Heylo everybody! We started a new decade this year; hope 2020 has been as eventful for you as it has been for me!
For my dearest dad, work is busiest for him around December.
Often, he’ll not arrive home from work until like
This year, when mother started researching around where we
could go holiday, she originally reported to dad and I, “Every where’s on
fire!” Remember how much of the country had been impacted by devastating bushfires
at the beginning of the year? Many places had been affected by the bushfires
and many tourist destinations had been closed. Eventually, she decided that
We spent three nights in one motel and the other three in
another. The first place we stayed at gave us two beds between three people: a
queen-sized sofa bed and a king-sized other bed! My dearest dad took the
queen-sized sofa bed for himself, instructing mother and I to share the
king-sized bed. That first night, after we’d both climbed into bed, mother and
I both marvelled at how big the bed was. The next morning, when mother rolled
outta bed and entered the bathroom to go brush teeth, I luxuriated in having a
Mother appears with toothbrush sticking outta her mouth.
“What?”
“Oh mum, how cool’s this: the king-sized bed’s so massive
that even when I spreadeagle myself I can’t touch the edges!” I beam at her.
Mother just laughs at me for being so easily excitable. XD
After our nearing-weeklong holiday, back home in Brisbane I
experimentally spreadeagle myself again. Bang! My arm and leg immediately hit
the wall. When mother enters my room in
the morning, I mock-whine at her, “Mother, I thought you got me a king bed too,
but how come when I try to spreadeagle myself my left arm and leg immediately
hit the wall? Didn’t you buy me a king bed??” Mother just smirks right back at
me. “Sure I did. King SINGLE.” XD
For the past five/six years, I’ve shared lunch with my
church pastor and his wife once a week. Well, Pastor Grace mostly, and Pastor
Chris when he’s free. We’ve been meeting regularly ever since their daughter
was in her baby stroller and look – she’s just started primary school this
year!
At Rice Paper Vietnamese Cuisine, we all spend some time
browsing the menu. In the end, Pastor Chris and I select the same dish:
stir-fry chicken ho fan coz great minds obviously think alike, don’tcha reckon?
XD
I suppose our dishes arrive simultaneously because we
ordered the same thing. I’ve picked up my fork, said itadakimasu and am just
about to start digging in when Pastor Chris sticks his palm literally
centimetres from my face and commands, “STOP.”
I literally just freeze; for a split second I honestly think
he’s going to gimme like a death sentence! XD
You see, Pastor Chris is usually a gentle, soft-spoken man.
Usually, the most authoritative thing you hear coming from his mouth’s
something like, “Guys, after service today please clear the hall immediately
because the ushers need to reset the hall for baptism, etc.” but what I heard
from him that day was absolutely a *direct order* and I honestly just froze!
I’m looking at Pastor Chris like a deer caught in the
headlights; he’s holding his fork also, and he waves it in the direction to the
side of my plate. My eyes follow the direction of the movement and cripes – on
the side of the plate is a handful of crushed NUTS!
Some may know that I’ve had a mild nut allergy from birth.
Luckily, it’s not severe; should I come into accidental contact with any nuts I
won’t go into anaphylaxis and die in three minutes without an EpiPen; just
gimme some water and be prepared for some very swollen lips after about ten
minutes but I’ll be alright afterwards.
I’m like, “Woah, I totally didn’t see; thanks for noticing!
Um, should I just like scrape them onto the table?” Pastor Chris says he’ll
take it, so I push my plate towards him and just sit back and watch as he
carefully scoops and picks out all the nuts, before instructing me to start
eating from the other side of the plate, where there were no nuts. He’s done a
perfect job; I finish the dish and detect zero traces of nuts whatsoever.
Thanks also to Pastor Grace who contacts me that afternoon just to check I’m
fine after potentially ingesting some nuts. I’m very grateful to be part of a
loving church family who always keeps an eye out for each other. Still, I don’t
mind if I never hear Pastor Chris’ Voice of Authority ever again; I’m
potentially the wimpiest person in existence and when he like stuck his palm in
my face and ordered STOP it honestly frightened the living daylights outta me!
