ADVENT OF 2012

He gave you what for Christmas?

2012 - nobody warned me about 2012! Nobody told me in advance to watch out for this year; it turns out that this is the year in which our lives changed forever. I guess each of the recent years has contained an element of permanent change, but none of them compares to 2012 – and we are not quite at the end of September yet!

Sorry to race ahead of you here – I will backtrack a little for your comfort and try (with my rather faulty senior’s memory) to put things into chronological order.



Honestly!!

 When we last spoke (aside from the ‘Literary Spit’ in May) we were about to celebrate Christmas 2011. I had just taken mum on a wildflower trip and we had had more dramas with the health of my daughter in law Naomi.

Eeiew!

Took me ages to think of it!



Hey - Bro!

 To pick up that thread, Christmas was a fairly quiet affair. Naomi was only just out of hospital in time for the event and we had to keep a very close watch on her to make sure she didn’t over exert herself. Mum was looking forward to spending the day with us lunching with Brett & Nom, Troy & Shell and all the grandies. Sadly on the day, mum just wasn’t up to scratch and opted to stay at home. We had no choice to leave her, after a brief visit in the morning, as we had a goodly portion of Christmas lunch with us.

We had a pleasant, albeit quiet time at Brett’s and then wandered over to Trent & Danni’s (DD’s son and Daughter in law) to spend a few very pleasant hours with them and DD’s ex, Carol, and her new hubby Bill. . Leaving Trent & Danni’s we happily meandered back to our little country retreat, lapping up the luxury of the peace and quiet.

Fortunately, we had already taken mum for her annual visit to her sister Suzie during the week prior to Christmas and so were off the hook for that annual event.

Life post Christmas was pretty hectic – mum’s health was not good and there were a few more health scares for Naomi. We did in that early part of the year manage to have all my lot up to the farm for a brunch and swim in the pool, but other than that we rarely saw any of the offspring. Thanks to the kindness of our good friends Sue and Rob and the donation of a sofa-bed we were also able to have mum come and stay for a couple of nights (along with the manic Wombat). Just like us, mum fell in love with the place and was fascinated to see all the birds and roos coming in for evening nibbles and drinks.

We were a bit peeved with the kids as it did feel to us at the time that we were only there when needed so to speak. In retrospect, I do understand that all our grown up children do indeed have super busy lives and I guess the 50 odd ks to come and visit was asking a bit much – best to think that way anyway!

Mum continued to have poor health and we were kept pretty busy looking after her, doing shopping, taking her to Dr’s appointments and generally being there for her. I don’t think I mentioned that prior to Christmas she had a little lump come up on the side of her nose and ultimately had a locum have a look at it. She was told that it was an ant bite and to take antihistamines to fix the problem – she did, and they did. We also, around the same time, took her into Royal Perth Hospital to visit the Ear Nose and Throat people about possible polyps in her nasal passages. It was confirmed that there were indeed multiple polyps but that surgery was not recommended at her age. We, mum included, all agreed with the outcome.

Other than the nasal problems, mum was just plain tired and her eyes were really worrying her. Despite all the assurances from Eye specialists, opticians and general practitioners to the contrary, she felt that her eyesight had deteriorated markedly. Despite this she was still able to drive at that time, legally, but probably wisely opted not to do so. Not being able to see well really started to impact on her quality of life – reading after all was her big thing and not being able to do that, combined with the lack of ability to do simple things like read labels etc really impacted adversely.

During this period, DD turned 65 and we had the inevitable appointments with Centrelink. Hmmm, don’t know if you have experienced this particular agony yet, if not, be prepared for a frustrating time. We were given conflicting information from various employees and ended up with quite a dramatic time trying to sort out all the bits and pieces. The main drama revolved around the question of whether or not we are deemed home owners. Believe it or not, and despite the advice given to us by their own people, despite the fact we do not own a home in the traditional sense, as we live in our own van, albeit travelling around, we are deemed home owners. As you may appreciate, that impacts on our somewhat meagre investments, and any partial benefits we might or might not be entitled to. I won’t go into any details here, but if any of you are about to launch into this area of your lives, we would be only too pleased to share our own experiences with you. We didn’t win any battles incidentally, but we are very pleased to be able to utilise the benefits provided by DD’s health card – now that really is a good side benefit to being a little older. Mind you, as we are a little older, we now do need some benefits for medical supplies! I think one of the worst things about being associated with Centrelink is the fact that it feels our lives are no longer our own. Each and every decision we make of a remotely financial nature must be shared with these people. It really does feel very invasive.

On the subject of health issues, DD went back to see the Heart Specialist and all was good. He has to stay on blood thinners pretty much ad finitum and have regular blood tests but all in all he is fine. He has lost a significant amount of weight and that combined with his breathing techniques has kept the sleep apnoea at bay and helped him to maintain good health.

We had to face up to the fact we were not going to get away to Tassie as hoped and so hatched a new plan to run away just for a few weeks in early May. I can tell you now, that the reason we had been trying for a couple of years to get down to Tasmania, was so that we could get married there. It was a nice thought, but ultimately we decided to head down to Denmark on the South coast of WA in order to tie the proverbial knot.