I get this sense of discontent with work, I don’t know where it comes from…. but i know what it is that im doing doesnt actually bring me any joy.

For some people, it’s a career that they dedicate their lives too. To me, it’s just a job that pays the bills.

Lots of people would love to be in my situation where travel is part of the job. But travelling gets to you afterawhile too, it gets pretty depressing waiting at airports and having no one to talk to. There are countless dinners where I’ve spent sitting in my hotel room eating alone.

I know many would be glad to be employed at all…

and yet, here I am… just not happy.

 

Truthfully, I’m not sure what it is that I’d be happy with. I guess something challenging, but not too hard. Somewhere, where the culture is great and fun…and somewhere I can enjoy coming into work everyday.

Who am I kidding, that doesnt exist.

 

I guess, until i find that job that suits me, i’ll always be unhappy.

 

I hope you’re in a satisfying job…

 

oh- and I’d like to say hello to my Swedish friends- yes, ive noticed an increased of traffic from the people of Sweden

every now and again- i have to catch a cab home or to some place. More so in other states, especially without my trusty car.

some cab drivers are really pleasant and nice. some can’t drive for shit- when i was in Sydney, 2 cabbies almost made me sick because they kept braking for no apparent reason, it was a straight road with no traffic yet it was stop, start, stop start. argh. needless to say they were asian drivers -_-”

some cab drivers drive like they’re in a rally car- like the cabbie we had last saturday who mind you rocked up 20 minutes late (who does that?) and proceeded to speed down the freeway at ridiculous speeds. I thought we were going to die.

some cab drivers can be really cranky, especially the ones who pick me up from the airport and realize they’re going to a really close destination. I can’t help where I live.

then there are the sleazy cab drivers that creep me out. Once when I was in Sydney, this cab driver tried unsuccessfully to convince me to take him back to my hotel instead of paying my $10 cab fare, i told him that he could keep the fare as there was “no going back to the hotel” with him. EWW. i felt so disgusted. those are the worst cab drivers, ones that make me feel extremely unsafe.

there are some cabbies who are just weird… like the one we had on saturday night who spoke randomly in a soft spoken voice where i couldnt really hear or understand him but somehow my partner knew what he was on about. the weirdest conversation we had that night was when he pointed out to a hotel and him telling us that he was invited there to go to a swingers club. we werent sure if he was propositioning us or what was going on. seriously, we couldnt get out of the cab quick enough…

 

the nice cabbies are far and few between, finding ones that know where there going is also a hit and miss.

i usually use the same guys (that know where they’re going, nice and professional).. but when im forced to hire a cab off the rank or off the street… im always nervous because i never know what im getting myself into.

 

argh

I’m shattered…

i am 5 points away from getting silver status on my qantas frequent flyers. it means i have to fly ONE more time before im upgraded.. gahhhh!

 

dont ask me why i’m so focused about status credit points, but i just am. It gives me something to look forward to each time I fly. I only started collecting the points etc since I started this job. Not sure why i didnt do it sooner. Basically each time you fly, Qantas gives you a certain amount of points, each upgrade gives you something more. I.e with silver- ill be able to have preference to where i will sit, the next one is gold where u get FREE access to the Qantas club…. u get the point.

Seeing that i fly so often, these are the few perks i look forward to..

im lame like that….

 

5 more points. how depressing.

I was lucky enough to go to the 2013 Melbourne F1 (corporate tickets yo!), they were just Saturday tickets but hey- I didn’t have to pay, and corporate tickets means there’s free food, free drinks, better views and better access.

 

As you can see,- better access meant that I got to do the “pit walk” twice. I got real close to the cars and the guys that work in the pit area.  My fiance who got to tag along with me- was a kid in a candy store. I think Christmas/birthday came all in one day for him.

He was extremely excited to be able to take a photo with the team principal of Red Bull/Mercedes- Chris Horner. If you’re like me who went o.O… then you’re not alone. I mean I love the F1, but just the cars and the drivers- and that’s as far as my knowledge goes.. but hey.. whatever floats his boat.

as one of my friend says “one happy man, means one less cooking in the pan”- although, you can take that however u want

 

Anyway, back to the F1… Melbourne being typical Melbourne meant that our hazardous weather was coming to play. Melbourne had 9 straight days of over 30 degree weather, but heck, that was long gone, it was blistering cold by 12pm. When the rain came, so did the vicious wind…  We were lucky that our first pit walk was “rain” free, in fact at one stage my fiance commented that he should have worn shorts because it was a tad to warm…

by the time we did our second pit walk (which was at 4pm), the weather had deterioated even more. From our corporate suite to the pit walk, we figured we’d be okay.. then the skies opened up and… basically we got drenched. I ended up running against the crowd (whilst my group huddled under one tiny umbrella whilst it poured) and got us 4 large umbrellas. 

