17^th July 2019

I woke up at my usual time of around 10-30am.  I was trying to finish these blog posts and subsequently post them whilst eating my breakfast and drinking my tea. I paid part of my partners hospital bill and read her hospital report. The nurses name was the thing which stood out to me the most, on her hospital bill. It had the surgeons name; the doctor assisting the surgeon; the anaesthetist and the nurse assisting them. They were all addressed as Dr blah blah until it came to the nurse who was listed as ‘Joni’.  Umm, that’s sexism and status bullshit coming in right there.  They could have said ‘Ms Joni Mitchell’ and used her full name.

After this I rang a local community service about a dog walking service a friend of mine told me about. I don’t normally walk Clifford; in fact I don’t walk for fun at all. I only walk when I have to these days. It uses up too much of my energy and usually leaves me exhausted. However, there is no one else to walk Clifford while J recovers from surgery. I admit that I am enjoying it. I walk really, really, slowly and it seems to be okay. However, it does mean that I can’t do a whole bunch of other things.  Did we qualify for the service? No.  You had to be in one of a couple of other programs, including NDIS or a couple of aged care programs.   I also emailed my Superannuation fund because the same friend suggested that maybe I could get some sort of payout or insurance for becoming sick.  I haven’t heard back yet.  I did initially investigate claiming income protection insurance on a policy I had, but I found out quickly I wouldn’t get any $$. I cancelled it after this.

Financially things are hard/tricky.  I am totally dependant on my partners to financially support me, if I were to break up with them, I’d essentially be homeless with no income.  The partner I live with earns too much for me to qualify for a health care card and too much for me to even think about trying to apply for a government allowance. However, she is not only paying all our rent and bills, but she is also paying off a loan.  We have this load because over the last 10 years both of us have had health issues, she has only been working full time for a couple of years, and we’ve both had time when we worked part time.  We’ve also both had times off work for health reasons and survived on one part time income.  Throughout this we also had a lot of expensive health bills, hence debt.   We were well on our way to paying this debt off and doing well at chipping away at it. Then I got too sick and can’t work.

I’ve learnt from my fellow ME/CFS friends that it’s very hard to get a government allowance with ME anyway. This is because it’s just hard for anyone with any sickness/disability, and ME/CFS is such a ‘mystery’ in there is no known cause, let alone a cure. So, in theory, I could get better next week.  Fellow ME/CFS patients who are VERY unwell, bedbound etc  get these benefits, however I know they’ve had to fight very hard for what they get.   I’m pretty sure if I rocked up at Centrelink, they would just tell me to go and get a job.   If I was lucky to get a job, it would probably be minimal hours and I would spend the rest of the time in bed.  This is a common scenario with people with ME/CFS who work.

I sent the email to my super fund anyhow.  It’s a lot of mental work doing something like that, hence exhausting. It’s also hard to negotiate and be clear with what you are trying to achieve when you have brain fog all the time.

After this I took Clifford for a walk, came back and went in The Nook to rest. I later cooked dinner and then we had a young fella and his dad come over to inspect our couch, which J had put in the local Buy Nothing group.

They worked hard at getting the fucker out of the door, but off it went to its new home. It had many memories attached to its short 7 years. We saved up to get and had a special trip to Sydney Ikea to buy it. I sat on it for three months when I broke my leg. I always sit in my amazing recliner now….it feels like a cleansing. Out with the old so we can move forward.

Buy Nothing project is here