Meanwhile, I’m back from the doctors, having had to jump through hoops for bureaucracy – which it then turns out we didn’t need to jump through until APRIL.  (GRRR!  Damn the lack of clear information from the government on this issue!)  My poor GP was politely frustrated and I felt dreadful, but at least I can use some of the documentation to support my QTAC application – we didn’t have time to get to writing a supporting letter.  Luckily I had already booked another long appointment for a fortnight’s time…

Part of the forms we filled out today required a scored assessment – in this case, a short form version called a DASS-21, which measures depression, anxiety and stress over the last week.  Trouble is, it doesn’t have any way of taking into account life circumstances like, say, YOUR BROTHER HAVING A CARDIAC ARREST.

My scores were rather high.

To add to the general merriment, I’ve been changing my med1cati0ns, always a fun fun FUN thing to do.  On the plus side, my appetite has been drastically and suddenly reduced as I’ve tapered off from the ser0quel.  Remember me ranting about how miserable it was making me, how the never ending need to eateateateat was making things so much worse? At least now I have a psychiatr1st who understood how very distressing that was and how important it is to lose the we1ght!

But the anxiety and panic are also very real and although I think I’ve coped remarkably well with what’s been going on in the last week, I am tired.

And my thyro1d is wonky again, but my GP and I are working on tweaking the med1cati0n for that, which should also help with the we1ght loss and the you know, thingummy whatsit… MEMORY!!

I write stuff down. A lot!

So now we just wait.  Have I mentioned that their son, 20 year old university student Huneal Hanneul[sorry, kiddo, your Aunty can't spell!] (he’s studying mining engineering and is doing very well, we’re so proud) is being brilliant – driving Mum and Dad to the hospital, going housework, and so on?

I wish I could be over there to help, but there’s really not much I could do.  I am determined to get over to Adelaide SOON to see him, but only if it’s not going to make more work for everyone.

Gordon in Leeton in May, 2009

We’re all very grateful that there were at least two doctors who are fans of The Hillbilly Hoot  (a weekly gathering of musos and fans at Adelaide’s Community Radio Station 3D). From the reading I’ve been doing (I’m certainly no expert) the sooner CPR is done after a cardiac arrest the better the chances of the patient’s survival and recovery.  And he had GOOD CPR – but even lousy CPR is better than none. (Do you really need me to provide the references? I can – study after study has shown it.  If you have ANY doubts, and someone is not breathing and has no heartbeat – START CPR.  Get help as soon as you can because the breathing part is hard to keep up on your own, but just do it!!)

Those are the words I woke up to at eight o’clock this morning.  Swimming up to the surface, fearing the worst, but so relieved to hear “He’s in the ICU…”

Gordy had a heart attack heart failure last night. [updated after  I spoke with Mum and Dad this evening.  The difference is - his heart just stopped.  Not a blockage - just STOPPED.]

Fortunately, he was somewhere where there were a couple of doctors (if I heard Mum right on the slightly fuzzy connection [yes, I did, two doctors!]) who started CPR straight away; the ambulance only took five minutes to reach him, and he was admitted to intensive care in one of the best hospitals in South Australia [Royal Adelaide].  He’s in an induced coma [on a ventilator] and they’re keeping him cool; they don’t know yet if there will be any brain damage. [The ICU doctors are going to start warming him up again overnight, about 24 hours after they started cooling him.

A quick Google search shows why the ICU cooled Gordy: "The American Heart Association (AHA) issued recommendations for cooling cardiac arrest patients for up to 24 hours as far back as 2005. However, critical care physician Peter Marshall, MD, says only about 10 percent of hospitals offer it even though it is proven effective, more patients recover function than in the past and spend less time in the hospital."  That was from a 2010 article from the Yale School of Medicine, "Putting the patient 'on ice' can make a lifesaving difference".]

He is reacting to the sound of his partner, Eunju’s, voice, so that has to be a good sign.  I refer to her with great admiration as “Super Nurse” because she trained as an Intensive Care specialist nurse before she took on an echocardiography traineeship when Gordy was diagnosed with heart issues a few years back.  And apparently she was planning on studying mental health and diabetes specialisations this year – see what I mean – super nurse!  So there’s really no one better to have by your side.  And I know she’s a HUGE comfort to Mum and Dad.

I’ll fly to Adelaide if I’m needed but at this stage there’s really not much anyone outside the ICU can do.

Just hope for a good outcome.  He’s 39.  He’s my brother and he’s a very cool bloke.

Well it’s been an interesting day!

Firstly, I went out to the university for my appointment with the Disabilities Resources Coordinator.  She was very helpful, but I’m sort of doing things in the wrong order – it was better to grab the appointment with her while I could.  She made lots of notes about the changes to exam conditions I would need – can you believe that with all the technology available during term time, they insist that exams are HAND WRITTEN? How retro!  (I can understand why they do it – obviously you can’t let a student have access to their computer during a “closed book” exam, especially on a wireless access campus – but for most students I imagine it would be the only time all year they are required to actually write with a pen and paper.  The poor lecturers probably struggle to read the illegible scrawls that result.)

