XMas Greetings 2019

Greetings, one and all! Can you believe it: just like that, we’re into the final month of 2019 already! Has this year been awesome for you too? I sure hope so~

This year actually began with a week-long family trip down to Melbourne for the parents and me! My dearest dad wanted to catch a steam train, mother wanted to see penguins and me? “Just leave me and cash at a chocolate café, please!” XD

Dad’s a big kid at heart; on arrival in Melbourne after first going to visit my Australian grand godmother we immediately went to catch the steam train! Earlier mother and I had both told each other that neither of us had any interest in steam trains whatsoever, but we’d enjoy watching my dearest dad enjoying himself. Since the steam train platform was quite a distance from where we’d parked our rented car, the parents lemme use my manual wheelchair and because of that, we were directed to board at the end of the train where there was ramp access.

At each stop, after passengers had disembarked and new passengers had boarded, a crewman loudly blew a whistle and waved a white flag down the length of the train; I’m presuming that was the signal for the driver to get the train moving again. The first time he does this, the idea forms in my head, but I quash the urge down. Come the second stop, the urge to speak out’s nearly unbearable, but I manage to refrain – just. By the third stop, I can’t resist anymore; after the guy blows his whistle and waves his white flag, I remark cheekily to him, “You know what, sir? At the next stop, when you blow your whistle, you should try waving a pirate flag, a skull and crossbones flag, down the train. Bet that’d give the driver a real fright.”

The old guy gives a single bark of laughter and ducks back in the train. Come the next stop, however, instead of just waving his white flag and blowing his whistle, the old guy turns around to face me! “Stand up.” He commands gruffly. Uh, didn’t he see me board the steam train seated in my manual wheelchair? How would I have responded if I was physically unable to stand?? Luckily, despite the cruel and unfaithful God’s awful intentions to leave me wheelchair-bound for life, I can stand (albeit with immense difficulty) – and I wasn’t gonna keep him waiting! Grabbing the handrail in front of me with my ‘good’ hand, I haul myself upright. Next comes the order “Give me your hand.” I stick my arm out, palm facing down. The guy gently turns my hand palm facing up, carefully inspects it and then with great solemnity places his flag down into it! “Ooh, sir, are you gonna let me wave the flag?!” I squeal excitedly. When he nods once, I next call out, “Dad, dad, please get your phone out; I’ve gotta get a photo of this for sure!” Dad grins and immediately whips out his mobile. The train guy recaptures my attention. “You ready? On my mark, okay? One, two, three!” *beep, beep!* He blows the whistle, I very enthusiastically wave the flag up and down and voila: the train starts moving! Now, I’ll probably never amount to much in this life, considering how the cruel and unfaithful God has so cruelly abandoned me as a useless burden to society, but I can say for certain that I was a competent flag waver! XD

Seeing that both my parents will have reached their seventh decade of life by early next next year, obviously they’re not getting any younger. Mother, worried about what would become of me should they not be around to look after me anymore, sought legal help. A lawyer taught mother to find for me an enduring power of attorney, someone who could help me make decisions should they both unexpectedly pass away and I somehow become incapacitated. After mother had found a close friend of mine who was willing to work in that stead, she takes me to see my GP to get things finalised. The doctor talks at length with mother before turning around and very seriously asking me, “Emily, can you please explain to me what your mother has brought you here to see me today for?”

“Umm …” I begin. (Obviously not an appropriate response for someone who has been attending a Toastmasters club for like the past seven years but cut me some slack here, I was being put on the spot! XD) “Should my parents suddenly both kark it – heaven forbid! – and I totally lose my mind, mother wants someone to make any necessary legal decisions for me. Is that sufficient explanation, or do you require further elaboration from me?” In reply, Dr. Ku clicks a tape recorder on and then intones, “The patient is cognizant of the situation.” As we leave his doctor’s office, I turn around and smirk at mother, “Hey mother, the doctor used some pretty big words there. Tell me, do you even know what the word ‘cognizant’ means?” Sure enough, she didn’t! XD But it’s just a relief to know should things go totally pear-shaped and all hell break loose, I’ll be looked after~

You know how sometimes you hear stories about idiots who drop their mobile phone into the toilet bowl? Well, mortifyingly enough, *I* was the moron who did that this year! XD In my defence, I honestly thought I’d stashed my mobile into my bag then left my bag outside with mother before heading into the bathroom to perform my business. What I’d totally forgotten was that I’d actually left my mobile inside my jacket pocket! After doing my business, I’d wiped then stood up and turned around to flush the loo. Suddenly, plop! Guess what fell in?? XD Immediately realising my error, I’d sat back down over the toilet bowl and fished my mobile out, but it was too late. Even two weeks undergoing the uncooked rice treatment (for some people, placing a wet mobile into a bag of uncooked rice then leaving it in a cool dark place for two weeks can revive a drowned phone because the uncooked rice sucks the moisture from the wet phone) couldn’t revive it. Not that I blame the phone, of course: you try suddenly being plunged into a bowl of someone’s waste; bet you wouldn’t fare too well either! XD When I bewailed to my UQ physio teacher about what an absolute ass I was to drop my mobile into the toilet bowl, she was funny, asking me in a hushed tone, “Ohh no, Em, what was in the loo??”

I screeched at her, “Didn’t you hear what I just told you?! My mobile was in the loo!”

My physio teacher laughs. “Oh, I know what fell into the loo; what I wanna know is what did YOU put in the loo?”

