General Chat

Hi to all Aussies and Pommies:))

I agree with you Allan, Karma certainly has a way of coming back and biting those who deserve it !!!

Linda...My heart goes out to you and your dear Mother, I hope everything goes well. I'm sending my positive thoughts over to you and hugs as well xxx

Hi to everyone else
Have a great day/night all:))

Carole

Ya beat me Allan

night night mate, click!!

Carole

Hi Carole

Ever the gentleman, I can delete my last post and give you the honour!

Just say the word,

Regards

Allan

Switches light back on to say Hellooooo...

Thoughts are with you and your Mum Linda...

Hope all is well with everyone...

click

xx

G'day Janet


I hope that your day went well.

it has been a bit cold and miserable here in Australind.

My OH is in Perth for the next couple of days, staying at the Ern Halliday Recreation Camp

Congrats on your son's footy team's win in the finals

Regards

Allan

Hi Allan...

Yep cold miserable day here ! Sun was shining this morning so Off I went and hang out some washing then the rain came...grrr

Semi final this Sunday for my son so the pressure is on I do hope they win !!

Where abouts is the Ern Halliday Recreation camp?

Must go Collectors is on.....:))))

Click...

xx

Hi Janet,

About 1.5 kms North of the Hillary's Boat Marina, just off Whitfords Avenue

Allan

Hi Everyone. Hope you're all having a good day/evening.

Linda...... I read you post with interest, and my thoughts are with you and your mother. My own mother was in hospital four years ago. She was 85 yrs, frail, deaf, and had many problems, having had a heart bypass some years earlier. Like your mother, her mind was razor sharp and she was accutely aware of what was going on around her. The situation you describe is virtually a mirror reflection of the ward she was on. I spent a lot of time on that ward, and was frankly disgusted at the apparent apathy, and indifference to elderly patients. Like waiting 45 minutes before a commode could be found, despite urgent pleas from bed ridden old ladies. I could go on and on. My mother had a badly ulcerated leg, and in their wisdom they decided to amputate, having got her to sign the consent form. I knew this was a mistake at her age and condition, but having signed, and her being in sound mind, there was nothing could be done.
Unfotunat ely, she went down hill after the op.
I spent the last week virtually living in the hospital , and sleeping in a chair, taking care of her myself,
with a brother popping in and out for a few minutes now and then. She had contracted an infection and had been moved into a single room..so at least, thank God had privacy.
We keep hearing about advancements in the NHS, and vast amounts of money being pumped into it, but where is the point, when there is so little care at the bedside of the elderly.
Like you Linda, I also felt like a rant on this subject. I would be interested to know what our Aussie friends experience in their hospitals.

Hi everyone else - feel like I've ignored you - but will be back later to torment you with my usual inane remarks......

Regards
Tec.

Hi Again,
SueMaid,....Did you find anything exciting for the garden?
I meant to say on an earlier post that one of my favourite trips in Sydney, was out of Circular Quay to Taronga Park Zoo - great.

Allan,
I hope you are behaving while left alone with only the cats for company. Decorating? gardening? painting the house?
Or is it down the pub with the lads?

Janet.....Well done to your boys with the football - Hope they do well this weekend.

Carole........ Hi - I'm also a great believer in karma - seen it work both ways many times.

Hi Berona - How are you today - off to the beach I expect?

Tec.

Thank you once again everyone for your good wishes for my mother.

I was pretty shocked today when I went in because she looked so ill. She was still very rational and talked to me all the way through visiting time.

During the night there were only two Thai nurses to cover the whole ward,she said that they were very nice,but despite the fact that she asked and was promised twice that they would bring a commode, they didn't so in the end, she had no choice, she had to wet the bed. That gave them even more work of course because they had to change both her and the bed.

By the time they got her back into bed , she had so much pain in her chest, that they thought she was having a heart attack,so they had to wake a doctor up. The ECG was fine though and the blood test today confirmed it wasn't a heart attack.

They are still treating her for the pneumonia and for the bladder infection. She told me that the doctor had told her she has E Coli, I thought she must have mis heard,but she hadn't, the urine sample sent off by her GP did show E Coli. They are repeating the test today just to check.

The day staff are now being lovely to her because she is so ill,so that is better and thankfully the loud mouth in the next bed went home today.

Life is so difficult and the decisions to be made. We are supposed to be going away next Tuesday,so don't know what to do. When my dad was first ill, we cancelled a holiday just in case and he lived for another eighteen months.
The one thing which worried me was that there would be no one to sit and hold her hand and stroke her hair while we were away, but my sister is rearranging everything so she will be here everyday when I am not.

I know it may sound callous thinking of going away, but normally everything falls on me and I visit every single day. Last time she was in, it was for over a month and I visited dad every day for the last two months of his life. Even mum didn't do that because it was too much for her. She is insisting that I go, but I can cancel up to the last second of course.

I am saving all this up and intend to be a trial to my children as well !!!!!!!!!

Hello, everyone:))

Linda, my heart goes out to you. In fact I felt teary just reading your post. It's so unfair and it's no different here. The elderly are neglected. I made such a nuisance of myself at the hospital when my dad was ill. Having dementia didn't help because he would be confused a lot of the time. One night he tried to get out of bed and they actually tied him down. It broke my heart. I asked to speak to the doctor and was told he was busy but he was sat in the office on the ward doing paper-work. So I stood at the door of the office and said I would wait. Of course that made him uncomfortable and it didn't take long until he came out to speak to me. My poor mum was mortified at times but I was never unpleasant just insistent.

The garden show was great - for Berona and Colin it was in Homebush. I bought too many plants and some oriental lilly bulbs - they'll be lovely in bloom. I could have bought so much more but the credit card said "NO".

