Saturday, January 31, 2009

My life is almost back on track..or not ;-)

I've been really busy around school and at home. Since starting my new job, I've actually had time to help my sister-in-law out with driving the kids around for extra-mural activities. And not only that, I've been able to visit that same sister-in-law (Brenda) way more often. Keeps both of us sane, I suspect!

This week was an exciting week, as the new 4th year OT students came from WITS (University) for their Cerebral Palsy Practical. Not only that, but it turned out that one of the OT students is my Varsity - Residence 1st Year, meaning that I made sure they were alright in first year in Residence, plus they kept me sane at that stage. We were SO happy to see each other that Leigh-Ann (my 1st year, now 4th year, OT student) and I actually ran towards each other then she picked me up and we whirled around whilst screeching with happiness! She was the 4th person to know the night that Thinus and I got engaged – I told her and her roommate about 5 or 10 minutes after we got engaged.

Then, just for the HECK of it, there was a Solar Eclipse (Tuesday 27 Jan, I think?) this week! We got to see it at school when my dad called me to remind me of the eclipse. I think we got something like 35% coverage of the sun in Gauteng. Cape Town actually got about 62% coverage! And then I had my camera at school and got to take photos! (Look at the end of this post, there you will find the photos I took of the solar eclipse.)

Another happy event that happened 3 weeks ago was my dad’s birthday party to celebrate his 64th birthday. ALL of us were there, and I’m also including a family picture at the end of this post. Just to orientate you, here follows the names (and relations) of the people in the photo.

Back row: Brenda (sister-in-law, Gideon’s wife), Dad, Gideon (3rd brother), Heinrich (5th brother), Reinholdt (Oldest grandchild, Otto’s Oldest), Otto (Oldest Brother), Petrus (4th brother), Chantelle(Petrus’ wife), Jesse (sister-in-law, Marthinus’ wife, & pregnant with their second daugther), Marthinus (2nd brother).

Middle row: Joël (with his face turned away; Gideon’s youngest child), Aunty Ina (my father’s sister-in-law), Ivan (Gideon’s oldest child), Mom, Yochanan (Otto’s 2nd child), Eliyahuh (Otto’s 3rd child).

Front row: Thinus (my husband), Myself, Zoé (on my lap, Gideon’s middle child), Linda (sister-in-law, Otto’s wife), Ada (Marthinus’ 1st child), Amy (Petrus’ 1st child) & Netanyah (Otto’s youngest child). The last three girls are all the same age!
















































Hope you all have a great coming week. I will hopefully write a more informative post in the next week. Ciao!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

A New Government Department, A New Beginning...

Hi to all!

It's been a while since I last blogged. What I can say is that I am doing somewhat better! I went to have a sonar done, and I was treated like a piece of meat being man-handled by a butcher. I still have to go and complain on www.hellopeter.com / .co.za to ensure others that follow will not get the treatment that I got.

I'm not going to go into detail, except to say that
  • both health care practitioners who saw me remained nameless to me,
  • did not wear a name tag,
  • did not introduce themselves (nor greet me properly),
  • did not say what profession they were in (e.g. radiologist, doctor --> although I knew the last one was a doctor as the previous person who saw me told me to wait for the doctor),
  • what they were about to do to me (e.g. the gel we are using are gonna be a bit cold, but don't worry)
  • WHY they were doing what they did (e.g. telling me to move onto my left side and just telling me to breath and hold the breath and not when to expel my breath!)
  • they did not close the door of the consulting room properly, as the doorhandle was broken.
ALL THIS IN A PRIVATE HOSPITAL!!! It amazes me that people can be treated in this manner, and then it will be said that the person treating them was professional. But there is a HUGE difference between being professional and just plain un-ethical, as I see these health care "professionals" to have been. I've been working in the health care sector for 2 years now (1 year student, 1 year community service OT), and you
  • GREET someone,
  • then INTRODUCE yourself,
  • and then make them FEEL AT EASE,
  • as well as EXPLAINING ANYTHING you will be doing to them (what you will do and WHY you are doing it)!
I could not believe the way I was treated, and as I related the story and my mal-treatment by the health care "professionals" to Thinus, he kept on asking why I didn't say something. I think it is because I was in such SHOCK that someone could treat you in this manner. I will not EVER go back there again!

The good news is that nothing was found out-of-place(e.g. pregnancy) / wrong (gallstones) from the ultra-sound / sonar, and that it turns out my constant nausea is caused by reflux. But instead of me having heartburn, I only present with extreme nausea. So I'm now on medication to ease the reflux, and it appears to be working most of the time! Yesterday I had a nausea-spell again, and my blood pressure just dropped (with me still having to drive home in the rain!), so that when I got home I fell on my bed and went to sleep immediately!

As for the New Beginnings... I started at Muriel Brand School as an OT on Monday (12 Jan 2009) and could not be happier! I am also VERY happy to state that I have gotten through and have been accepted to study the Diploma in Hand Therapy at the University of Pretoria during this year! Since April 2007 I've been dreaming about studying hand therapy, and now I will finally have the chance to do so! It's gonna be a bit pricy, but that's fine as it all pays in the end. I can barely wait to start my course in 3 weeks' time, but first I have to get my finances in place to actually pay for registration ;-).

The school is awesome, and I love to be surrounded by other therapists. They are helpful and understanding, and I just love that I am once again in a structured and routined setting. We have not yet started treating kids, but on Monday we are starting to screen babies / kiddies. I'm very excited, and slightly nervous about that! Athletic trials are also tomorrow, and then next week we will have to start picking and processing vegetables found in the vegetable garden project together with the older children. Just at a time when I feel that I finally can say I have "green fingers".

Last but not least, today is both my father's 64th Birthday (Lekker Verjaar, Pappa!) and Muriel Brand School's 40th Birthday!

I'm praying that this will be a positive year full of surprises, and some routine, and happy days!

Ciao!

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

My moaning session

Right now I am a rather miserable person. I have to go for an (expensive) ultra-sound tomorrow to figure out if I have gallstones / stones in my gallbladder... In turn my faulty gallbladder is causing me to be a very awful person to be with, as I am CONSTANTLY nauseous. NOT NICE.

Our home computer has got a virus on it, with anti-virus software and all. Thinus says he will literally have to rebuild the computer to fix the problem! I can't even get to Mozille Firefox or Windows Internet Explorer due to the virus. Just comes to show you that it's better to pay up money for a good anti-virus than to download freeware / open software.

Now my tax return is also giving me trouble, as the SARS e-filing says I am not typing in the correct info, whatever that may be?! So tomorrow I have to go sort that out... Plus I have to go and pay a speeding fine, renew the car's license and my own driver's license. And inbetween ALL of this I have to clean our house. I forgot to mention the admin / filing that has to be done to sort out all our paperwork before we start with a new year's paperwork (which is already piling up on the kitchen breakfast-nook).

Thus I have turned into a rather depressed little heap, who snaps at the most sincere person (i.e. my husband) and dislikes doing housework. There are heaps of laundry to be done, and yet I can't find the strength in me to just even load the washing machine. So this is me, being all sorry for myself and really struggling to not be so negative about life.

One last thing, the past 2 days I've realised that something smells like it might be decomposing in my spare bedroom/store room. And to get to the smell, I first have to clean the entire spare bedroom to be able to move around in that tiny space. This makes me even more upset, I don't want to clean up all this mess! Even though I am mostly to blame for this mess :-/

May everyone else have a good week, and I really hope my week gets better - SOON!

Keep well. Ciao...