stone’s throw from where my car died).
By the time the RAC mechanic’s organised the tow truck and shit, it’s 445pm. Elsa starts work at 6. We wait until about 520pm, and finally I tell her to just go to work, cuz I’m feeling really bad about it as it is, and I wait for the truck in my car.
I am waiting in a dead car that’s parked kinda awkwardly by the side of a pretty busy street in Booragoon, with traffic whizzing by, and I feel sooo…over it. I need to talk to someone. I call my sister. We talk for a while, me sitting in the car, when the people who live where my car’s decided to conk out return.
Two girls climb out of the car and one walks over to me. I tell my sister to hold on and I roll down the window.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah, my car died and I’m just waiting for the tow truck to come.”
“Oh no! Here, let me help you push it.”
The girl helps me push my car so it’s parked in a more strategic spot.
I thank her profusely.
“Do you want to come inside for a coffee or something?”
She invited me, a total stranger in a dodgy old car, in for a coffee. I told my sister I’d call her back and accepted the invitation gratefully.
She and the other girl are so nice and friendly to me and when I come in I meet their other housemate, who’s watching Entourage on TV.
The girls offer me coffee again and I decline and just have a glass of water. I get to talking to them, turns out one girl, Freya (the one who came up to me and helped push my car) is from New Zealand and the other two (Yam, the other girl and Nim, the guy) are from Israel. They are just so nice and friendly to me, I can’t believe it. It is nearly 630 at this point and the damn tow truck still isn’t anywhere to be seen.
Freya has a 21st birthday party to go to and gets ready, while I chat with Yam in the kitchen as she’s washing up the dishes and cleaning up. It’s just so nice to meet people who are friendly to you when they really need not be. They could have just left me out there, right? LOL. But they didn’t.
Soon after Freya leaves, Yam tells me she’s going to shower because she feels a little under the weather and wants to rest, but tells me to make myself at home. Bloody tow truck, come already! I’m thinking. I hate to hang around and overstay any kind of welcome extended to me but I can’t help that the stupid truck isn’t there yet. I hang out in the living room with Nim, chatting and watching Entourage with him, while their 3-month-old puppy jumps up and steals kisses from me and nibbles me and basically goes crazy. According to Nim, the puppy, Alice, is in fact insane and gets excited when she meets new people. LOL.
Finally, after calling them twice in the span of almost 2 hrs, the tow truck comes. TWO hours is a loooong time to wait!!! As I’m leaving I get Nim’s number, just so you know, I can stay in touch with them and show them my appreciation properly in the future.
Sigh. I was really blown away by their kindness. I was just really touched.
When I first hurt my back, and way before I knew it was fractured, most people were really helpful and kind to me (except for Dr Trevor at St John Of God Hospital – he was ‘nice’ but didn’t bother giving me an X-Ray. Thanks, Doc).
But there were a few people who were surprisingly blase, rude and even mean about it.
Like, one girl at work told me, two weeks or so after it happened and my back was still (surprise, surprise) sore, that she hurt her arm or shoulder once and “it was much worse” than my back because she couldn’t lift her arm for a month or something. She actually told me hers was worse than mine, without knowing the full story about my back. Thing is, isn’t your BACK the worst place to injure cuz it’s difficult to immobilise it (if at all) to let it heal, and shit?
I mean, dude, I’ve had a strained tendon in my ankle (back in August 2009) and THAT was pretty excruciating for almost a week, then just plain painful for the next 2 weeks, and I was hobbling and wearing a bandage and putting voltaren gel and having physio every other day for 4 weeks, and resting for a total of 6. Hurting my back? MUCH worse than that. In terms of the pain and suffering, and the fact that nothing I really do (except resting, i.e. doing NOTHING) makes it feel better. There ARE no bandages, ultrasound therapy sessions, stretches and exercises, voltaren gels, etc that you can put to help it heal faster. NONE. So, honey, I’m sorry but I think, despite not knowing what your injury was (but seeing how you have full use of your shoulder and it only hurt you for a MONTH), I think my injury is just a teensy weensy bit WORSE than yours. Kay? Kay.