These 4 large umbrellas ended up being the BEST purchase I had made that day considering the weather didn’t get any better (they ended up cancelling the qualifiers until Sunday) and when we decided to leave, it poured as we waited for taxis at the taxi rank. It just sucked.

Even though we ended up getting pretty drench, we were cold and tired… the day turned out extremely eventful and I enjoyed myself- bar the rude jerks that wouldn’t give up their seats for us (read previous posts)..

 

I cannot wait for the next F1 race- and no I won’t be going to the race, but if someone can hook me up with a job where I can be at the F1 races everyweek- I’d be extremely GRATEFUL

 

 

 

Currently my mum is back in hospital, she’s been there for the last week. Her immune system is very low- it’s very unfortunate.

The last couple of days, my mum has been running a fever. When the nurses do their routine obs, and if my mum runs a fever then they start their process of collecting blood.

It’s a tough gig doing this because sometimes the veins aren’t showing and each time- it’s a lot harder and my mum is always forever in a world of pain. It’s gut wrenching for us and for her to go through this “we need to take your blood” routine and watch them unsuccessfully do so.

 

What I found frustrating is that the doctors cannot give us any reason as to why my mum’s fevering, they collect all of these blood cultures and they can’t tell us whats wrong. Which to me, frankly is just not good enough especially when the answers are more than vague.  Actually vague is the understatement of the year.

I get that they have to determine that “nothing” new has developed but they haven’t yet figured out what was the original cause is to begin with. For a bunch of people who work in a scientific medical field, there is a LOT of “what ifs”, nothing concrete, not even high percentages, just shrugs of shoulders. It builds lots of confidence in us, especially when we have to watch someone we love dearly go through so much pain just to watch someone who’s supposed to be a high respected haematologist(blood doctor) tell us- “we’re not sure, we’re guessing that it’s just the cancer”. Guessing? witchdoctors guess, uneducated people guess, but doctors? What the heck?

Surely there must be a better way, or process to this. It almost seems like the doctors and the hospital staff in general are working in the dark, like they’re not sure what’s going on, and just hope for the best. You think that in 2013- we’d progress in the world of medicine.. but clearly we haven’t. 

It’s starting to become evident that there’s very much more for us to learn about cancer, i just hope my mum doesn’t become a statistic where due to the doctors/nurses/hospitals incompetence/incapabilities that she loses with the battle of cancer.. because you know…

 

nobody seems to know around here.

 

 

 

There are some real pigs out there. Seriously, yesterday when I was at the F1 (where it’s mainly male dominated)- and I happened to be in the corporate suite with loads of others (I assume other business people), whilst we were mingling (we- being myself, a female client and 2 other males), we noticed an unused stool. 

As we were the few females around, and our feet were killing, we didn’t think the men would mind so much if we sat down. These men were very adamant that they were to sit down. Because you know- those days of men giving up seats are long gone.

 

I thought to myself.

Firstly- these men were older than me (like in their mid 40′s), they should have given up their seats for a young lady like myself, and the lady i was with was OLDER…

but instead that sat there (and at times stood up but wouldnt give up their seat).

Just the sheer selfishness blew me away.

 

Secondly- these same pigs DID give up their seats to the young ladies that wore little dresses that barely covered their asses (they came afterwards, towards the end).

 

And that was the fat ugly moment that I had at the F1. 

It made me feel terribly sad.

 

I remember those days were men gladly gave up their seats for me- now i gotta wait when I’m preggers or old.

 

*cries*

 

 

 

 

 

 

if we’re getting taller as a society, someone in the airline industry missed the memo…

seriously last monday, i was on a flight- where even I, someone who’s 170cm tall was struggling with leg space.

Some say that the space is getting better.. really?

im finding that the leg room, even on the new planes… are horrendous..

 

when im with my short friends, im jealous… i wish i had shorter legs.. so when i fly, im a lot MORE comfortable.. then feeling like it’s been lopped off halfway…

 

damn you airlines

 

It’s been a hectic 9 days.

Firstly… sometimes I don’t get the Austin Hospital at all. Don’t get me wrong… they’re a good hospital, not great for various reasons- discussed as we go along.

Seriously, you NEED money to have cancer. We’re lucky that we don’t have to pay for the hospital bill although technically as taxpayers, we’ve already “paid for it”.  But whenever they send my mum home, it’s not for weeks, it’s just for a couple of days. Every 2-3 days she would need to be back in hospital to do one of the followings:

- lumber puncture (the needles they use are incredibly huge and gut wrenching to watch the patient have to go through it)

- checking of her bone marrow (again, painful)

-constant blood tests.

