A deeper reality

The strangest thing happened to me today.

I was at work and started to feel like it wasn't real where I was. I knew it was real, but I felt like it wasn't. Like the psychical world I was in wasn't actually my reality. Everything was going on around me, but it all seemed distant, and although I was involved in it there seemed nothing that would stop my feeling of unreality. This lasted for a while. In fact I got into a joking conversation with one of the blokes there that I felt like Alice in Wonderland; that I wasn't in Texas anymore. 

There's been a lot of changes at work in the last year or so, which I've pointed out previously here, which may have contributed to said feelings. The place has gone from a friendly trusting environment to one of fear and accusations. On top of that we're now all walking around in fluorescent orange shirts. On top of that is some new declaration we can't have mobile phones on the shop floor (yeah right, hello it's 2011). 

I was quipping that perhaps there had been a tear in the space/time continuum, and that in fact we'd crossed over into some parallel universe where mobile phones didn't exist. It was an hilarious conversation. But things had gone so strange at work that these declarations from Rambo (i.e. the factory manager) were making it all seem very surreal. 

On the way home I started thinking about all of this. My reality is so far removed.

My reality doesn't involve such things. Reality for me isn't about how much money I have, or even how little of it I have. It's about interaction with the world and life. About emotions, feelings, whatever they are. It's experiencing those emotions and feelings. About making time to do so. It's about life, love, hate, disappointment, fear, anger, happiness, sadness, and all things you feel.

My reality involves more than just having sex. It involves making love. More than just the physical act of doing so, but the way you feel (beyond words) when you connect with someone beyond that simply physical act. The physical act is just an expression of those feelings and emotions. You both just know what to do with each other. It's like a deeper world takes over in those times. It's way beyond just a fuck.

Simon has said he will try to come to Sydney soon. He's bought a new car as his other one busted. I've not allowed myself to miss him much the last months as I dunno when I'll be seeing him next. I do find myself missing him now though, and very much looking forward to a stay from him here. We both very much feel alike....
 

Money money money

Daughter is working today, and is doing 3 days at the same child care centre. Finally she's starting to get some work through this new agency. It has killed me the last 3 weeks or so as she spent all her tax return money and then ended up with nothing. So I got no rent money off her at all. I'll be able to afford to live without the two days of work, but not if I get nothing for the spare room she's in. Came home from the financial guru last week and told her straight out, I can't afford to live without any money off her. Lay it on a bit too, told her I was in danger of loosing the place without it. 

She's finally started giving money since then. $50 on Friday and another $50 today. She got paid from the Youth Allowance yesterday, she has to report her earnings to them online every fortnight and they adjust each payment accordingly. This time working 3 days in a row it may put her over the limit and she won't get anything for the Youth Allowance, but I said you're better off like that anyway rather than having to rely on Centrelink. She offered to up the rent too, to $150 a week when she gets back to full time (she's got a job lined up in a week or 2) which surprised me. Of course I said yes, in fact I was going to tell her I was upping it to that anyway. Last week I had to pay the rent on a credit card FFS. 

Haven't heard anything back from the guru yet. Have only emailed and not rung. Think ringing would almost be hastening the financial apocalypse. Sent him the update on all my debt $. Paid a payment on the personal loan yesterday. Um, also got some cash advanced on the Mastercard and credited it to my main card I want to keep. I'll have enough on that to tide me over the apocalypse hopefully, and they won't be able to touch it being in credit. Probably the wrong thing to do. But hey it's damage control! 

Not actually bleeding my heart over the banks, fuck they're the ones that gave me all this money in the first place. Even now if I still just carried on and did nothing, I've still got another nearly $35,000 I could put on them before everything got maxed out. Just mental really. I'd end up in about $60,000 debt at least. Even working full time I wasn't on any spectacular wage, just average. I'd have no hope of ever paying it back. 

Quiet day home today. Will go get something to have for lunch at work the next 3 days, from the supermarket shortly.  

Understanding HIV

Seeing the psychologist finally today, after the week delay from being sick. The Yellow Slime Disease appears still slightly present, with the odd bit of horror movie worthy material still coming out now and then. Nearly finished the other antibiotics that I got for it, so is a bit of a worry. Don't want it to come back like before. Took the repeats as well, the chemist across the road from the doctors was really nice and gave me the repeats without me having to make a second visit. I guess I will see if there's any worsening after stopping the pills, and go to the doctor straight away if there is. Not going to try and do the brave manly thing anymore and assume I don't need a doctor. It always seems to end in tears when I do that.

