Back (again!)

Over a year ago, back on May 2013, my last post was an "I'm back" post, recounting how 2012 and early 2013 had gone very pear-shaped for me. I then went on to post a 'Thank God for the Salvos' message.

Then the tap turned off.

From late May, Dad got very sick very quickly and passed away in August. Johnny and I accelerated our plans to move to Melbourne (back to Melbourne for me) and I left me job with Fairfax, after 34 years in the industry.

We moved in early October 2013 and Johnny found work within 2 weeks of beginning his search (after we had a short break after the move, etc).

I set up Trevor Weeding Media sales, got me an ABN and set about building my own business.

Then mum had a fall and was in hospital for 2 weeks, then rehab from November until early February. Each round trip to her home (for clean clothing, mail, check security etc) and the rehab was nearly 200klm and it was happening up to 4 days a week.  So, the business took a back-seat and that's where it's stayed, pretty much.

What's GOOD about all of this, you ask??

In the past 14 months I've had to cope with:

• the illness and death of my dad
• the stress of an interstate move
• the uncertainty of leaving a GREAT job and having no secure income at all (my total earning for the past 12 months are about 1/5th of my old salary)
• dragging my partner away from his job and family in Sydney (Thankfully, he LOVES Melbourne. Phew!)
• had to dip into my retirement savings to get by finacially
• my mum getting sicker and having a serious health issue and recovery - 

all of this plus the usual day-to-day issues everyone gets in their lives..................... and my blood pressure has come down and my medication has been reduced.

Go figure!  Just goes to shows that even a job I loved was clearly not doing my health much good, huh?

So - Post #1 for the renewed "Stuff that's good in the world" ends with the story of my hypertension:)

It's been a long time between drinks (posts) - hope it's worth the wait :)

A few weeks ago, Johnny and I did our small bit to help raise some funds at the Sutherland Relay for Life. Numbers aren't finalised yet, but they'll raise over $500K for sure. This is Year 8 for me with this Relay event, being directly involved, and 11 years with RFL overall. I'm pleased and proud to have had a significant and real impact on the $$ raised in that time.

This weekend is the Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal. In the past, I've happily gone out door knocking for them.Not much raised and negligible influence.

Why am I so supporting of this event?

It's not because of the good works they do with the money raised. It's not necessarily because I agree with the Salvos religious convictions ( I did the doorknock about 10 times and I'm still an agnostic).

One recent anecdote sums up what  makes me feel good and supportive about this appeal.

While I've been to regional launches, especially Western Sydney, in the past, this year was the first time I was invited to the NSW Appeal launch event. Held at the Westin Sydney, with Andrew and Nicola Forrest as 'special guests'. Andrew and Nicola pledged $1M at the event and I believe that the 1,000 or so people in the room matched that.

At the event,  I saw a Salvo officer who looked familiar. I couldn't remember where I knew him from.

2 days later, I went to my local, inner suburban pub for a quiet drink after work, followed by dinner with Johnny. As always on a Friday evening, the Salvos came in to rattle the tin and collect some money. The Salvo officer was the same man I seen at the Westin event. We had a chat, I gave more money from my pocket and I wished him well.

I saw him AGAIN a week later when I attended a breakfast to launch the Red Shield Appeal in Rockdale & Kogarah.

Think about this - Wednesday lunchtime; organise an event for 1,000 attendees and raise $2,000,000. 48 hours later, do what you do every Friday night and maybe raise $50 at the local pub. 7 days later, help organise a business breakfast where a few thousand dollars are raised.

It's a single minded philosophy - NO amount is too small and the cumulative sum of many small amounts of money raised is what matters.

 Thank your God for the Salvos.

So, what happened to my Blog and self discipline etc???

Long story short - 2012 was my own annus horibilius. Carried across into 2013 to some extent as well.

Self pity etc now done with and normal posting should resume shortly.

There IS stuff that's good in the world and I've experienced some of it first hand recently, so looking forward to sharing.

PLEASE DONATE YOUR ORGANS!

Let's start with the message I hope to leave at the finish - PLEASE do not take your organs to heaven or the grave or wherever you believe you go when you die.

Every day of every week in every country on Earth, someone is dying because they need an organ transplant. Often, the transplant only buys them a few years or even months, but imagine what they can do or achieve in that time.

What did you do in the past two months that made you feel good or made others' lives better or happier? How about in the past year? The past 5 years?

Here's some inspiration, if you need it:

When Tianna was 18 months old doctors found two holes in her heart and two blocked arteries, faults that left her breathless and with a blue tinge to her skin. Over the years the condition worsened, leading to an ever-lengthening list of symptoms.

''Walking is really hard,'' Tianna said 18 months ago. ''I get heart palpitations, chest pains, nose bleeds. I get light-headed and get leg cramps and back pain. I'm in and out of hospital. I don't have much of an immune system.''

The illness had affected her social life, as it became hard to keep up with her friends.