XD
I can’t help it. From the moment I wake up, till my head
touches the pillow at night, I’m freaked out that I’ll fall over. That’s
because the cruel and unfaithful God has left me so frigging disabled that were
I stupid enough to fall over, I simply wouldn’t have the capability to get
myself back upright again; I’d be sitting on my butt on the floor waiting for
somebody to come across to where I’ve fallen and then hold out an arm, asking
please to be pulled back upright. Every time I sit down, 99.9% of me
fast-forwards to when I’ll haveta get up again, that I might fall awkwardly and
hurt my right hand/arm. If that were to happen, I’d be beyond screwed, because
the right’s my only more-or-less functioning side that I do everything with,
and if I were to injure her and take her outta commission too… *shudders at the
very thought*
For the past couple of years, I’ve been fortunate enough not
to suffer a proper ‘fall’, although I did slip down on the wet tiled floor once
and trip forward and right-kneeplant (thankfully not faceplant XD) near the
kitchen another time. Third time unlucky for me, then.
I’m having what I rather unflatteringly call a ‘torture’
session’ with my ‘bad’ physio. Have I explained before the difference between
my ‘good’ physios and the ‘bad’ physio? I call the physio I do @ the
I have super sh*tty balance whenever I struggle to walk. I don’t go for the
Ageing part because I started doing physio there when I was twenty-one and
surely that’s too young to be ageing?? XD
Anyways, the NAB clinic physio students are my ‘good’
physios because they understand how I’m always freaked out about falling and
they’ve promised they’ll never lemme fall, because were that to happen, the
teacher would see, come over, fail them and make them repeat a whole five weeks
here and gosh, they wouldn’t want that to happen! Hence why they’d never lemme
fall …
My ‘bad’ physio, however, says he’ll lemme fall; he’ll just
make sure I won’t hurt myself if and when I do fall. Well, to date, he’s
dropped me for two sprained ankles, oww…
But back to my first fall for 2020. Vincent has my affected
hand doing some reaching exercise; he sticks his hand somewhere and I’ve got to
get my hand to touch his.
Some may know that post brain injury I’ve developed complete
left hemianopia, that is, total loss of left side vision. Vincent knows this
full well but chooses to stick his hand to my left side and so far behind me
that I’ve gotta lean slightly backwards to reach his hand. Bad move. I must’ve
leant too far backwards because the next thing I feel’s me falling backwards.
Usually I feel safe falling backwards because you know what they say, right?
Fat butt, good cushioning! XD However, since mother is forever harping on at me
to lean forward and I remembered her demand so leaned forward as I was
going down. ‘Twas a good thing I did too, because as I thunked down my head was
literally only centimetres from the wall; had I not leaned forward I’d have
*smashed* my head against the wall and goodness knows where I’d be know …
probably another stint in the insane asylum (my pet nickname for the Brain
Injuries Rehab Unit of the Princess Alexandra hospital XD); heaven forbid!
><
Seeing as I hadn’t injured myself, Vincent immediately hauls
me to my feet and calmly instructs that I continue doing the task I was
attempting before I took a tumble. Me, I’m filthy with him, grousing, “You
jerk! You lemme fall!” The insufferable man smirks at me. “Yup, you fell like a
big wintermelon (say ‘dai dong gua’ in Canto). But you can’t get up me for
that, because I’ve only ever promised to catch you if you fell forward and to
the left, but you fell backwards and to the right.” Well, there’s no use crying
over spilt milk. I can’t change the fact that I totally stacked it in March
this year. I probably shouldn’t share how I was idiotic enough to totally stack
it again in June and just say I’d best continue working on my mobility and
learning how to stay upright!
COVID-19’s something that has truly impacted the world this
year; even though it started last year things didn’t really start getting bad
until this year. I’ll confess to being so stupid I actually naively asked my
church friend, “How come I’ve never heard of the first eighteen COVID’s before?
I know I’m terribly thick post-stroke, but surely I would’ve heard of one of
the previous eighteen COVIDs before this 19th one came along?” My
friend had laughed gently before letting me in on what everybody else was
seemingly already aware of. “COVID-19 started in 2019.” Well, duh, of course!
Don’t worry, there’s a perfectly legitimate excuse for my stupidity: I really
WAS dropped on my head as a baby! XD When things started getting
cancelled/moved online left, right and centre, I remember grumbling on
Facebook: book club has been cancelled. Toastmasters have been cancelled.
Writers group has been moved online. Why can’t blasted physio get cancelled
too?? Sheesh, there’s no rest for
the weary, honestly. Finally, as the coronavirus situation worsened in
We’ve actually been very lucky in
About halfway through the year, my ‘good’ physio starts me
on a block of intensive physio, where instead of attending once weekly for one
hour, I attend thrice weekly for four hours. Wednesdays were a double whammy:
two straight hours of physio from
That fateful morning, when my carer Hannah starts the drive
to UQ, for some reason she doesn’t listen to her GPS who says to turn right at the
top of Alan Cresc. into Gaskell
In the next second the other car has smashed ours across the
moving lanes of traffic onto the side of the road; once the car jerks to a stop
I realise that somehow, miraculously, I’m still alive. Still, no time to
dwell on that; I immediately lean forward, hit the hazard lights and urgently
tell Hannah, “I’m uninjured. Are you alright too/should I call the ambulance
for you right away?” Poor Hannah immediately burs into tears. “Oh no, it’s all
my fault!” She wails. “I forgot to check both ways!”