Am concerned about how quickly I fell apart over it all in my head. Although it was a long time to be sick like that; a whole month. Discouraging for anyone. And I just can't describe how bad the pain was with it all. Mouth ulcers are terrible to get even on their own (as I said I've gotten them off and on all my life) but to have the whole inside of my mouth red and inflamed along with throat and nose, was excruciating. Just simply breathing hurt.

I also didn't appreciate some comments from people who were I suppose trying to help. But it just made me pissed off at them. Saying for example that "everyone is sick with it", the inference being that I should stop complaining about it as I'm only experiencing the same thing as the general population. WTF? There were a couple of people sick with it at work, but none of them had it like I did. Try having it on top of bloody HIV and then come and tell me it's just the same as everyone else.

I know this disease has been studied a lot, and the research into it has been mind boggling. But on the other hand I wonder if some people understand it at all.

Found a good site this morning that summed up the progression of HIV (untreated) very well. I particularly liked the graph they had there, showing initial infection and the relationship between the viral load and the CD4 count over time. I'm now in the second phase after seroconversion/acute infection.

The course of the HIV disease 

Mood improves

Cold rainy day in Sydney. Cat walked outside, took one look at it, and walked back in. The rain started Friday night and hasn't let up since. Constant and looks like it's getting heavier. Good in a way as we haven't had much lately, and I guess with Spring you'd expect some. It's quite dark too. 

Am just doing normal boring stuff. Washing the new work shirts we got given, ugh they are hideous. Fluorescent orange. This is the new rage in factories, to dress people in fluorescent colours so they can be seen. Apparently everyone went partially blind about 10 years ago and companies have had to make people wear bright colours for visibility. 

The depressive mood yesterday seems to have passed. Actually felt like getting out of bed today at 8am. Then promptly fell back to sleep. I got up at 10am. There was of course very exciting things awaiting my attention on getting up, like doing the dishes and washing, and of course feeding puss. She woke me up this morning at 6:30, loudly meowing next to the bedroom door. But think she just wanted attention, as she jumped on the bed and I patted her, much to her pleasure. Plonked down and went to sleep on the bed. 

Still dunno why I felt so bad yesterday.

 

Feeling low

Woke up this morning feeling very low. Not sure why, whether it was because of bad dreams, or just the weeks events. I have had some extremely real dreams the last few nights, so real in fact that I find myself remembering bits and pieces of them through the day and have to think whether that actually happened, or if it was just part of a dream. This has only been happening since the antibiotics have cleared my throat and nose and I've been able to go into a deep sleep at night. The only strong thing I'm taking pill wise is the happy pills, but have been on those since 2009. 

But anyway was feeling so depressed for whatever reason. Luckily I was able to go back to sleep off and on and not think about how bad I felt. The cat was fine not getting fed at the crack of dawn like she does on work days. Sometimes on my days off work she meows her bloody head off and is so impatient. Sits there just inside the bedroom door looking at me and meowing loudly, over and over. And when I finally do get up on those days sometimes she's simply done a shit in the litter and wants me to go flush it. Sheesh! Would be lovely to be a cat, waited on hand and foot. This morning though she was happy to just sleep on the bed with me. Helped with my mood a bit I think, having her there like that. It's a nice atmosphere with her there.

Stayed in bed and didn't get up till about 3pm. Just didn't want to face the day.  

The cost of bad luck

I've made my decision. I've emailed the financial guru that I want to go ahead with trying to get my money out of my superannuation account, via my doctors and all. 

I have a very strong case, even though they are very strict with early release of Super funds now. The laws have been tightened up enormously over the last 15 or so years and it's extremely difficult I've recently discovered to get my hands on it before it's due (which is only 7 years away for me anyway). To do so is some kind of major convincing job, with full documentation from not just my GP but highly qualified specialist doctors. But after what I've been through not only this year, but in about the last 5 years, I will be very surprised if I get knocked back. 

If that doesn't work and my super must remain untouched, then it'll just have to be bankruptcy. If the case is such I just can't see any other way out of it.

