XMas Greetings 2022

 Heylo, one and all! Suddenly this new decade doesn’t look quite so new anymore – just like that, we’re already like one-third of the way through it! How has 2022 been for you and your family?

 

Unfortunately, this year began with two incredibly low lows for me, the first being one whole DECADE since I’d been back to Hong Kong to visit all my beloved family and all my awesome friends who live over there. See, while in HK, mother and I usually stay with her younger sister, who lives at the top of some very steep hill. When on level ground, I can wheel and steer myself around just fine (however slowly) because I have one more/less functioning hand and one more/less functioning leg to propel myself forward and steer with, but unfortunately I’m not physically strong enough to wheel myself uphill with. Hence why for those three weeks back in 2012 when the parents and I had gone back to HK to visit family and friends that task fell to my dearest dad, and as a result, he hurt his back. That’s when he made the decision that I’d not go back anymore; instead, mother and him would take turns going. Several years ago, when the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) came in, a church physio friend recommended that the parents get me a new electric wheelchair because the current funding scheme for them would be phased out. When this new electric wheelchair arrived, I very excitedly asked mother was she gonna book our flight tickets back to HK like, tonight? Because see, with this fancy new electric wheelchair, I wouldn’t need dad to push me up that steep hill anymore; I can control the joystick myself and drive myself up! You cannot believe how PISSED I was when mother very smugly told me that no, since it was only an INDOORS electric wheelchair, I was still stuck in Brisbane while she and my dearest dad took turns going back to HK without me. >< In that case, why’d she even bother to get that electric wheelchair?! It’s not like I’m ever allowed to use it, you know; nope, the poor thing just sits uncharged and unloved in the garage. I’m fairly certain I’ve actually used it fewer than the number of fingers I have on one hand. >< What a total waste of money … *sigh*

 

The other reason leaving me feeling hopeless about life in general this year was that Feb. the 3^rd, 2022, marked FIFTEEN YEARS since the cruel and unfaithful God had so wantonly destroyed my life with the brain tumour, multiple botched surgeries and subsequent massive stroke, leaving me a complete disabled bum and totally useless to society. Back in 2012, on the 5^th year anniversary of this incident, I was back in HK visiting all my beloved family and awesome friends and didn’t dwell too much on that incident (although I did write a special blog post on it). Five years later, on the 10^th year anniversary of me suffering this brain injury, I’d thought, well, I’m still as disabled as ever but surely, surely, fifteen years will be enough? Surely, after fifteen years of disability, the cruel and unfaithful God will turn His near-overwhelming hatred on someone He despises more than He hates me and leave me alone to pick up the shattered shards of my life? But when Feb. the 3^rd, 2022 arrived and I was still so incredibly disabled, I came to the conclusion that the cruel and unfaithful God doesn’t actually give a sh*t that He’s totally destroyed my life. Fair enough, I’m less than a drop of water in the mighty ocean and less than a single grain of sand in the vast desert. It’s not like I even matter in the slightest. If this blasted brain injury only affected me, seriously, who’d even care? I’m absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Unfortunately, that’s not the case at all; seeing as I’m my parents’ only child, it’s obviously my responsibility to look after and provide for them once they retire from work and get too old to look after themselves, but how the heck can I do that when the cruel and unfaithful God has left me so freaking disabled I need a little help with even the most basic, simple of things, like showering and dressing? Yes, I hate myself for it. I had God more, though, coz He’s the one who did it to me. Or let it happen to me. No difference: I’m still blaming Him, because He had the power to tell Satan to leave me alone but He didn’t; knowing Him, He prolly reclined, ordered popcorn and laughed and jeered while watching it happen. >< *sigh*

 

But don’t think that this year has all been doom and gloom for me! Around March, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed one night when I saw my high school Facebook page saying they were now accepting nominations for their school alumni awards. Cheekily, I commented may I self-nominate? Whoever mans the Canterbury College Facebook page immediately replied yeah, dare you to self-nominate; love your spunk! Lol, why not? Since that action came with absolutely no threat of physical harm for me (for me, it’s always safety first; sometimes I’ll pass getting *insert object* and just do without coz since my sitting balance is alright) I actually self-nominated but then completely forgot about it because the awards were for past students who’d actually *achieved* sth, and I’d actually done jack all other than to suddenly collapse when my idiot brain randomly decided to sprout me a tumour!