“NO!” I yell back at her; I needed to know whether or not
she had been injured! “That doesn’t matter; tell me NOW; are you hurt??”
When Hannah sobs back she’s fine, I next rip open my bag and
grab my mobile, speed dialling for home. No time to worry about Hannah, then.
When mother answers, I speak immediately. “Mum, we’re fine,” I begin urgently
(didn’t wanna freak her out too badly, see XD), “But Hannah and I just got
T-boned at the intersection of Underwood and Gaskell. You’d better get out here
right now.” Poor mother must’ve been shocked; she double-checked to make sure
that we were both uninjured before saying she’d come out immediately. That call
done, I tap a still-wailing Hannah on the shoulder and say gently, “Hey. We
need to ring CODA (they’re the company who employs carers like Hannah and sends
her to look after me) and let them know what just happened. Will you ring CODA
or may I?” Poor Hannah doesn’t stop bawling; I take it to mean that I should
ring, then. Dialling their usual number, only when their answering machine
kicks in and says opening hours are from
As with mother, when Davina answered, I immediately
reassured her that we were fine but then added we just got t-boned at the
intersection of Underwood Rd. and Gaskell St.; you can probably hear poor
Hannah bawling in the background …
Huge thanks to Davina who remained so calm/didn’t lose her
head/anything; that really helped me keep myself calm too because honestly, I
was freaking out a bit myself! It’s not everyday you get T-boned, you know! XD
After first checking again (just like mother XD) that we
were both uninjured, she asked to speak with Hannah. I shook a still wailing
Hannah gently on the shoulder and said to her, “Hannah. Hey, it’s gonna be
alright. I’ve just rung CODA and Davina wants to talk to you. Just take my
mobile and talk to her. It’s gonna be alright.”
As Hannah does so, a uniformed woman rushes up to my car
window. “I’m a doctor.” She tells me breathlessly. I’ve just finished the
overnight shift and was driving home when I witnessed the crash; I pulled over right
away to see if anyone was injured and needed help.” I thanked this lady doctor
sincerely and said we were both fine, but that Hannah might be stuck in her
seat because the car that had T-boned us had hit near her door. By this time, the
driver of the car that had T-boned us had also come over to check that we were
okay. Having finished her call with Davina, Hannah passed my mobile back to me,
but when the driver of the car that had t-boned us asked were we both alright,
she burst into tears again, wailing that the accident was all her fault because
she’d forgotten to check both ways before turning … before she could have
another meltdown, I quickly enter the conversation, explaining that I’ve got a
physical disability and that Hannah’s my carer who was driving me to my
appointment this morning. Then I add umm, should someone please call emergency
services? We’re both fine but Hannah might be stuck in her seat coz your car
t-boned ours near where her car door is… The driver of the car that t-boned us
said don’t worry; my wife’s already ringing and help will be on the way very
soon. He was actually very nice; since Hannah’s car door had been jammed shut
by the force of the impact his car had made with ours, he had opened the rear
passenger door, reached around and patted Hannah’s shoulder soothingly until
emergency services arrive, lights blazing and sirens wailing. The firies arrive
first; seeing the damage done to Hannah’s car door and the fact that she can’t
open it and get out prompts the firemen to discuss the need to cut her out.
Next the ambos arrive hot on the heels of the fire engine, again with lights
blazing and sirens wailing. When the paramedic approaches my open car window, I
tell him that we’re both fine but that Hannah’s car door is stuck and she can’t
get out. He walks over to Hannah’s side of the car and confirms that with her
while pulling at the door. Yup, she’s definitely stuck. Then the ambo comes up
with the smart idea of getting Hannah to climb from the driver’s seat into the
backseat and exit the car that way! While she’s in the process of doing that,
he looks at me. “Stay here,” he instructs. “I’ll come back for you next.” Uh,
I’m extremely physically disabled and am in no condition to just open the car
door and waltz away without falling flat on my arse? Oh, wait, the ambo doesn’t
know that! When he returns for me, he beckons me out. As I’m manoeuvring myself
awkwardly from the car I explain to him that I’ve got a pre-existing brain
injury that’s totally unrelated to what just happened today and that while I
can walk some, I’m just terribly bad at it. The ambo leads me to a waiting
stretcher and bids me lie down. Me: ah, aren’t I meant to walk and climb into
the ambulance just like how Hannah’s about to do in front of us? You can see
that I can walk some, and if mother sees me getting a free ride when I could be
walking like everyone else she’ll bite my head off. The paramedic replies yes,
but since you walk slowly because of your brain injury it’s best if you just
get onto the stretcher and we clear the crash site ASAP because traffic’s
already building up around here. Fair enough. I clamber awkwardly onto the
stretcher, the ambo loads me into the back of the ambulance and the driver in
the front starts driving. I’m presuming we’ll go to the QE2, because that’s
where I was carted off to when I first collapsed with my brain injury back in
2007 but then the ambo informs us we’re going to the P.A.