The doctors and professionals would not be lying in saying how important it is for me to get rid of this debt. Apart from the simple financial stress of it all, there has been nothing happy about it's build up over the last 5 years. I didn't blow it all on a holiday, or jaunt around town in an expensive car. It went on court, or trying to forget the horror of what I was going through.

Everything about this debt is a reminder of the past, and of all the pain involved. However it happens, I absolutely need to remove it from my life.  

I have started now preparing for the Apocalypse. I have made some, um, "adjustments" to the debts. My core credit card is now in credit. It will I hope not be touched. It's about damage control I guess.

Health wise I have continued to improve re the terrible throat/nose/mouth thing whilst taking the antibiotics. Just started the second card. I'm hoping the stress involved with the Apocalypse won't be too great.

They finally fixed my pay at work. I am now getting the princely sum of $519 a week after tax. I suppose that's not bad for 3 days. One thing the money bloke said too, was that working full time wouldn't have made much of a difference at all to my apocalyptic situation. Dunno why, but that made me feel slightly better.

Moving towards a decision

Went to work today. My head still spinning about the whole $'s thing. Still upset about it. Knew it was bad but not that bad.

Thinking more and more to go the Superannuation thing, no doubt my doctors will back me up all the way with it. But I'm hugely worried about the stress levels involved in doing so. The $ guru mentioned yesterday that stress goes straight to the immune system. I guess he would know being involved in such cases. I'm sure that the reason I've been so sick the last month is because of those 2 weeks of stress I had at work, although I dunno how provable that would be. 

To go the route of the above involves taking about 2 months to get approval for the release of funds. I reckon it'd be successful, but WTF am I going to do about the stress with it all in the meantime? I have psychological issues involving stress, and in fact suffer from Post Traumatic Stress over past life events. 

I don't think I have a choice though. I simply have to do something about this debt. Otherwise the long term stress will just eat away at me indefinitely. 

The guru strikes

Well, I am really fucked financially. Really really incredibly fucked. Pretty much the result of the meeting today with the financial guru.

The debt has gone up slightly of late, although I hadn't noticed. $25,000 to $28,000. I can't ever pay that with what I'm earning now. Utterly impossible. There are some options however. 

The first one is to declare bankruptcy. That would wipe all my debts, but it would also mean I couldn't get any sort of credit for 7 years. That means even applying for another rental place privately I would very likely be knocked back. Or anything else remotely to do with credit I'd be fucked. I wouldn't even be able to buy groceries on a credit card when I had no money. This option is the last resort, and one I don't want to do.

Another option is to go the whole hog, give up work, and go on the Disability Support Pension. Without going into detail, it would provide me with the same amount of disposable income as I would get now if my daughter was paying rent. It's tempting, but I really do want to try and keep working if I can. I would rather my daughter learn to pull her weight, than me have to quit a job of nearly 13 years just to try and get by. Yes I am a bit stuborn about this. I'm only 49, relatively healthy, and see no reason why I should go into early retirement. 

Another option is to apply for my superannuation to be released to pay my debts. This is the option I am leaning towards. It's incredibly hard to get the funds released, even though I have $100,000, lurching it looks like from crisis to crisis and earning no interest. It involves huge amounts of paperwork and major documentation in my favour. The strategy is that I'm under so much stress from these debts that it has become a medical problem. The HIV viral load is directly affected by stress, as the immune system is. Therefore to release the funds would be in the interests of my health. The financial guru in this case takes charge.

He negotiates with the creditors, the superannuation company, and my doctors.

It also involves though the canning of my credit cards, telling the creditors that I'm unable to even pay the minimum monthly payment, which BTW I'm not. But only those cards that are not paid off. Those that are paid off escape. 

I've told him I need time to think about all of this. My core credit card is almost paid off completely, and I do want that one to remain. I've had that one for nearly 30 years, and all my regular payments go out of it. That way I can just pay over the next time period. I'll get that stuff in order if I'm going to go the way of getting my super out over financial stress. If the card is paid then it's not a debt, simple. 

Other than that I'm upset by it all. I have always been very good with money. Up until about 5 years ago I had $2,000 in the bank and everything was paid. Most of this debt has been right out of my control. 

Now look at it.........

On the mend

Finally am starting to feel better. Have gone through nearly the whole bottle of gargle stuff, I don't know how many boxes of Panadol, and so far about half a card of antibiotics. They are doing the job at least. Still sore in the mouth but not like before, and much less blood coming out my nose in the morning.