You can imagine my complete astonishment when, awhile later, I’m contacted by this Mr. Greg Wacker, who introduced himself as the head of the Canterbury Centre for Entrepreneurship and Leadership and then offered me the Alumnus of the Year award! That was followed by the bolded statement 28 and under. Whoops, my bad; I obviously hadn’t read all the terms and conditions before self-nominating!! ><”

That afternoon, I immediately hit ‘reply’ and profusely apologised to Mr. Wacker; obviously I had not carefully read all the terms and conditions before self-nominating!

I ended the e-mail with thanks again for the offer of the award, sorry again for being way over the age bracket and all the best with finding a more appropriate award recipient.

You can imagine my complete astonishment (again XD) when this Mr. Wacker replies around three hours later, basically saying who cares about the age limit; the headmaster thinks you’re a worthy recipient of this award so come and get it!

Canterbury College has grown IMMENSELY since I left it in 2004; thankfully Mr. Wacker sent a map of the College with a circle around the building where the awards ceremony was to be held and after seeing the map mother decided I had better use Sparkless3 (my manual wheelchair) because surely it’d be too far for me to walk from Hannah’s tank (my carer drives a Jeep that’s much bigger than your average family car; my dearest dad actually constructed a BLOCK for me to mount first before clambering into Hannah’s tank XD) to where the awards ceremony was going to be held and all the way back to Hannah’s tank.

Fortunately, I’ve been part of a local Toastmasters club for like the last ten years and giving an acceptance speech doesn’t faze me; I even created a few giggles when I shared my adaptation of the well-known phrase ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’ into ‘when life gives you lemons, freeze them and then throw them as HARD as you can at the HEAD of the person who made life difficult for you’, which quickly became full-blown audience laughter when I quickly sheepishly amended, “Sorry Mr. Wacker; not that I’m promoting violence in schools or anything …” XD

 

Twelve years ago, I saw a trailer for some cartoon movie called Despicable Me, thought ‘twas an interesting movie and asked mother to please take me to see it. She kindly did but thought, typical kiddie movie. Nothing special. Me, however, I fell in LOVE with those little yellow, jellybean-shaped useless Minions! They try *so* hard to be bad but are just so bloody incompetent that they don’t even come near to achieving evilness. Soon, even my entire church family at BCAC (especially the littlelies) knew that Aunty Em loves the Minions!

Back in 2015, a spin-off of the Despicable Me movies was created focused solely on the Minions. One of the highlights of 2015 for me was when one of mother’s nursey friends took me to see Minions in GOLD CLASS! I remember raving how you got to sit in RECLINER ARMCHAIRS; talk about luxury!

Fast forward seven years. It’s 2022 now; Despicable Me 3 has aired and the trailer for Minions2 has just come out. I’m guessing that it’s the end of the Despicable Me franchise. After all, all good things must come to an end. You can imagine my delight when the friend who took me to see the first Minions movie in gold class said she’d take me to watch the second Minions movie in gold class, too! One day, I’d really like to watch a Lord Of The Rings length movie in GOLD CLASS; I could really get used to those recliner armchairs. XD

 

If you read my silly Xmas Greetings last year, you may remember me sharing about how mother had taken me to get a PCR test. This year, we all went one step further and CAUGHT ourselves COVID! O_o

Personally I thought that my dearest dad had caught COVID first; since he’s now a courier by trade it’d make sense that some client he’d delivered packaging to one day had simply passed COVID to him and he’d come home and given it to mother and me, although unkind mother jeered at me, of course not. Obviously you wore your facemask ‘incorrectly’, caught the virus and gave it to your father and me. Anyhow, dad went and saw a Chinese herbalist about his symptoms and brought back home herbs to boil that bitter tea with; our kitchen REEKED for days! XD One afternoon, I’d arrived home from physio/some other appointment with a carer; she’d unlocked the front door and followed me inside before like gagging and screeching, “Oh! What is that AWFUL smell?!” I’d taken a quick whiff, recognised the smell and laughed, apologising to my carer. “Sorry, dad’s just been to the Chinese herbalist and come back with herbs to boil that bitter medicinal tea with; can you please just breathe through your mouth for awhile?” XD