Today I'm baby-sitting for a few hours and then I'm going to a fund-raising afternoon tea. A group of lovely ladies are working hard to raise money in memory of a friend of theirs. There ar some incredibly generous and kind people - it's a shame we only hear about the bad ones.

I hope my fellow Aussies have a great day and good evening to our Pommie friends.

Sue xx

Good Morning SueMaid.......
Sounds like you had a good time at the garden show?
I grow oriental lillies, have done for years. The best ones I have are a variety called " Star Gazer" heavily scented - trouble with lillies is that if you get the pollen on your clothes off the stamens, you'll never get it out.

Hope you enjoy your baby sitting, and the fund raising event. You are right, there are a lot of kind and generous people out there, they far outweigh the nasties - most people are kind in my experience.

Enjoy your day
Tec.

Good morning/evening to everyone. Another warm day forecast here, but no sun as yet, so the temps might not get as high as our weather bureau hopes.

All this talk of garden shows makes me miss my garden. Oh well, I have pruned my roses and they are shooting nicely now, so I will be content with checking over my pots - and will probably end up going to the garden centre to buy more. I can't resist the annuals, though - so I will more than likely buy a trough of some sort and put some annuals in it.

Good morning one and all. The sun is shining here, so we had better walk down to the market before the heavens open. Given the weather over the last week, that will be in about five minutes.

I did my monthly Meals on Wheels round yesterday and it was sunny to start off with, but at one point the rain was torrential. We sat in the car for a few minutes until it subsided a little bit, but I just had to get on with it. The person I do the round with doesn't walk very well,so she drives and I do all the running around. I looked like some poor bedraggled creature by the time we finished, all my old ladies were most concerned for me. To be fair there is one old man who looks after his wife, but the rest are ladies, men don't seem to last long around here.

Good evening/morning:))

I've had a wonderful day today. A lovely group of ladies set out to raise enough money for a microwave oven for the patients in the treatment centre. They raised this easily through a raffle and started making more money so they asked us what else we wanted. We told them we needed a cabana for shelter when our ladies have their outdoor market stalls so they raised enough for that. Today at the afternoon tea they presented us with the oven, the cabana together with 3 canvas walls and 2 folding chairs. Then they handed us a box full of money they raised on the day through the raffle and people putting donations into the box. They had raised another $670 in cash. It was incredible - such good people.

Now I'm exhausted and I'm thinking a glass of wine would go down very nicely:)) A good evening to my fellow Aussies and have a great day, Poms.

Sue xx

HI SueMaid and everyone else
just a quick message from me in the Isle-of-man, hope all's well with you all, thing's are good here will be back on Monday
take care of yourselves and speak to you again soon

Diane x

Hello Everyone,

SueMaid, how lovely of the ladies who did the fundraising. People can be so nice. Last year, I decided to try and get some portable dvd players for the Oncology room in our hospital - it's so boring sitting for hours on end, with nothing to do, especially when you start at 9.00 and finish at about 2.00. Well, my husband's nephew and his wife donated 2 dvd players and then my husband asked his boss. He donated 1 and arranged for 2 business owners (who were mates of his) to donate 1 each, so we ended up with a total of 5 and it's wonderful. Every three weeks when I go in for a treatment, I take a dvd (usually Are You Being Served) or something else funny and watch it while I wait. It's great to see the other patients using them also.

I hope Linda, you are coping ok with all that you're going through. Make sure you do take that break, otherwise, you'll end up unwell. (this is the part where you salute and say "Yes sir, ma'am.")!!

Have a great day/evening everyone. Hello to Allan, the fellow Pisces! Berona, don't go missing your garden - I'm seriously considering concreting my whole block. It's so dry here (and hot), everything is brown.

I think I'll join SueMaid in a glass of wine.

Take care everybody.

Hello Dianne and Sue,
I enjoy a glass of good Aussie red as well, but as I never drink if I have to drive, I think that I shall have to remain tee total for a while.

The hospital just rang to say that as mum had another really rough night with pains in her chest, they have moved her to coronary care to see if they can work out what is happening. All the tests yesterday said that it wasn't her heart, although we know her heart is in a shocking state as it is. hey ho.

Hello, ladies:)) Dianne I hope you've had some time to yourself on this trip - I know it's work but it would be great if you've been able to do a little sight seeing. Will you be glad to be back?

Alison that was an incredible effort from your family and friends and you've given me an idea for our oncology treatment centre. We've already bought a CD player and some nice CD's and there's a TV set but some portable DVD players would be great. We are in the process of decorating a room as a time-out area for patients and their families. As you know, Alison, it can be a long day for some people and also family members if they come along.

Linda I do hope you get away for your holiday. You need the break and to think about you and your OH. You have a lot on your shoulders. At least they seem to be concerned by the chest pains and are acting on it. What a worry for you.

Sue xx

Yes SueMaid,

The portable dvd players are great, as patients often sleep during treatment and the tv can be bothersome for them, so if patients bring in their own earphones, they can watch a movie etc and not disturb the others. I tried to get some el cheapo earphones to be kept at the hospital and then thrown away after use, but the plug in bit, was too small for the hole in the dvd player and kept slipping out. I wanted to buy headphones, but I was told by the oncology nurse, that even they aren't acceptable (due to hygiene). So, patients need to bring their own. The dvd players that the businesses donated are good brand name ones and are working perfectly - the others were cheapies and have gone a bit "funny" and are hard to watch. I just have to remember where I am, when I'm watching a dvd and not laugh out loud at the funny bits - everyone looks at you when you do that!