I keep on learning about my sensitivities – it’s mind-boggling! Had someone told me I’d feel the difference between a smooth-surfaced road and a rough-surfaced road while travelling in a car I [...]
I often have some very interesting questions about living with chronic pain. Usually, they are questions relating to details that I’ve never thought of discussing, but they are so important. This page [...]
Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) has one of the best gallery gift shops. I saw this fantastic jigsaw puzzle of Friday Kahlo in [...]
I’ve been waiting a while before writing about the current state of the world and its effect on me, my life and the chronic pain. I’ve been feeling quite confident with a [...]
That was my endnote for 2019. As life evolves within my 3km radius, I find myself looking back less and less and looking forward more and more. Bitter, defines the heartache of not being able to see loved ones as often and the missing perks of our previous city life. Sweet, is being defined by new friends, the gallery, our new home and the sea that surrounds us. As for confused, another year has passed and I still don't feel anyone can quite define what's going on with my body. Does it matter heading into a new year?
I have arrived! I have lived half a century. I somehow made it through the horrid decade of my 40’s. I made it through the dark forest of chronic pain. Goodness people [...]
Being resourceful is what makes the difference — it is so hard working life out. But Theo and do it. We burrow down and we make it happen. There's no choice... or rather there was but I didn't want a fulltime WorkSafe paycheck. Of course, I think about that. And of course, I often call myself stupid for declining it – I was safe! I had that full-time paycheck for the rest of my life. But creativity and sharing the day with Theo is so precious to both of us. Even with the complexities and risks, it appears to be the only way Theo and I can live. For this, I am grateful! So I'll stop complaining now and go on with what I've been doing and what I am achieving. It's all good! I'm moving. Life is in forward motion after being so still for so long – a decade at least!
It will take one whole year until stim and I get to know each other. I've done this twice before, I know! There are programs to explore, capacity to pace, and sitting to try without the aids. I want to hop in a train and a tram, and hop off in the city without an agenda and limits. I want to catch up with my dearest friends, some whom I've not seen since I left Melbourne. We've been living off parcels, emails and the phone, and that really hurts.
Where to next? (Part 2/3) I knew there was something seriously wrong with my sacral stim implant. By the time that information was confirmed, my mind had run off a few thousand [...]
Then things got even more strange. There was heat, radiating heat where the IPG is, in my face and also other strange feelings that not only added to my pain issues but it made me turn my stim off, more than on! Weird.
