So, um, it occurs to me that with the Christmas/New year business I forgot to tell everyone about my appointment with the Rheumatologist, I’m sure that you’re all hanging on the edge of your seat to hear about it. No? Tough luck.

Originally I couldn’t get an appointment with the specialist until March. March, I thought in November when it was becoming clear that my hands and other joints were only getting worse (don’t even mention the pelvis, just don’t), was not good. Straight away I asked to be placed on the waiting list for cancellations and miracle of  miracles on about the 18th of December I got a call to say that they could fit me in on the 23rd if I could make it. Um, hell yes!

The rhematologist was actually really sweet. She listened to what I had to say about my falling apart body. She took what I had to say seriously. She examined me thoroughly. She wasn’t surprised or indeed horrified when I said that I was still breastfeeding my toddler (as doctors seem to love being). All in all, it went well.

Numerous outcomes of that appointment were:

• I am very, very flexible. Not quite as freakishly flexible as some people but apparently the resting position of my feet when I am lying down is not right. They flop down or something, who knew.
• Multiple other joints and bits and bobs do things that they are not meant for. Things I didn’t realise they did, or at  least that what they did was wrong, until she asked me to show her.
• That flexibility is kind of on a continuum, my level is not quite at the extreme end where connective tissue disorders reside but not really okay either and certainly contributing to some problems.
• I have some sort of non-specific inflammatory arthritis in my hands. When she first saw them she inhaled sharply and said “oooooo”, which I took to mean that it wasn’t just me who thought they look a little strange.
• She’s not sure about my pelvis. She thinks that, although she’d like to unify my problems under one diagnosis, there may be several things wrong with me that are not really related. Awesome.
• She took my pain seriously and has placed me on two new medications to be taken every day, to reduce inflammation and pain etc.
• She wants fresh pelvis x-rays and blood tests. No other doctor has ever wanted pelvis x-rays, I only had some done because a friend of mine is a doctor and she wanted to make sure I wasn’t dying of bone cancer while we were visiting her in Spain. This is a pretty big deal. She actually gives a crap about investigating my pelvis.
• The original blood test results weren’t normal. Something or other was elevated, which it would be in arthritis, hence the new blood tests to see if it is worse.

I left feeling really optimistic. She’s not 100% sure that she can do anything for my pelvis but she feels she can do something for my hands and, you know, she is trying to help me, she listened, she heard.

So, for the moment I am holding my breath and managing my pelvis pain and taking my pills until I next see her in March and even though the state of play is pretty much the same. I feel better. I do.

Question:

If you find a man NAKED wandering around in the bush after having spent the night out there and you are a police oficer, what should you do?

Answer:

The man seems perfectly “fine” just a bit disoriented. There is no need to do anything. Just call his estranged wife and seat him in the public waiting area while she drives the long distance to far away country town to get him.

Yes, because that makes perfect sense.

Oh and if you are the man’s psychiatrist? You hope that the police will section the man and when they don’t you ask the estranged wife to try and talk to him into going into hospital, I mean, it’s not as though the man is at the very brink of a massive psychotic episode. Let’s just wait for him to hurt someone before we do anything drastic.

Anyway, the private hospital has no beds until tomorrow so we should just hang on until then. That’s only sensible.

So, as of this moment, he is at home, by himself, not going to hospital, not being helped. Because, my friends, the system is fucked.

The end.

Sometimes when I sit down to write I have trouble. It’s not that I don’t know what I want to say. I do, mostly, but some things are hard to put into words. Sometimes I feel that a brainstorming style word cloud would better convey the disarray that exists in my tiny, tiny head.

Where to begin?

My mother. Those of you who read regularly will know that I recently severed ties with her. Well, to be honest, my exact words to her were “I can’t see you for a while”. I just couldn’t bring myself to make a more final statement than that. Not with her. For my father it’s easy. I know that I will never want to see him again. It is pure relief to have him out of my life and I would not go back to what was. Not for anything.

My mother though. It is so much more complex. While she was living with him, I told myself, I had to separate myself. For my sanity, for my heart. It had to be done. I feel guilty at how brilliantly easy and peaceful this last little while has been without her around. I have found more serenity than I have felt in a long time.

