Happy Birthday Jeannie

On this day way back in 1967 my sister Jeannie Maxine was born at Western Suburbs Maternity Hospital I picked her name Jeannie maybe it was because the tv show I Dream of Jeannie was on the telly that influenced me I don’t know.

Jeannie is the mother of four, Samantha, Tina, Tyler and Tom and the grandmother of one Hayley with two more grandchildren on the way. She left her husband Shane when her children were little and has been with her current partner Peter on and sometimes off for a bloody long time 20 odd years she acted as a mother figure to his three children and is like a grandmother to his grandchildren as well.

Jeannie is one of the most loving and caring women or person that I have ever been blessed to know and be related to, when her girls and my girls were little we spent a lot of time together shopping and watching each others girls.

So today I would like to wish her a wonderful and happy birthday and hope she has a fantastic day because she deserves to feel special..

Five things Saturday

Hello Saturday it is another somewhat cold day, had the girls Kathy & Jess with Summer and Leo here for lunch honey barbecue chicken with spuds and veggies although Summer didn’t want that she had porridge and Leo had nothing. Tim is at work so not here.

After lunch my sister Sandra and her girls turned up in her new car, well new to her, it’s a 2005 Ford Falcon Station Wagon on LPG she is happy with it.

So not doing Five things Friday, instead you get Five things Saturday……………………..

Struggling to walk

No weight loss or weight gain

Cold but not wet

Kathy, Jess, Summer & Leo for lunch

Leftovers sent to Michael

Off to the doctor I did not trot but limp and here is what I was told

How is everyone this cold and wet Wednesday afternoon, I have had a productive day somewhat this morning I went to the podiatrist and had my toenails cut, while I went I left Blain home alone as he didn’t want to go and I was tired of arguing the point with him, I was only gone an hour.

I was planning on going with Tim to pick Dave and grew from the ship but as I had to watch Blain while his mum had other things on I couldn’t go.

Then this afternoon I had to go to the doctors for what is called a care plan review, this is where they check your blood pressure, talk about what medication you are taking as how my diabetes is going and my sleep apnoea and your get a referral for blood tests.

While I was there I asked about the results of the ultrasound it showed that I have tendonitis, which for those who do not know is an inflammation of a tendon, the tendon in question is my achillies tendon, tendons are bands of strong connective tissue that attach muscle to bone

It is usually a type of overuse injury; the tendon is repeatedly strained until tiny tears form. The symptoms of tendonitis can include, pain,swelling, stiffness and restricted mobility of the affected joint, muscle weakness and the skin over the area can feel warm to touch

Bursitis is inflammation of a bursa. A bursa is a small fluid-filled sac that acts as a cushion between bone and soft tissue (muscles, tendons and skin). A bursa (plural bursae) reduces friction and assists joint movement.

When you overuse or injure a joint, a nearby bursa can become irritated or inflamed. The bursa fills with excess fluid, causing significant pain and restricting movement.

The symptoms of bursitis may include, localised pain, swelling, increased pain at night, pain that becomes worse on movement, stiffness.

It is caused by injury, repeated pressure and overuse are common causes of bursitis. Some conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, gout and diabetes, can also contribute to its development.

An infection can also cause bursitis. This may occur if a joint is injured and bacteria get into the bursa.

Treatment aims to relieve the symptoms as much as possible while the healing process takes place.

Treatment options may include pain-relieving medications, cold packs, gentle mobilising exercises and rest. Anti-inflammatory medications or injections of corticosteroids may be used in cases of severe pain, although my doctor isn’t keen on giving me an injection.

If the bursitis was triggered by a particular form of overuse, it‘s important to avoid that activity, or modify how you perform that activity.

So I have been told to rest the ankle as much as possible and that it will most likely take between 8-12 weeks to heal.

Indestructible things

Well the new dishwasher is here and Tim should install it tomorrow hopefully, it is another cold day here in Newie and if I hear Tim tell me to go sit in the sun again I might scream, I don’t have the time to just sit around in the sun and if I want the heater on I am going to have the damn heater on.

As we all know humans are pretty fragile beings but many of the worlds most indestructible materials are made by living things, such as a spiders strong stretchy silk or a limpet’s record breakingly hard teeth.

We also find super-strength substances in nature, such as diamond and titanium and as time goes on we keep inventing more and more indestructible materials of our own, such as steel and kevlar but which substance is the strongest of all, I don’t know but over the coming weeks I will write a little about some of the most indestructible things on the planet.

Of course most of us know that cockroaches are pretty indestructible, you cut its head off and it will still walk away which is just weird and it isn’t just for a few seconds or minutes that it can survive without its head but in fact can survive for a few weeks headless. This is because they don’t need food every day in fact they can go a month without food, also they don’t have much blood and what they do have moves around the body slowly so the neck can seal itself without bleeding. They also breathe through holes in their skin and not through their mouths, lastly they also have bundles of nerves like mini-brains, to control their legs and reflexes, so they can still move around without their main brain, weird or what.

If all that wasn’t enough they can run at 75cm or 2.5ft per second which is bloody fast can cope being under water for half an hour and of course have been known to survive the fallout from a nuclear explosion.