Then there was this asshole manager at work, who when I called in to say I couldn’t work (THE DAY i injured myself – LORD know how they would have expected me to come in to work that day, I probably would have died), got all pissy with me and basically scolded me. And later I found out he thought I hurt my back from too much sex or something, instead of bloody LISTENING to me and understanding that I hurt it in an accident. Sure, it was from a leisurely and supposedly fun activity called cliff jumping at Blackwall Reach, but still, it doesn’t make it any less painful or serious. Another manager at work was quite nice to me at first, but couldn’t seem to believe it when I didn’t want to carry heavy things at work or carry heavy boxes of items to rearrange, and when I finally told him, look, I don’t want to hurt my back worse and waste over $500 bucks of doctor’s visits and chiropractor’s appointments, he got huffy with me, grabbed the stuff and dumped it somewhere slightly more strategic for me and sarcastically said that THAT should save me $500 in chiropractic and doctor’s visits. DUDE. Seriously, wtf? I can’t help feeling that they’d be a bit more sympathetic to my cause if I had hurt my back in a car accident instead.
SIGH. Thinking about that just makes me mad. Especially when it turns out – guess what, guys?? – I do, in fact, have a fractured spine.
Not that I think they’d give two shits, the way these people are.
So it turns out I have quite the knack for spewing out some beautiful garbage from time to time. Stuff that sticks in the minds of my friends so much they use it and use it and use it until the word or phrase becomes a part of the furniture.
I don’t really know what I mean by that, but one example was when I used the word ‘pantomime’ in front of Bison, he thought it was so bloody hysterical or something, he proceeded to pepper his sentences with the word with wild abandon. I can’t even hear the word ‘pantomime’ without thinking of Bison now, which is actually a nice by-product of the whole process 
Anyways, I actually enjoy quoting myself cuz I’m just so BRILLIANT! LOL. Honestly, though, here are some phrases I’ve uttered that made people laugh or at least think, so I think that’s good enough to warrant me quoting myself here on my own blog.
—
I had him on a pedestal, but not anymore. Actually, he was on a pedestal but then I kicked it and he fell off.
I want to be a cactus so nobody can touch me.
I would go cliff jumping again, but this time I’d make sure the cliff was higher so that I’d actually die when I hit the water.
He was sooo square. He’s a square peg and I’m a round hole.
(Title is an ‘in-joke’ between Bison and me, heh)
I am thinking, more and more frequently of late, that I should just throw in the fucking towel, and leave Perth and go back to Malaysia.
WHY?
Well, my awesome job as a Technical writer is coming to an end as my 6-mth term with them draws to a close. Which sucks cuz it’s so hard to find a job here, and I am kinda limited in my options now due not only to me being on a WOrking Holiday Visa but also because of my back.
I can’t do work that will strain my back. Like waitressing. Or working at a bar. Or at retailers that require bending and heavy lifting. WHAT the fuck are my options? Also getting to the ‘i’m fucking broke’ stage as well. I am kinda sad that it’s getting to be like this. Look, if it wasn’t for the cliff jumping accident I would be nearly $1,000 richer. Yes, that is what it has cost me in doctor’s visits, meds, massage therapy and chiropractic treatments to date. There’s a certain someone involved that I want to say a big FUCK YOU to for not being there for me like they’d promised. So I hope that person is reading this because he/she needs to know that he/she is a coward, a retard, and not as nice a person as he/she likes to portray themselves to be to the world. Oh, I know better, darling. A genuinely nice person won’t be treating me the way you are. But I digress.
Anyways I am thinking of packing it in, going home, getting a job there (which would be FREE from all the fucking red tape and complications they have here – like, MUST be AUs resident or citizen, MUST be able to work permanently, etc etc).
UGH. This is not how it was supposed to be.
So, yeah. I am thinking. Fuck it. I should cut my losses and go home. Or go to Europe.
Sigh. Australia, my love affair with you has ended. I still like you, but you have a lot of things wrong with you. A fucked up medical system. Fucked up people living there.
Too bad. The blue skies, fresh air, good healthy food, I will miss.
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