So, the cancer sufferer needs to have a mode of transport to get to and from hospitals. If there’s no one, then they try to organize one of the charities to drive them…

Luckily for my mum, she has either my dad or my aunt/uncle to take her.

But it’s very tiring for the cancer sufferer.

 

The worst is when they send you home after a blood test, only to call you 2 hours later (after you’ve settled back at home) that the cancer patient basically needs to be admitted because the blood count is low. One would ask- why don’t they keep the patient in the hospital whilst they wait for the result then making the patient and their family trek up and down.

 

Besides the fact that it’s inconvenient, or the fact that petrol is expensive or that we live at least 20 minutes away from the hospital, it’s actually inefficient at it’s best and leuakemia sufferer’s find it tiring. More so, if they’re blood results are bad which is why they’re admitted in the first place.

Clearly there has to be a better way to this.

 

I guess the other option is for the patient to stay in hospital for the whole duration- but it’s almost impossible, even though hospitals in “theory” would like to, they financially can’t. Due to our constant mismangement of funds by all levels of govenment, our health services are clearly lacking.

It would make sense to keep a patient like my mother in hospital longer… but the option isn’t taken.

 

and so we suffer.

it’s not just the cancer that drives us insane, it’s the beauracracy that comes with it.

 

and so in saying this, my mum is indeed back in hospital. The doctors KNEW this was perhaps going to be the case. We did go for a 9am blood test one saturday morning, we got home, then exactly 2 hrs later we had to rush her back into hospital. My mum was indeed very tired.

And basically she deterioated in front of our eyes in hospital.

Her neutifills (not sure if that’s how you spell it) were low- basically she has no immune system. And as the days progressed she ended up getting more sick…

But the truth of the matter was, she was feeling pretty tired (goes with the disease) since thursday… but her tests werent scheduled for Saturday.. and last time my mum complained about being tired, the docs were quick to point out that it’s very normal to feel that way..

They don’t do anything unless there’s test..

 

But im guessing if the tests were done sooner, it would have been detected sooner and treated sooner. I always feel like we’re on the back foot with this, always 2 steps behind the disease itself.

….

 

and then I had to travel for work… heading all the way to sydney…and i head back this afternoon.

 

juggling work, sick people, social life, relationships, wedding

is a tough life

 

 

Ever since we found out my mum’s been ill. We’ve started to encounter a lot of “friends” who all of a sudden have become doctors. None of whom have ever stepped into medical school and most of which English is a second language.

They insist that we try whatever concoction they think works because “some lady/man was diagnosed with something similar and started to take it and it worked. Now they’re cured”. It’s worse when they’re very insistent and almost forceful. These people not only ANNOY me but I almost want to tell them to get the F*CK out of my house.

 

I shut one down the other week quite quickly, simply asking “that’s great, is there any scientific evidence that this has worked at all?” and then followed up by “if this is so great, why hasn’t the doctors+ pharmceutical companies jumped on it considering doctors are there to fix/cure not see their patients die” and then lastly “we will need to find out if the ingredients will have a clash with the CURRENT medical treatment because a reaction could cause death” The idiot didn’t have any answers to any of that and I hope would be the LAST time they attempt to offer us any medical advice.

 

Even the doctors have said to us “we understand that people will look outside western medicine but whatever you do, before you take anything, get the okay from your doctors first because certain ingredients may have a severe affect on the patient”. They’re not saying- NOT to try these unknown concoctions but just to be careful. Yes, western medicine doesn’t ALWAYS have the answers for everything but you JUST can’t be that stupid about it.

 

I’m not willing to use my mum as a guinea pig just because some stupid uneducated friend of hers- heard it from the grapevine that something works. These stupid people that I have to deal with- don’t even know what strain of leaukemia my mum has- so how can you treat something if you don’t even know what the patient is suffering from? Just because someone has a “cancer”- cancer just isn’t the same for everybody.

 

Yes, I get that people are only trying to help but I really don’t see this as helping. If anything a hindrance and we followed their advice… my mum probably be dead.

 

 

2013 is definitely not our year.

 

We discovered that our pomeranian (who’s been our pet for the last 10 years) has skin cancer.

 

Eventually when the cancer takes over- we will have to put him down. I think it’s cruel to make him go through chemo especially when theres no way for the dog to communicate when they’re feeling unwell.

 

It breaks my heart…

 

he’s been a good dog… it’s sad that this is the way he’s going- i always thought it would be old age.

Our last dog died of breast cancer.

 

I’ve run out of tears, I have no energy left to cry