It has been so bad all this. I nearly went up to the hospital on a couple of days there. It has really knocked me around this time. Worrying too how I reacted in the head. Have rescheduled the psychologist for next Monday.

Quiet day home today.

 

Improvement?

Another bad night of Panadol taking, mouthwash gargling, and steam vaporizer breathing. Woke up about every 2 hours in severe pain, this time with huge headache as well. It's always worse at night. Encouraging though as it seems like the Panadol is actually helping the mouth soreness for about an hour and a half, which before it wasn't doing much at all. 

Was encouraged to go up the pub yesterday. Didn't feel like it, but thought maybe just getting out would do me good. Didn't stay long, but it was still good to get me out of my own head. Did a bit of shopping before home, and made a nice lamb stew thing for dinner. Came out very well, and put some in the fridge for today. Lots of vegetables. Could only eat half a bowl though before it got too painful eating it. 

Today I still feel like shit, but the Panadol is helping. Thank fuck. Massive headache as well. So far I've taken 4 of the antibiotics. Think they're helping.

Trying not to think of how sick of it all I am today. Going to the pub for a couple of beers and a chat. Yes, I know you're not supposed to drink with antibiotics, whatever  ..... 

Dealing with sickness

I think I'm over my fit of despair, for the moment anyway. It all just got on top of me for a little while. Went to bed after that last post Thursday night and lay there crying. The pain was so back in my head, nose, throat, back. When I start crying like that I worry if I'll be able to stop, but thankfully those days seem to have finally passed. Have said on many occasions over the last few years, am glad there's no gun in the house. I'd had been dead long ago.

Was still pretty upset in the morning. But went through the rituals of nose blowing and pill taking, so as to get myself to work. Being as it was Friday it's only one day I thought and then 4 days off. However I got worse and worse through the day. Rang at 8am from work to get a doctors appt after work, and my particular GP was booked out for the day. But as I had to see someone, I just saw another doctor at the centre who was available, just before 5pm. 

By the time I got there after work, it wasn't only my throat, but my whole mouth was sore and inflamed, and mouth ulcers had sprung up from nowhere. I couldn't talk without it hurting, and I was in quite a state darlings. Teary and defeated. Typical big brave effort by me, as usual it all ended in tears. Maybe I should just start seeing the doctor at the drop of a hat, instead of trying to be some kind of idiot hero?

The doctor I saw I'd seen also earlier this year not long after getting out of hospital, when I needed prescriptions and my GP was booked out again. He was surprised at how severe things were in my mouth, especially with the added ulcer pains. I've got ulcers all my life, even as a kid. There's some debate at what causes them, perhaps stress. They can be extremely painful. He did ask if it may be from sex, but as I haven't been out and was only tested the other week for everything, no that wasn't a possibility. It looks like the original sore throat I had wasn't completely cleared by the antibiotics, as that's when the Yellow Slime Disease began to appear, pretty much straight after ending them.

So he gave me a name of a super duper gargle thing from the chemist that kills bazillions of germs and is an anesthetic. It works well. Simon suggested the old salt in water thing, OMG I think I'd pass out from the pain putting salt in my mouth. Lovely dear he means well, but FFS, salt? Doc also gave me more antibiotics, these ones are different than the last. Called "Clamoxyl", a mixture of Amoxycillin 500mg, and potassium clavulanate 125mg. Have to take them immediately with food, unlike the other ones.

Emailed the psychologist and cancelled my appt Monday with him, he will email back with a new one. I don't want to turn up there if I can help it with this sickness. I'm sneezing as well. There's a lot of HIV+ people go there and I'd not want to pass this on to them. Will give the dentist a miss on Monday too. Was scheduled to have my teeth cleaned, but given the painful state of things I'm not going to want anyone messing around in my mouth. I'll reschedule that one too. Teeth cleaning sounded a bit lame to me for a dentist appt, but oral hygiene is particularly important for people with HIV.

Daughter got the "Youth Allowance" off Centrelink. Now that I'm poor she can get it, as it goes on my income until she's 21. Dunno how much it is, very little I think, but better than nothing. She can also work up to 15 hours a week and still get it. She's planning to finish her studies re child care whilst doing this, and after she's qualified will be extremely in demand employment wise. She's got fuck all work from this new agency as well, and hasn't paid any rent for a couple of weeks now. She'll get back paid from Centrelink when she starts getting paid, to the date she first applied, and told me she will give me as much rent as she can out of that. I mentioned to her how I got back paid earlier this year for the Sickness Allowance, which came to nearly $1,000 in one week. 