Around Christmas she reappeared in subtle ways. At first asking to buy gifts for the children. I thought about denying her that but then decided that I couldn’t do that. Either to her or the children.

When I saw her on Christmas day she seemed so fragile and small and….. on the edge. Just at the edge of tolerance for what life could throw at her. I couldn’t bear to tell her that she had to continue to stay away. Instead I told her that we would see her again. I held the little woman and said that it would be okay. That she could see her grandkids and us and we would be there for her again. I felt very ashamed at the gratitude she showed me then. She has done some things that were not okay, I don’t always respect her actions but I hadn’t meant to cause her the kind of pain that I saw.

She was still living with him though. Telling us that she was making plans to leave, that things had progressed and that they were moving towards the sale of the house and separation. This, to my mind, is far too sane a path to take in this situation but we just haven’t been able to get through to her.

Thursday.

Thursday night I get a call from Patchouli! (my sister). Have you had Mum’s message? She sounded very shaken, not okay. My first thoughts are always what has he done?, what has happened?, is she hurt?

The message says that nothing has happened. Nothing dramatic. She has left though, is staying with my aunt. Nothing dramatic but she just feels that he has drifted so much closer to that edge. He is not really there at all, he is becoming psychotic, he is warning her to get out, leave the house. He has done strange things. She knows she just can’t go there again.

I tell her he is dangerous. She doesn’t want to believe this but agrees that it could be true. She has left.

He has gone around the house and smashed things while she has been out and then hidden the evidence. Mostly inconsequential things but also a beautiful statuette that was his grandmothers. I have always loved it. I know that he did too.

He stands in the yard and stares at the sky, muttering to himself for hours.

Realistically he is barely holding it together. He is already psychotic.

And people? Do you know why? The antipsychotic drug was causing some (quite bad) long term physical side effects and so the fucking arsehole psych took him off of them. Sent this man who, without anti-psychotic drugs is, well, psychotic, home to live with my mother. Knowing they are in the midst of separating. Knowing he has planned, let’s just say violent things before in a state of psychosis.

No extra monitoring or plan in place for his care.

If it weren’t so exhaustingly predictable it would be laughable. Does he think that my father will recognise his own psychosis and trot himself off to Glenside? Yeah, realistic.

There is nothing that anyone can do. The last time that we tried to have him sectioned under very similar circumstances it was a farce. They had “lost” all record of his two previous sections. His doctor would not recommend section as it was a breach of trust with his patient (no, not joking). We just had to wait until he attended a psych appointment and the psych was able to talk him into voluntary hospitilisation.

It makes me feel so…. tired.

I wish that I cared to intervene but I don’t. I will not write here what I wish to happen.

I am not letting myself hope too much. We have been here before and she has returned to live with him. If we can just get her to make a decent break this time though….

Maybe.

I’ve tried to write this birthday post several times and here we are at the eleventh hour and it is still not up.

It’s hard to put into words all of the things I want to say.

There are mixed emotions for me, you see.

Fourteen is going to be an interesting year, I can tell.

Maybe not easy but amazing nonetheless as I watch you grow from boy into man.

Try and go easy on me.

Please.

Happy birthday sweet boy.

Fourteen.

Oh dear.

I don’t know where all of my time goes. I seriously have barely opened my computer since I last blogged. My reader is beyond clogged with everybody’s happy Christmas posting.

I read all of those vampire books. Just in case you haven’t read them. I urge you to steer clear. I should have known better, they were appalling, I really can’t see what people are going on about. I will do everything in my power to make sure that my daughters don’t read them. I can’t imagine a worse model for teen relationships than the one that’s presented in these books. So many things about them annoyed me, way too many elements to list here. Woefully written tripe, I say. Of course there was no need for me to read them all once I had discovered that the first one was awful – I know I have only myself to blame for that stupid little bit of obsessive behaviour. Take my advice though, spare yourself.

I have eaten (probably more than) my own weight in assorted choclates and biscuits and brownies after baking up a storm in the lead up to Christmas. We always over cater but this was beyond ridiculous.