Since the parents and I all sit around one family table for dinner we’re in close proximity of each other; by the end of the week mother and I had both picked up a few mild flu-like symptoms from dad. On the Sunday night before I was due back for a session of physio at UQ on Monday, mother approaches me with a RAT test and orders me to do it; if I’m going to physio the next day sounding croaky and hoarse like I currently was, I’d better have a negative RAT test to prove I was COVID negative. I’d done the swab and handed it back to mother, who stuck it into the tester. Seriously, like TWO SECONDS LATER, a dark blue POSITIVE line flashed up! I was like WTF?! (Obviously not out aloud; mother doesn’t approve of swearing, see XD) How the hell had I managed to catch myself COVID?! Mother frowns at me, says wait here, your dad and I had better take a RAT test too and heads upstairs to find him. When she goes, I quickly e-mail my physio teachers at UQ, saying sorry guys, I’m not gonna be coming for physio this week coz I’ve somehow just tested POSITIVE to COVID?! Don’t even know what I’m meant to do now … self-isolate? Report my positive result to the government? See my GP? After sending off that e-mail, I literally asked Mr. Google: what do I do after testing positive to COVID? Clever Mr. Google immediately answered report your positive result to the government and, after making sure you have enough fresh food and water, self-isolate for one week. Once I’d reported my positive result to the government, one of my UQ physio teachers (the same one who honestly told me to eff off several years ago; don’t worry, she’s refrained from doing so ever since but I make sure I still tell EVERY student who’s helped me out with physio ever since she really DID tell me to eff off! XD) that I’d e-mailed informing them about my positive COVID test had already replied, saying hope your case isn’t too severe and telling me to do what I’d just found out from Mr. Google. By then, mother had come downstairs and informed me that she and dearest dad had tested positive to COVID also, but that their cases were less severe than mine because their positive line had taken much longer to appear and were a lighter blue than the result I’d been given.

Hence started our week of self-imposed isolation! Dad had gotten a mate of his to drop us off ample quantities of fresh produce to last us the week and we just all stayed home for seven days. The funny thing was that we each had different symptoms: dad and I had a wet cough while mother had a dry cough. Her systems were scarier: she reported having bouts of dizziness! O_o I was like, mother, if you’re dizzy, will you please just SIT DOWN and stop moving around?? Coz if you fall down I doubt I’m gonna be able to pull you back upright without stacking it myself! For me, I randomly got the sweats? Like, I’d be sitting in front of the computer when suddenly I’d be like DRENCHED with sweat and boiling! Tugging of a jumper; fifteen minutes later I’d haveta pull it back on since I was cold again. I repeated this when it happened again about thirty minutes later, but by the third time this happened, I was just like, stuff it. I can’t be bothered continually pulling off and putting back jumpers on; I’ll just change once more at night before I hit the sack. For me, personally, it was a very welcome break: for the first time that whole year, I didn’t have ANY therapies to attend for one ENTIRE WEEK and it really helped reduce my stress levels! Usually I’m stressed 24/7 (but have learnt to hide it ever since a physio from the outpatient department of the insane asylum (better known to everyone else as the Brain Injuries Rehab Unit of the Princess Alexandra hospital XD) taught me that if I’ve gotta freak out, freak out inside my head. Don’t disturb the real world and cause a fuss). For one blissful week, I was spared the stress of doing any blasted physio whatsoever and will secretly admit that I was actually *disappointed* to retest negative after one week of self-isolation because it meant that the very next day, I was straight back at UQ doing that dreaded therapy. XD

One more exciting thing happened this year: Brisbane won the rights to host the 2032 Olympics! Seeing as the cruel and unfaithful God has wiped out any prospects of me entering the legal field as my chosen profession, how about I become a Paralympian and represent Australia playing table tennis? This year and last year, my dearest dad and I have spent hours of precious Daddy-daughter time together when he’s taken me to church to play ping pong with him. I get a chair to sit on while playing and while unfortunately my hand-eye-co-ordination’s atrocious (my eyes would go, I see ball! Hit ball! And my hand would swing accordingly but then I’d totally miss the ball? Well, that was last year. This year, ninety-nine times out of 100 I’d hit the ball correctly but the 100^th time I’d clip the ball with the side of the bat and send the little ball flying in all directions XD) we’ve had lots of fun together! I jokingly suggested to mother hey, how about I aim to become a Paralympian in our Brisbane 2032 Olympics? She immediately jeered back viciously at me: of course you can’t; you’ll be too old by then! Well, fair enough, I’d be FORTY-FIVE! XD

 

Anyways, Christmas arrives next fortnight; please allow me to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a safe and prosperous new year! Hopefully whatever you are working at right now will continue to prosper and all the best with any new endeavours that you are looking to take up.

I don’t usually get mobile access when I’m at home but often get daily internet access so please just drop me a line whenever you’re free to catch-up! I look forward to staying in touch with everyone over 2023~

Cheers,

Em. ^^