Fuck it

The usual shit today. Hard getting up, blood out of nose, got through work, blah blah fuckin blah.

Home after it all. Horrible day it was. Felt worse today than before. Have to go to work, and yesterday it wasn't so bad there, but today was struggling. Should've taken the eye drops as they were itching and irritated like mad. Watering all day. Blowing crap out of nose all day. Used up the Panadol and bought more on the way home. Fuck man, if I was an animal they'd shoot me. 

Had enough eh. Just fuckin had enough.

Is this my life now? Am I just having a bad run (oh how familiar) or am I now going to be spending months on end like this? If it's the later I don't think I want to hang around for it.

I mean just look at me. HIV+, in debt beyond my capacity to pay, failing at work, seeking charities for a pittance, and now I'm supposed to live in sickness indefinitely? 

Fuck this shit.   

Constantly sick

Woke up this morning to the sound of the alarm for work. I hardly ever hear it as I usually wake up about half an hour before. It's just set to a low volume on the radio, just enough to wake me up, but I knew on hearing it that it was going to be a struggle getting up.

I lay there trying to clear the dream from my head (forget what it was now). Trying to wake up. It'd been a long night. I'd gone to bed in the afternoon before with a shocking headache from the sinus thing, had to keep taking Panadol to help with the pain. The vaporizer, although helping, seemed less effective (tonight I've moved it to nearer me). Sitting up I started to blow my nose as has been the thing for over a week now. Blood was coming out of both nostrils today, but after keeping on blowing it cleared. It took about 10 minutes to get my nose clear. 

So it was time to get dressed and all. First ting I did was take more Panadol, as the pain inside my nose was extreme; hard crap ripping off already bloodied and damaged nose insides. Head pounding from it in the sinuses. I put eye drops to do something for the eye irritation. Sat there on the edge of the bed, looked at the cat next to me (what a darling) and told her "I'm fucked puss". The cat replied "meow", in a very caring way. I think she actually understood.

Getting up though I felt slightly better, especially with a now clear nose. Had coffee, put my lunch in the bag from the fridge that I'd made. Not so bad at work but had to keep taking Panadol for the headache all day, and sinus pain. Certainly a struggle at work, but hey I did it. Not very productive but was present all day.

The HR person came and had me sign the amended thing re my new shift, this time with the correct hourly rate on it. I will also be back paid any incorrect pay.

My GP emailed me back after I sent him a thing saying it would be very hard now to pay to see him. He said that was fine and will bulk bill me now. Think will make an appt next week on my days off.

BGF rang and gave me an appt for their financial guru next Tues.

So yeah things aren't too bad eh. *slaps face* It's just hard to realise that when I'm constantly sick. 

"Your immune system is working"

Not a good night last night. The nose seems to be clearing a bit, but am blowing out blood in the mornings. Freaked out at first, until I realised it was just built up there from overnight and not some big nose bleed. Eyes were irritated and itching, and put drops in them twice through the night. The steam vaporizer is definitely helping though, and the fluid is almost clear now. Still, the whole thing is giving me a constant headache both day and night. And nauseous. Like I'm walking around in a fog.

Had soup for dinner last night, plus chucked a whole lot of vegetables in it. Didn't season it much at all. Went down well and no indigestion. There's some left over today in the fridge so I'll add something to it for tonight. Maybe even have it for lunch. Also want to start trying to take my own food to work instead of eating the cafeteria crap. Did one day last week, just sandwiches, but enjoyed it much more than the food there; been sitting there for at least an hour sometimes. Rice starts going hard and things start shriveling from being kept warm for that long. 

Someone said something yesterday that made me think. I was relating how I was constantly ill lately and was going to discuss the possibility of going back on medication next visit to the HIV doctor. But this bloke said that having cold and flu symptoms means that your immune system is actually working, and that people with very weakened immunity don't get those symptoms. I'd never heard of such a thing. I asked "Then what do they get?", and he said "Tired". Also that there'd been a lot of colds and flu's in the general population lately and I was probably just experiencing that.