I am always a bit shell-shocked at this time of year, it takes me at least until mid-January to register that it’s all over and there is no more planning to be done or presents to wrap or feasts to cook. I half expect another celebration to spring out from behind a bush and surprise me. It doesn’t help that Rhubarb’s birthday is on the 3rd of Jan. Do you have any idea how hard it is to think up presents to buy and muster up the energy to cook a special birthday meal and treats after the long haul of Christmas? Hard.

Anyway, I am planning on being a better, more consistent blogger next year and so I’m mounting a pre-emptive strike on blogging. See, I’m a planner, me.

Happy New Year everyone. Thank you to all those who have read and commented here this year. Blogging is such a joyous and rewarding part of my life, thanks to you.

I shall be having a leisurely meal with the kidlets and perhaps enjoying a glass of wine if I am lucky. I hope that someone out there is doing some hardcore partying in my stead.

See you in 2010.

Today, when I woke up, I got to go to the post office to collect this platter:

Here it is keeping my drac company.

Now my grainy Iphone photography does not do it justice, you can see a far better photo here.

Kim of Frogpondsrock tried to tell me that it might not be as lovely as I had imagined from her post. It is people, it is.

I even love the underside of it. I should have taken a photo but basically, it’s gorgeous.

There is actually no way that you can capture it’s beauty in a photo anyway, it is gloriously textural. It is a piece that needs to be held and touched and stroked.

I’m a little bit shocked that Kim gave it to me. She is extraordinarily talented and I can’t help feeling a tad unworthy of something that she has made.

Thank you Kim. I love it very, very much. I have put it in the hallway just outside my bedroom so that I may caress and admire it each time I walk past.

I bet you’re all wondering what we ended up doing with the devious Rhu.

Well. I have to say that we were pretty shaken up by his untrustworthy behaviour. We have always tried to extend a good deal of trust and respect to him and he has always proven himself worthy of that trust. Really, it was not what we expected from him.

His point was that had he asked us if he could take the afternoon off we would have said no. He has a point but I kind of feel that with only a few days left of school he should just suck it up. Also the next day was a presentation day that involved him spending all of 45 minutes at the school taking Beefcake through his work before being dismissed, it’s not exactly a strenuous week.

So, after he was found out he sobbed and begged and begged and sobbed and howled. He was keen for us to tell the school and not so much for us to tell the other kids’ parents. You see, poor little Rhu was terrified that his mates would be angry with him for giving them away. Quite frankly I knew which boys were involved without his confirmation and I explained to him that we felt we really had no choice as we would wish to be notified if the situation were reversed. We even tried to call both families that night but were unable to get a hold of them.

Now, in the end we were not so keen to talk to the school. They have an instant suspension policy for this type of truancy. Despite the fact that I think he needs to be punished I think suspension is disproportionate to the crime. Also, he really wasn’t fazed by it at all. He was happy to take the school’s consequences, it was his friends that really bothered him.

In the end I think that our calling had an impact. The boys involved told their parents themselves, I am guessing because they were frightened of what would happen if they found out from us.

We won’t be telling the school but we have removed a number of other privileges and social opportunities, which resulted in more wailing and gnashing of teeth so we are fairly sure we hit the mark with the punishments.

Thank you so much for your helpful advice and comments. My first instincts were definitely along the lines of the advice that most of you gave but in the end the way it panned out seems to be for the best.

Also!! And very excitingly, my ex-boss emailed me to say that she was happy for me to head out to the office and photocopy a bunch of reports and things that I wrote. I am so relieved. It will mean that the areas on the 70 point scale that I am really competent in will be easily demonstrated. Unfortunately the Christmas spend and a sudden influx of bills (like the power company who kept forgetting to bill us properly and then slugged us with a mega-bill due Dec 22nd – and a letter of apology for it’s lateness – wow awesome, that makes it all better, thanks!) means that I won’t be able to lodge my forms until January but the process wasn’t really going to get under way until then anyway if I’m being realistic so it doesn’t really matter I guess.

Also, I’m really nervous about going to the office tomorrow. I’m having all of those swirling, anxious thoughts that I get when I am doing something outside of my comfort zone. Like the office inhabitants will all rise up from their desks and encircle me so that they may poke me with sharp sticks and mock me as I lay on the floor whimpering into my flab.  Is that normal do you think or am I unusually pathetic?