After we arrive, one of the doctors of the emergency
department comes over and says he’s just gonna check that we’re both alright.
Seeing that Hannah’s closer to him than I am, he starts with her first, tapping
here and there, asking does here hurt? Does there hurt? Hannah reported some
mild shoulder pain (which was totally understandable, considering we’d been
t-boned on her side of the car) and the doctor does some gentle manipulations,
again asking his does here hurt and does there hurt questions. Then he gets
Hannah to perform movements like standing on one foot with both hands behind
your back; I remember thinking gosh I hope he doesn’t ask me to do that coz
I’ve obviously got sh*tty balance post brain injury and would most likely just
topple over if I attempted such postures! XD
Satisfied that Hannah’s uninjured, the doctor next
approaches me. Before he can start tapping my back and asking his does this
hurt and does that hurt questions, I quickly explain to the doctor that I’ve
got a pre-existing brain injury that’s totally unrelated to what happened today
and while I can stand and walk some, I very much doubt I’d be able to do what
Hannah just did when she stood on one leg with both hands behind her back and
not topple over … luckily, the doctor seemed content to lemme stay seated in
the stretcher that the ambo had initially loaded me into while he did his
tapping and asking did this hurt and did that hurt questions. He also ran both
hands along my four limbs; when he encounters my AFO inside my jeans he pauses;
I quickly explain that I wear an orthotic and did he wanna see/take off? Just
that if he removed the orthotic I wouldn’t be walking anywhere … I reach over
and start rolling up the pant leg, but once the doctor sees the outline of the
AFO he goes don’t worry it’s all good.
Deciding that we’re both okay, the doctor goes and prints us
both a discharge letter each, before leaving with our thanks and byes. Shortly
after, both mother and Davina arrive; Davina to drive Hannah back to our place
so she can collect her tank and mother to drive me home. Obviously, the Camry
was written off after being T-boned; cars can survive a bruised bum but when I
saw a photo of the Camry even I knew he was a goner … the entire side slightly
behind the driver’s seat had been crushed in. Still, I’m immensely grateful
that Hannah was basically uninjured; had she gone a little slower/the driver
that t-boned us been a little quicker; the impact would’ve been precisely over
her car door! O_o Cars can be replaced but people can’t …
One more story for 2020: in October, dad suddenly takes
mother and I for a short holiday to Ballandean for five days and four nights!
You’ve never heard of the place before either? XD It’s somewhere near Stanthorpe.
It’s also very close to the border of QLD and NSW; one day,
we had lunch at a café that was actually right along the border, meaning part
of the café was in NSW and the other part was in QLD! After the obligatory
photo with one foot in either state, to get back to our rented car, we had to
walk a short distance inside enemy territory to reach where we’d parked our rented
car. Obviously post disabling brain injury I walk very slowly – I’m just
grateful that I can walk at all, considering the cruel and unfaithful God had
originally intended for me to not even stand again, let alone walk
>< - but you can bet for the about five minutes when I was walking inside
enemy territory I tried to ambulate as fast as I was able; I was rather apprehensive
that suddenly a policeman would come flying out of somewhere, crash tackle me
to the ground and have me stranded behind enemy lines forever! Phew, I’m safely
back in Queensland now … XD
Well it’s exactly two weeks until the 25th; I
just want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a safe and prosperous New
Year. Obviously 2020 has been unlike any other year we’ve ever experienced, but
I hope your 2021 will be filled with lotsa fun and adventure! Thankfully with
the technology available to everyone nowadays it’s much easier to stay in touch
so I look forward to remaining in contact with everyone over the next year,
whether it be in-person or just via the internet.
The second year of the new decade awaits!
Cheers,
Em. ^^
P.S. Next post here … prolly a post detailing how I spent
Christmas and Boxing Day this year~
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