I dunno, that's another way of looking at it I suppose. It doesn't take away from the fact though that even though my immune system is working, it has to work much harder than everyone else's in the general population. As someone experiencing it directly, to me it's like the immune system chucks everything at the HIV, and deals with colds and flu as secondary. 

Sometimes I wonder about people involved in support with HIV, whether they really understand what's going on with us. It all sounds very nice in theory, but get in my body and go through my shit for a few months, then come back and say "Oh don't worry about it, your being sick shows your immune system is working". Fuck off. 

Yeah, it's working alright. It's up to it's fuckin eyeballs. 

It's official

I am now a charity case. I became a client of the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation today.

It's early days, but already they tell me they will pay for medication, including over the counter vitamins and supplements. They've given me a form to take to my doctor to list everything I take.  I will be getting an appt soon to see their financial bloke, after which they will have more of an idea of their services I can access.

I have very mixed feelings. I've never before had help from a charity. I'm told they get funding from the gov, but they are privately run and have funds from donations mainly. Before now I've always relied on the system. I've always got the help I've needed or gotten through with my own efforts.

It's like HIV is too much for the system. Too much for my efforts. Both have come short.

Sick of it today

Starting to get sick of the Yellow Slime Disease. Woke up this morning and felt like I had the flu or something, eyes watering. Put eye drops in for that. Blew my nose and great chunks of bloodied slime came out. Absolutely disgusting, looked like something out of a horror movie. Inside of nose sore from it drying out and cementing itself to the insides. Head aching, sore back, just getting the shits with it all. 

Got my first pay for only 3 days. And guess what, work fucked it up. Paid me the wrong hourly rate, about $1 an hour too little. FFS am so sick of this. Obviously their incompetence knows no bounds. If I fucked up as many times as them I'd be fired, and rightly so. So I've had to email the dept head, with scanned attachments of the relevant stuff, and tell him to fix it. I still got $500 after tax though, which I thought was pretty good. 

Fuck this, I'm going to the pub.

 

Bio-hazard bin

Since stopping the antibiotics, I have slowly got more and more yellow slime. I have dubbed it Yellow Slime Disease.

It is produced in my nose. If not blown out constantly it develops into hardened yellow nose crap, covered in more liquid slime. My nose isn't in pain through this slime horror, but of late it's getting me pissed off man.

I have to blow my nose two or three times through the night. In that time there are so many solid yellow slime things attached to the inside of my nostrils (due to the hardening of the slime crap from actually breathing) that my nose is completely blocked and I have to breath through my mouth. Uncomfortable as the lips and mouth dry out.

On blowing my nose I feel the solid projectiles come loose and fly into the tissue. I'm sorry but I have to look, out of curiosity, at WTF just got ejected. Hard core yellow hard things, along with hard core yellow slime. But it gets even worse...

Last couple of days all this activity in my nose has just been too much for it's delicate-ness. The yellow slime hard things now includes bits of blood. Fucks sake, looks like now I'm blowing HIV into the tissues. Oh it's so joyous being a bio-hazard! 

Not that I'm even showing anyone my tissues, or smearing the contents over them. But wow, my work rubbish bin is a bio-hazard FFS! Glad the guy who changes it wears gloves, or I'd have to tell him not to touch the tissues in there. 

Work after 4 days off

Felt physically sick yesterday afternoon and into the night, and had the runs for a bit in the middle of the night. I reckon it was about how I was feeling about going to work in the morning. There a some major psychological issues with work now for me. The mere thought of it after 4 days away from the place has such an effect. 

Got there today, to stories of more people leaving. One supervisor guy has been there for about 10 years I think, and left today. Along with another bloke supervising the night shift. This on top of all the office people voting with their feet. I dunno where the fuck they found this factory manager but he's at the point now of doing real damage to the place. Someone with 10 years experience there is a huge loss for the place, yet they're so arrogant that he was going to be fired if he didn't quit. Ten years of service, but suddenly he's a fuckwit. Yeah right...  I'm glad I'm in the union.

I had a meeting with the factory manager today, with the dept head, to review the last month. It was uneventful. I got the union guy in there to make sure. I've never seen the factory manager so polite. There wasn't much to discuss as I'd done everything by their book.

Daughter got signed up with a new agency today and quit the other one. She's only had 2 days work in 3 weeks FFS. This new agency is big with branches around Australia, and says they're very busy. Told her she can start tomorrow if she wants.