''Sometimes, they end up carrying me,'' she said. ''I feel like I drag them back a bit because they have to walk slowly with me. I tell them to walk on and I'll walk just behind them at the back of the pack. It takes a toll on your self-esteem, trying to keep up with them and seeing everyone do stuff that you can't.''

Major surgery was necessary and the Ingleburn teenager became one of the 1700 Australians on waiting lists for organ and tissue transplants. She also became a face of the Journey of Hope campaign, aimed at getting Australians to discuss the issue and to encourage more people to register as organ donors. The campaign by Transplant Australia endeavours also to attract more funding to support people who are on waiting lists, organ recipients and their families.

Here's what I think is the saddest part of the donor/transplant story. According to this story in today's paper (I'll post the link), only 309 Australians donated organs last year. Close to 6 million Australians are on the Organ Donor Registry (in other words, they WANT to donate their organs and save lives) but only 58% of families allowed the organ and tissue donations to proceed. That means 42% of families stopped the donations from happening.

HOW DARE THEY!!!! How dare they go against their relatives wishes AND how dare they destroy what may be only possible chance another person has to have a better life  -or to have a life at all! 

HOW DARE THEY!!! If religion is the reason, then I am even angrier!

My drivers licence says I am a willing donor. My Will says I am willing donor. I have registered with the relevant web sites and organisations. And now this blog tells the world, if they care to read it, that I am a willing donor.  NO ONE has my permission to stop my organs or tissue being donated when I die.

Please, do all you can to make your wishes known. tell everyone. register with your local Transplant/Donation service or authority.

Please - don't take your organs with you when you die.

Tianna's story

Knit-wits rule!

From time to time I like to reminisce about days gone by (and, in the process, sound exactly like my parents did, thus boring the socks off of anyone under 40). Thanks to the changes I’ve seen in my lifetime – especially during my working years – I am the proud possessor of skills that are totally useless in 2012.

The short list is:

• I can (safely) tap a beer keg. Not the new ones, but the old fashioned type. These are the ones that, if badly managed, can result in injury or even death as the rod flies up and into your head (usually entering the head or, at best striking you very hard under the chin).
• I can change a ribbon on a manual typewriter.
• With a little bit of refresher practice, I think i can remember my copy fitting formulas, so that I can tell you how many words at a given font size will fit a given space.
• I still remember most of my proofreaders marks (and still use them, much to the confusion of my work colleagues who wonder why I wrote # and 'stet'  on their document.)
• I (vaguely) recall how logarithms work – and I can certainly do long division without a calculator.
• Although I never learnt how to cast on or cast off, I can knit – but I forget how to do pearl stitches.

I seem to recall there was a (shot lived) fad at primary school. A lot of boys were knitting in arts and craft classes and I recall that the needles were overly thick, perhaps to make it easier for kid’s fingers. I made a longish scarf, only because knitting a big long thing was all I could do.

It’s this last, lost skill that came to mind most recently, thanks to the ABC’s annual ‘Knit In’ promotion. I was still home from work and listened to a lot more radio than I would normally be able to and so, the annual ‘Knit In’ got more of my attention than usual.

The event was, as always, remarkably successful. More than 1,000 knitters headed along to the ABC studios in Sydney and beavered away knitting squares (I think they’re around 8” square or so), which are then packed up and sent off to be sewn together to make blankets.  These are sent overseas to people in need.

http://www.abc.net.au/local/videos/2012/08/04/3560598.htm

The ABC ‘Knit In’ was launched 10 years ago, to support the main initiative program, called ‘Wrap with Love. ‘Wrap with Love’ began in 1993 and, since then, over 255,000 wraps have been knitted (square by square), sewn together and sent off overseas.  There have also been around 8,000 distributed around Australia, with over 3,000 going to victims of the Victorian bushfires in 2009.

http://www.artsandcraftsnsw.com.au/Wrap.htm

Here’s another of my special ‘likes’ – a lot of people doing relatively small things to make a real difference in the world. In the first year, the founder (the late Sonia Gidley-King OAM) and 30 supporters sent 38 wraps off to Mozambique in a container of farm machinery. So, the 250,000+ total is even more impressive!

They got into the spirit in my local are as well, as reported in The Leader.

http://www.theleader.com.au/news/local/news/general/knitting-warm-gifts-for-the-needy/2646982.aspx

Time to break out the knitting needles Trev! J

The real value of smaller things...............

I LOVE this stuff:).

All too often, the business world and people in general get themselves caught up with pictures that are just too big. I recently signed on for 'Dry July' and managed to raise $100; $40 of which came from generous donations from family and friends. Overall, 'Dry July' raised about AU$3.4 million, a lot of which came, I'm sure, from smaller fundraising efforts like my own. (See http://www.dryjuly.com/ ) 

In our local communities, there are stories every week about community groups needing relatively small amounts to get over tough times or even just to survive. Today's Leader contains a great story about one such organisation that's been saved because of the generosity of some locals. No huge donations were received, but the sum of the parts made up the lifesaving amount.

http://www.theleader.com.au/news/local/news/general/community-rushes-to-support-sylvanvale/2641903.aspx

The program that was in jeopardy was an after school hours care program for children aged 5 -11 who have 'high needs". Obviously, these special kids can't be looked after by just anyone outside of school hours. The tragedy was that the shortfall in funding was just $7,800 and, as one person wrote in the Comments section on the leader's website, it probably cost more for the decision maker (in a Government department) to make the decision that the $7,800 that they are refusing to provide.

http://www.theleader.com.au/news/local/news/general/children-in-jeopardy-special-care-may-be-axed/2628911.aspx

But, the money has been raised from the local community, proving yet again the value of local support in our communities.