I, however, physically CANNOT write for two hours – my hands swell up if I try to write for more than about 10 minutes.  Just one of the little joys of my particular f1bromyalgia.  Yay.  Nor can I sit without moving for long periods.  I need to get up and stretch, walk around, take medicat10n… and so on.

There were other considerations – needing extra thinking time for exams (becuase of the muddleheadedness medicat10ns bring), being provided with a (blank, not connected to anything) computer so I could type exams, form letters in case I needed extensions of time to complete assignments.

Then I came home and filled in my QTAC online application.  As far as I could, anyway – I have a dozen pages more of forms that I need to supply as additional documentation: I have to write a statement explaining how my illness has affected my previous study; I need supporting letters from at least one of my doctors, and I need certified copies of transcripts from my previous attempts at study.  KerCHING$$ ouch!  The one from the local TAFE wasn’t bad – $13, and the Australian National University in Canberra was $15, but it HURT to have to send Charles Sturt University (which waaaaaaaaaaay back in the dim distant dark ages when I Knew Everything Because I Was a TEENAGER  was the  Riverina Murray Institute of Higher Education) $50 to get a piece of paper showing the subjects I FAILED.  OWWWWWWIE!

It’s also quite confronting having to say “Well, yes, I did try to study before, but welll.. you see, the first time I was a teenager ( and so I thought I knew EVERYTHING and I left uni to get married (and hooo boy that one was a big mistake); then I went back to uni again but that time I got really sick with glandular fever which eventually became fibromyalgia and I spent years in bed and the depression got bad; and then the LAST time I tried studying was not long before I got my actual official Bipolar diagnosis (and gosh, didn’t that explain a LOT of what had been going on….) but hey, please let me have another crack at it, this time I’m at least aware of my limitations?

Anyway.  Nearly time to go work out what to make for dinner…

Anyway.  Walking along…

All of a sudden, I wasn’t.

I was on the floor.

Ouch.

Managed to land without breaking anything, just a grazed elbow, bruised right hip, and somehow put my jaw out of whack again (How?!).

As I was doing the turtle-scramble of getting to my knees to push myself to my feet, a kind older lady with a walking cane in her shopping trolley came to help me, got me to hang on to her trolley and guided me over to the nearest seat, while I tearfully explained it was probably the change in medicat10n and she sympathised that it happened to her because of inner ear problems “but I doubt I could have got up on my own, dear, we’d still be waiting for four strong men to come and help!”

(This is the second time I have been in distress at this same mall. And the second time that an older woman has been the ONLY PERSON who has stopped to see if I needed help.  Nobody else stopped, other people just walked past.  Hard NOT to draw the inference that it’s older women who pick up the pieces, isn’t it?!)

Maybe I should work on my balance....

I sat for a little while, phoned Mr Beloved to let him know what had happened and settle myself, and then got on with the shopping.

I’m not sure why I fell over.  Could be the medicat10n change – I’m definitely feeling a bit wonky lately.  Then again, the pa1n itself (neur0path1c pa1n from my back injury as well as f1br0myalg1a) or the pa1nk1llers can make you a bit unsteady, too.  I see my GP on the 30th and hopefully we’ll have time (after filling in a huge bit of government paperwork so I can see my psych0l0gist for 10 appointments this year) to discuss what’s going on.

In any case I think I won’t be driving by myself until we get this sorted out, which is frustrating.  And I’ll call the psychiatrist tomorrow to make an appointment just to be on the safe side – she’s very up to date on medicat10ns and s1de effects,  and I’ll need her to fill in a form for the university stuff anyway…

And now off to think about dinner.

Going to go lie on the floor somewhere in the house and try and at least close my eyes, although I can’t sleep without my CPAP machine.

HELP!!!

Well, not only had I lost a chunk of filling  – I’d cracked off a part of the enamel.  And damaged another filling on the other side of my mouth.  From now on I’m STRAINING any passionfruit I eat – oh, and no more crunching ice, either.  The teeth grinding at night I can only address by being less stressed, because there’s no room with the CPAP mask to add anything else!

Mr Beloved sat in the room with me, and when I was being a total sook about having the needle (ow ow ow ow! IT HURT!) and when I had such bad jaw pain from holding my mouth open that tears were running into my ears.  :- (

BUT – I had the small filling with no needle or numbing cream!  FIRST TIME EVER that I’ve been able to have even a *leetle* filling without help. The big filling wasn’t even too bad – and I now have my first ever composite resin filling.

Still can’t feel half my face…nearly 3 hours post needle.  Maybe one day I will be brave like my Dad and not have the needle at all…

It’s still 32 degrees here at 7 pm… the predicted overnight minimum is 20 – I think we’ll be very lucky if it cools down that much!  This is HOT for Toowoomba, at least in recent years.  Funny how quickly you adjust to a new climate – I’m sure where I used to live was hotter in Summer!

Off to sip more ice water v-e-r-y carefully!