I'm off to bed after a bit of dinner. Nite all. 

Financial Counselor

Day two away from work. I am enjoying this. I have time now to do things that I otherwise wouldn't have.

Had an interesting visit with the psychologist yesterday afternoon. The subject came up about my mental state and the affect that may have on my ability to work, as well as the obvious physical side of it. It's been a number of years now with huge traumas on top of each other. Perhaps the time off will give space to breath and opportunities to do more pleasant things than bashing my head against a far right Capitalist wall. 

I don't think that was helping my mental state at all.  I feel it definitely is the thing after a period of stress like that, when your whole body relaxes both mentally and physically. I haven't particularly noticed how stressed I was until the last couple of days of not being at work. Have been tired, as would be expected when you relax like that. Last two nights have slept solidly for at least 10 hours.

Decided to give the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation a go.

http://bgf.org.au/site/

They look way more friendlier than a gov dept. Sent off an email yesterday and they rang me only about an hour later. I want to go see one of their financial counselors who can maybe wave some magic wand over my money catastrophes. In order to do that though I have to become a client of theirs. That means basically giving them proof of my financial dire straights, and proof that I'm HIV positive. No worries. 

Have printed out most of my last two months statements from various accounts online, and had the last one in a drawer (my login has never worked for that bank so I've never gone to paperless statements with them). Got also the thing I signed at work for the new shift, saying how much I will earn and all. Payslips if they want them too. Psychologist gave me a letter re being HIV+, as I was diagnosed at that centre anyway. Have an appt next Mon for the "Intake Assessment".

Back to dreary work tomorrow. Ugh. I hope this new speaker thing I got will help. Still can't believe the sound that comes out of the thing. Here's a pic. The little thing plugged into it via the white cord is my 4 gig MP3 player would you believe.

First day off

For my first day off I have an appt with the psychologist this afternoon. I'm hoping I'll feel a lot more relaxed there than usual. In the past I've had to turn up after working all day and have cancelled a number of times because of fatigue. Or I'm sitting there too tired to say much at all and end up leaving early.

I also have the plumber coming around as our hot water went off over the weekend. That would have been a hassle had I been at work trying to organise a plumber. The hot water system is an old one up in the roof. He has to get up through the man hole in the bathroom to see what's wrong with it. I checked the fuse box but it all looks fine to me. 

It was so good not having to go to that horrible work today. 

Fathers Day

Not in a very good mood today. Feeling angry. Nothing to do with daughter, just was treated badly yesterday by a couple of people at the pub. It's no biggie, and I do have the habit of over reacting these days. But still, it wasn't what I'd expect. Think will just not bother with it for a while. 

Is Fathers Day today. Daughter got me a card and some MP3's on a disk of Lady Gaga. A nice thought. I don't expect anything at all, just a card would have been fine. Transferred the files into a new folder on the MP3 player. 

Yesterday I bought little portable speakers for it. It's one of those dock things for Ipods, but it has an Aux plug in as well in the back, so my MP3 player plugs straight in. It's only little, a round thing, but the sound that comes from it is amazing for something that size. Got it for work as they've decided it's dangerous to have music earplugs in and you can't hear anything. Will easily fit in my bag. 

Think I may just watch some telly and do a bit of shopping later. Nothing planned.  

Spring. New life.

It's Spring in Sydney. Was reminded of it at the bus stop leaving work on the 1st Sept. Noticed the tree across the road, and remembered last year when it was covered in yellow flower things. Dunno what sort of tree it is, or even if it's a native to Australia. But it looks very nice. Doesn't last long, only a week or two and they all drop off.

 Makes me think of new life. New beginnings. All the plants are flowering now, as we had a very warm last month of winter. Strange after all that intense cold, then to have an un-seasonally warm month. I stopped wearing my winter jacket to work a couple of weeks ago as it was too hot, even in the early mornings. 

Finished the week at work. Did the whole 5 days. By the end of the week it was really hard going. Made sure I did it as it's the last 5 days. Next week I'm off Mon and Tues. , and only work Wed-Fri. Will find out next week exactly what I'll get after tax as I started this week with Wed-Fri. 

Have had a couple of evenings at the pub. Don't think it helped with work going Thurs as I ended up with a terrible headache and backache on Fri. Just took Panadol for it. Wasn't so bad after a few hours. Will be having to stop going there so much now, simply because of money.