So is it any wonder we have trouble getting rid of these creepy bugs……………

I am not old but I am getting older and with aging comes changes

Hi, well it is Sunday here in Newie and it is another somewhat cold day here I am home alone as Tim is at work, he took the car so I can’t go out but that is ok I don’t go out much during the day in fact the only days I go out are Friday, that is a weekly thing and some weeks I may go out on the Saturday as well but that only happens maybe once a month unless it is at the end of the year when I go out more getting Christmas presents and such.

The older I get the less I want to go out when I was in my 20’s and 30’s I would go to the shops 3 or 4 times a week, now once a week is enough generally speaking. Something else I don’t do as much any more is cook meals as there is only Tim and me here and we eat at different times and thus can’t see the point in cooking unless I have the girls and grandchildren come over on a weekend for either brunch or lunch. At times Tim will say something about how I don’t cook him meals any more but 9 times our of 10 when I did cook a meal he wouldn’t eat it so I just don’t see the point.

I know it is hard for Tim to understand that I am unable to stand for any length of time and at the moment I am having trouble walking and trying at times to get out of my arm chair and when I first stand up I have to stand still and get my balance before I can attempt to walk. At times I feel that I wish Tim would have the same problems so he can understand how difficult it is for me.

I take each day as it come and each day I hope that I will be able to move without pain, on Friday when I was out shopping it took me ages to get things done and by the time I got home I was in so much pain.

Then of course there is my tremor which is in both hands and my right leg and makes doing stuff difficult at times like trying to send a text or use the mouse with the computer. This is something others don’t really get.

I am not dead, I have just been busy

Hello everyone out in blog land, yes it is me little ole Jo-Anne, not that I am that little, I am short though does that count. I am not dead nor have I been sick, however, I have been somewhat busy this last week and yes one day saw me in a great deal of pain.

So let us have a look at my last few days, Saturday saw Tim off work and both of us going to the shops and over to my parents place for a bit and Saturday afternoon me go over to Jessica’s to take her cough syrup and a few things from Coles as she was sick. Oh the cough syrup she said she wanted one that was blue and said it was called blue on the bottle, I could not find a blue one I asked her for the name she said she didn’t know so I got one and when I got to hers she had found the bottle and what she wanted wasn’t cough syrup she wanted Demazin cold relief medicine for children aged over 6 so no that isn’t cough syrup, which is why I couldn’t find it.

When I arrived Kelli was there she came down to get Leo and take him back to hers so Jessica could have a night to try and recover, well when it came time for them to head back to hers he didn’t want to go so he ended up being here Saturday night.

Sunday saw Tim off again and going for a motorbike ride with Michael who on Friday night bought himself a motorbike and Kathy drove Leo back to his mums place.

Speaking of Michael and his motorbike the guy he bought it from brought it to Michael and Michael took it for a test ride and when he was turning around to go back to the house he nearly dropped the bike and there was mark on the bike so he thought I had better buy it now that I have damaged it…………..lol

Monday saw Tim and I drive my brother and his family along with some of their friends to Sydney they have gone on a cruise around the South Pacific Islands, at the moment I am not dog sitting my sister Sandra is there but if she decides to go home I am willing to go over and stay with the dogs.

Tuesday saw me going to Charlestown Square to help mum with her Christmas toy layby, now I had pain in my right ankle/ achilles tendon and had trouble walking but while helping her I felt/ heard a pop from my ankle followed by extreme pain so much pain I cried out in pain and my sister Sandy heard my cry out and came running to see what was wrong. Now some people might thing I would pack in the shopping and come home and rest or go straight to see a doctor but no not me I continued to help mum, sliding my right foot across the ground as I could not put and weight on the ankle/foot. When I did get home I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting with me feet up and doing nothing.

So Wednesday saw me off to the doctors to see what he had to say, I was able to walk a bit better yesterday and the pain level was back to the normal everyday level of pain I have in the right ankle and the doctor didn’t even look at the ankle he just said I need an ultrasound to see what is happening and to go back and see him when I have had it. So I came home and rang around and the earliest I could get in to have it done was Tuesday morning. I didn’t exercise yesterday, I slept in and rested the ankle.

That brings us to today, yes I got up at 4.30am and did an hour of exercise although I had to pack it in after an hour as my ankle was hurting.

The weather here has been bloody cold of a morning and afternoon but not too bad during the day, although on Monday when Tim and I were coming back from Sydney, Tim had the drivers side window down and I was bloody cold I had the heater on and Tim was complaining he was hot which he said was why he had the window down, I told him to shut off his vents so the hot air wasn’t blowing on him but no he still kept the bloody window down.

Good Morning Friday

Good morning Friday and what a bloody cold Friday it is here this morning, been up since 4.30am as usual but only did a 50 minute workout. My achilles tendon is really painful and I am barely able to stand let alone walk but of course since it is Friday walking is what I have to do a lot of. The reason the ankle isn’t healing is two fold, first I am not resting it as much as I should but let’s be honest I can’t just sit around all day with my leg elevated and secondly it is an injury that takes a bloody long time to heal.

Anyway here is this weeks five things for Friday

Last day of school (for two weeks)

Mum unable to come shopping (she couldn’t get the scooter)

Loving my life

Leo doing well at school (according to his teacher)

Needing the heater on (it’s bloody cold)