Ahhh, sleep, I NEED you!

I’ve definitely broken a filling – I managed to get a good look at it last night.  Lost about a quarter of a BIG amalgam filling in my second lower molar. I have lots of fillings, and most of them were done before I was in my mid twenties… I suspect this particular one could date from my childhood, so possibly 30 years ago. That’s probably about the lifespan of these fillings…. fingers crossed that it’s the only one that is giving up! (And hey, I’m NOT a dentist, so I could be totally wrong about that. Well, fancy that. here’s an article saying 10 years is a good run! )  Also fingers crossed that the nice dentist can repair the filling, and not have to replace the whole thing…

I’m also reminding myself that it’s okay to feel anxious. It’s *struggling* with those feelings that causes the problem.  And I am accepting that for me anxiety feels very physical – I keep having to run to the loo, my mouth is dry, my stomach hurts.  And I can’t fix it with more food (not even more frozen grapes!) – I just have to stay calm and let the anxious feelings be there.  I can get through this.

Just gone one o’clock.  (I’m browsing whilst writing, it doesn’t really take me that long to write 300 words!)

I could really do without the next door neighbour SCREAMING at her toddler every 5 minutes  – I swear, that kid must think his name is either “Djuwarna Belting?” or “LEAVE IT!”  At least this time there’s just one toddler, his Mum, and a teenager who may or may not be the mother’s offspring…don’t know, don’t care, just want her to bloody well respect the fact that she is NOT alone in the neighbourhood and that not everyone cares for her DOOMF DOOMF DOOMF music all day and night!

I doubt they’ll last long, anyway – when I had to go over the other day and ask for the stereo to be turned down, the “responsible adult” came to the door, beer in hand, at 3 in the afternoon.  The screeching gets worse during the day until it peaks at around 5:30, when “Djuwarna” becomes “SIT DOWN! EAT IT! Djuwarna Belting?”

1:20pm.  34.5 outside, 33.1 inside.

Going to work in my art journal for a while now.

I swear I am NOT GOING INTO THAT WAITING ROOM AGAIN WITHOUT MASKS AND GLOVES.

(Remember 2009′s swine flu?  Yeah, we caught that one, too.  At least then people were prepared to buy and wear cute masks… although it’s always been the thing to do in Japan.)

Hand sanitisers are not enough when some old codger is liberally and forcefully expelling GERMS throughout the room which are then recycled through the airconditioning… and I say this as one who has had ample time to gaze at the filthy air con outlets in the ceiling of the waiting room.

*headdesk*

Poor Mr Beloved is a couple of days behind me, and so is still sneezing, honking, and coughing through half a dozen handkerchiefs per day -  and he can’t use nasal sprays or ice/heat packs to help his sinus pain.  He is just so MISERABLE with it, the poor man.

My Dad always reckons you should stay away from doctors, they make you sick… he’s right.

I  find that eating frozen things helps me feel less stuffy and panicky – I think it helps with reducing the inflammation of my soft palate. ( I have no scientific evidence for this, I’m just going to go with the *belief*, ok?  Self delusion is okay so long as you KNOW that’s what it is…)  so I’ve been into the frozen grapes again (yum!) and have just turned the lovely ripe rockmelon that had been in the fruit bowl into a mushy fragrant orange blend with banana and passionfruit – it freezes, but not rock hard, so you end up with a sort of fruit ice cream.

(Yep, all that fruit is full of FRUCTOSE but it’s still better than eating commercial iceblocks or icecreams…)

Aaaaand now I’m out of Beconase spray again so I’m off to the shops.  Where if I *do* need to cough and sneeze I do it into a kleenex, because I am CIVILISED, unlike the infectious hordes… arrrrgh!

(I used to worry about these passages of wakefulness – but after more reading, I now understand that it’s quite normal.  The only thing that makes it a problem is WORRYING about being awake – now I just read a few pages or do a mindfulness exercise and go back to sleep.)

Poor Mr Beloved is about a day behind and is still quite miserable with the head cold.

Christmas Day was a bit of a misery.  I get panic attacks when I feel I can’t breathe, which of course leads to MORE panic unless I can break the cycle by – yep, trying to breathe. *headdesk*  My new word for trying to get to mindfulness is “noticing…”    – that’s useful for getting back into the reality of what’s actually happening instead of ramping up into mindless panic.

When I did eventually crawl out of bed I decided to go get some groceries, and try for a couple of towels (BIG towels, 1metre x 2 metres – we are – well, ROUND people and ordinary sized bath towels are inadequate) that had been advertised at Big W. I left the house intending to drive  over to the mall, and if the carpark was insanely full then I’d turn around and just do some groceries at the local shops.  But by sleeping in I’d managed to miss the mad people who hit the sales early – and I still got the towels.  Another win!  (They’re not brilliant quality but for the price, if they last a year before becoming paint rags I’ll be happy.)

Now it’s time to go boil the potatoes for salad tonight and later, we’re watching the DR WHO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL!  WOOO HOOOO!!