I'm back at work next week and my mantra to anyone who'll listen will be "Think Locally and Act Locally" - because thinking globally won't help your, your business or your community anywhere near as much as entrenching yourself and your business in your local community will.

Nurses - part two.

My recent post about nurses deserves a big brother. The experience at RPA lasted around 48 hours and gave me a taste of what a ward nurse's life is like. I came home at the weekend after 7 days in Strathfield Private Hospital and wanted to provide a further insight into a nurse's life - from a patient's point of view.

OK, so details first. I was in for a partial nephrectomy. They cut you open (in my case, the incision is around 18" long) and remove the tumor from your kidney. They have to cut through 7 layers of muscle and all of those layers are stitched back together and have to heal. My operation was a complete success and, in fact, left me with more of my kidney (80%) than everyone hoped for.

Now, enter the nurses, as the recovery begins. This ward was made up of either urology patients like me or osteo patients (knee replacements, etc), so the recovery period, it seems, falls to fairly standard patterns and procedures. It begins the day after the operation, when they try to get you out of bed. This is for very good reasons, as congestion settles on your lungs very quickly and is an ideal breeding ground for infections. Just how easy it is to get one of these, I'll explain later.

Well Day #2 didn't go as planned and I couldn't get off the bed. Excruciating pain and I wanted to hit the next person who tried to get me up, but they came back and tried again in the afternoon - because it is SO important. It's important for fighting the congestion, but it's also important for other reasons. My second night was really uncomfortable, due to some friction grazes from the mattress and general  muscle aches from too long in bed.

Here's a tip for all you blokes reading this - the sooner you get up, the sooner the catheter comes out, ok?

Well day #3 saw be raise myself off the bed relatively easily, albeit painfully. Still needed a sponge bath in bed, but sat up in a chair and walked a little. Physio now becomes the most important person in my life, nagging me (necessarily) to get breathing deeply and to cough up phlegm. Ouch! (I'm writing this a full week later and coughing is still very painful). Day #3 also saw a temperature spike, because the bugs were loving my chestfull of muck that I hadn't been able to cough up yet.

From day #4, the nurses really come into their own. Now it's their job to get me up each day etc. The Ward Manager. Sister Hong is the sort of person every team needs as a leader. She led by example - "Do as I do" and is clearly respected by both her staff and the doctors. The catheter comes out (yay!) and is followed by my first shower, where I'm being treated with dignity and respect. By the end of the day I was using the toilet on my own.


I also had dressings changed and bandage-blisters tended too. Was the person gently removing the messy bandages and carefully tending to the painful open sores really the same person who was determined to drag me up off the bed on Sunday, despite my cries of "NO!!!"??


Another temperature spike on Day #5 brought on a stern lecture about the need to breath, walk and cough. Mixed with all of this Jekyll & Hyde personality came a person only a little younger than my self who would stop by for a chat briefly and we'd share stories of what it's like to manage Gen Y. A typical day for Sister Hong was 12 hours and, even on an unusually quiet Thursday, staff were set to work checking stores etc. It reminded my of a printing manager, taking advantage of some downtime to fit in some much needed maintenance.


The Ground Floor West team followed this example and went about their work in the most efficient and caring manner. I'm reminded of mothers with big families who can somehow keep an eye on 4 or 5 kids at the same time. They also cheerfully allowed my in-laws and Johnny's extended family to have a virtual picnic in the corridor when they came to visit me en mass. (They brought food, as always - I'm still nil by mouth at this stage. When I got out of bed the day after their visit, there are 2 cans of coke and 4 oranges beside my bed, in case I needed a snack during the night)


And so to my final day. I'm not allowed to leave until Sister has checked my dressings and given me her personal instructions about follow up care etc. Paperwork is brought down my another nurse and all is set to go. I'm waiting for my lift in the lounge outside reception, even though I was told I could stay in my room if I wanted to. As I said my final goodbye to Sister Hong and her team, I could sense a degree of distance already forming. I was going and there were sick people who needed her attention. I was a bit like a tradesman's finished work - no time to sit back and be satisfied, there's another urgent job to get on with.


And then, just when you think that chapter is closed completely, Sister Hong wanders over when she sees me pacing around the reception corridor (sitting for too long is a no-no, remember?). "You OK buddy? Need anything?".


No Sister, I'm fine thanks :). And it's thanks you and your team. Dr Sved did a great job on my operation ans the staff physio gave me some great self-help tools, but it's the nurses who made me well again.

Nurses definitely get counted amoungst Stuff that's good in the World' :)