Cripes, what is it with people asking you embarrassing personal questions?? I just muttered softly back at her, “Um, number one. Gross, I know, but at lest it wasn’t number two.” Anyhow, lesson learnt: now, every time before I enter the bathroom, I always check to make sure that my mobile has been zipped up inside my bag first! XD

Last year, some random church aunty told mother about some ‘inclusive’ choir and to make me attend. Me: don’t you haveta stand to sing in choirs? If so, no way hosay. Nowadays, I do most things seated (e.g. I even shower daily seated in a shower chair) and when necessary I can walk short distances, but the hardest thing for me to do’s stand). Astonishingly, mother let me use my manual wheelchair, so okay, I’ll go along.

Our conductor’s a vibrant lovely lady named Cath; her husband, Mr. Jay is our guitar accompanist. Our running joke between us is that I’m ALWAYS hungry. XD One day, we had a choir performance somewhere where there was quite loud background music playing. After I’d arrived, Cathy greets me, asking how am I doing? I give my usual reply. “I’m hungry …” In response, Cath’s eyes widen as in shock, and she quite literally lunges at me. “You CAN’T BREATHE??!!” She screeches, eyes frantically roving me as if in search of an EpiPen.

“No!” I quickly wave my arm at her, motioning at her to back off. “I said I’m HUNGRY. Sheesh, Cathy-With-A-C, if I really couldn’t breathe, you think I’d be rather more agitated, don’t you?”

Cathy immediately jerks into a fault, instantly looking totally mortified. Then she just doubles over with laughter. I join in, and after we’ve both laughed our heads off, I sincerely thank her for showing such concern for one of her choristers. Then I cheekily add, “Oh, and I’m still breathing, thank-you very much.” Now, every week at rehearsal, when I see Cathy I immediately first reassure her that I can breathe before adding that I’m hungry. XD

Even further back than last year, three years ago I was having physio at UQ and the teacher was trying to get my demented left hand to hold a sheet of paper. That seemingly simple task was proving extremely difficult for me because while my affected hand has quite a bit of strength, she totally lacks in co-ordination and while trying to hold the sheet of paper straight she’d just totally scrunch it up instead. After that had happened several times, I laughed to the teacher, “You know what? You should lemme try this exercise with a shiny hundred dollar bill and then lemme keep it afterwards.”

My – apparently rich! – young physio teacher replies thoughtfully, “ You know what, Em? I think I’ve got a few of those in my wallet. Tell you what: if you can complete this task I set for you, I’ll give you one. How’s that sound?”

So he set me this task to achieve and I’m rather embarrassed to admit it: my wonky left hand was so retarded she couldn’t achieve it for the next two years! But you can’t fault me for effort: when I sent my yearly Christmas Greetings (you’re reading the current edition right now) out to him and my other physio teacher at UQ (the same one who honestly told me to eff off several years back; don’t worry, she’s refrained from doing so ever since XD) I’d add a P.S.: could I please keep trying for your shiny hundred dollar bill next year? Honestly, all I wanted to do was treat the parents out to a fancy dinner somewhere!

I suppose by this year my teacher was feeling sorry for me, because he totally dumbed down his deal with me: instead of completing that set task with my left hand, everyday I went for a six minute walk (fifteen minutes once a week), did fifty sit-to-stands and did a simpler version of the initial task he’d originally set for me for my left arm. After doing that everyday for fifteen weeks, he literally reached into his wallet and handed me a shiny green hundred dollar bill! Immediately that night I shouted the parents out for dinner with it; I sure wasn’t gonna wait for the next day for him to contact me and say “Hey, it’s illegal to give clients money, let alone one six years – more than half a DECADE! – my senior, so hand my money back”! My only regret’s that I forgot to take a photo of it before paying for our dinner; I may never own another shiny green note again! XD

In my Xmas Greetings to everyone last year, I remember sharing how I’d reached the milestone of being released from the insane asylum (otherwise known to everyone else as the Brain Injuries Rehab Unit of the Princess Alexandra hospital XD) for one whole DECADE. What I forgot to share about’s how relieved I am now that I get such good quality sleep. See, back in BIRU, sleep wasn’t really an option for me because the cruel and unfaithful God would plague me nightly with multiple nightmares, I’d be too frightened to go back to sleep afterwards for fear of yet more nightmares, nurses would enter your room in the middle of the night, bang around, do noisy things and then I had a room mate who had sleep apnoea but didn’t like wearing her mask so literally SNORED the house down! XD Four years after being released, I randomly start recording down when I’d score “an awesome night’s sleep”, that is, when I could bid my teddy sweet dreams, fall asleep and not wake again until the Sun had risen sufficiently for me to see the time on the clock stuck onto he wall. That first year, I recorded eight instances when I recorded one straight week of those ‘awesome sleeps’. I remember thinking to myself, wouldn’t it be absolutely amazing if I could get twenty-five of those weeks in one year? I continued this practice over the subsequent years, getting from between eight to twelve weeks of those one straight week of awesome sleeps. Last year, on the tenth anniversary of my release from the insane asylum, suddenly it’s like my body realises that since I’ve been out for so long, hopefully the cruel and unfaithful God will live and let live and just allow me to make the most out of the shattered shards of my life that he’s abandoned me with because suddenly that number jumps from twelve to twenty-two times I record one straight week of awesome sleeps!

This year, I back myself to go all the way and sure enough, come the 18^th November, I finally achieve the TWENTY-FIFTH time this year I’ve achieve one straight week of awesome sleeps! :D The teddy bear that keeps me company in bed every night smugly tells me that I obviously have him to thank for that, since it’s his job to sleep over my fat tummy every night and scare away any bad dreams that want to disturb my beauty sleep. XD

Well, 2020’s arriving in just under three weeks’ time; please allow me to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a safe and prosperous New Y ear. May whatever you’re working on currently continue to prosper, hopefully all your future endeavours be met with success and I look muchly forward to staying in touch with you all next year!

Cheers,

Em. ^^