Tag: health

An update on Bella

Reading Time: 2 minutes

One week and a few days on, our Pomeranian Bella has pretty much returned to normal after being attacked and needing a vet procedure.

There were a few rough days at the start for all of us. Bella was in pain and lethargic. Myles was distraught from being in the thick of the conflict, thinking he should have done more. I suspect my own difficulties might have been minimal, but it certainly didn’t seem so as each day I wiped out the bloody ooze from her inserted drain tube, and cleaned her fur.

After a couple of days Bella wanted to return to the scene of the crime – so to speak. I took her to the school on a close leash the first couple of visits. Then we tested her with a few friendly dogs and it was such a relief to see her showing no fear, and no new aggression or reaction.

First visit back to school. I SMS’d my family, that she was looking for a rematch, but how do I update her (about the other dog’s unavailability)..

At home we may have even noticed Bella has grown more attached to us. Most of the time, that’s nice with her snuggling and loving more pats. When we leave though, her fury might have actually become worse.

I let the other family (whose dog attacked Bella) know that Bella is back and doing well. They appreciated the update, even saying it might help their healing process. It turned out Vicky’s injury from the bite was serious enough to still need more recovery time.

We were all terribly impacted by the events of last Thursday afternoon. It seems though, the physical and emotional scars, may be more significant with the other family.

Bella received her final medicine this morning – to combat infection. This was just as she seems to have learned the sound of a tablet being crushed up in a bowl, and training herself to come close and sit for the reward of a small bowl of milk. I guess we can keep up the reward bit for a little while longer.

Long-conspiracies

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Just when I thought I’d encountered the final dumbterances^ of COVID conspiracy theory cookers, they round for another approach.

Re-reported old news is that AstroZeneca has now withdrawn its major COVID vaccine from Australia. Their reason, the latest variants of the virus are more effectively handled with their newer vaccines.

But as always, the loudest with the least interest in facts, scream Blue Murder. Their paranoia hinges on the known (extremely low) risk of blood clots identified with the AZ vaccine, and that the company’s business decision is actually a clear admission of the true, severe, and ongoing harm of the jab^^.

Source: https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/covid-19-vaccines/advice-for-providers/clinical-guidance/tts

Do you know what has a higher risk of blood clots? The common birth control pill.

Source: https://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/birth-control-methods-blood-clot-risk

I can hear them protest again, they’re likely no fan of the pill either.

Well, do you know what has a higher risk of blood clots than the birth control pill? Being pregnant, and having a baby.

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/dvt/features/blood-clots-pregnant-women.html#:~:text=Although%20anyone%20can%20develop%20a,women%20who%20are%20not%20pregnant.

In hindsight, I think I’ve never been disappointed not hearing about the news. I should just ignore it all more often.

^ “dumbterances” is a portmanteau I think I just invented, combining dumb and utterances, which seemed useful here.

^^ We really need a way of highlighting / tagging text that indicates it’s what someone may believe, instead of something that is written as a correct statement. Maybe like if some text is being said sarcastically it can be italicised. With the rapidly increasing spidering of content to teach Large Language Models and AI, it’s essential we don’t teach the robots the precise things we are in fact mocking.

Condoning the Gaps

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Today Australia’s Productivity Commission released their scathing annual report on the lack of progress and multiple failings in Closing the Gap in inequality experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Guardian Australia (2024), Closing the Gap will fail without ‘fundamental change’, scathing report finds).

This is the anti-Voice landscape we now live in.

Indigenous disadvantage, conditions and health outcomes not improving. Governments criticised for not listening or incorporating knowledgeable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the process.

It’s disappointing to see the ongoing failure in this report. What’s more disappointing is an identified strategy in the Indigenous Voice to Parliament took aim at resolving some of these issues, but not given a chance.

For those who said A Voice would achieve nothing, well, doing nothing new has achieved nothing also.

Chance encounter with The King, and Review: Out Of The Shadows

Reading Time: 3 minutesDuring our Australian holidays, we had a chance encounter with rugby league great, Wally Lewis while walking into Brisbane Airport.
It’s interesting how sometimes you can spot a celebrity from a mere flash of them quite a distance away.

He was kind enough to pose for a photo with us.
In case he needed some convincing, to seal the deal I mentioned I did name my second son “Lewis” afterall.
I forgot to add that my first son is Myles, so we have pretty close to the famous Wally Lewis and Gene Miles combination.

Wally and wife Jacqui were lovely during our short interaction/interruption while they were on their way to the Dally M awards.
We were grateful, and it had me recounting to the boys again how inspiring he had been as a player.

 

Out Of The Shadows

A few days later at my parents’ place, the boys were flicking through some papers on the bookshelf when they came across the Wally Lewis book, “Out Of The Shadows”; by Neil Cadigan, and Wally Lewis.

We should ignore the fact that my Lewis saw the cover and excitedly exclaimed “Oh look, it’s Dr Phil!”

I decided to read the book before leaving Brisbane, as a result of our chance encounter at the airport.

When you’re like me and average reading 5 books a year, completing an entire book in just three days is what’s called a challenge.

Reading it was quite simple really. The book was a lovely and warm account. I’m probably similar to a lot of Queenslanders, who knew only some of the story of Wally’s epilepsy. The book gives great perspective. It shares the full chronology leading up to the diagnosis, and then living long-term with the disorder while still leading a busy professional schedule. I really had no idea how big an ordeal this was, and accounts from others supplemented the events along the way. It really uncovered my own ignorance around epilepsy. It’s no spoiler that the story has a happy ending. Many aren’t so lucky.

I’m glad I read this book, which I was certainly encouraged to do after seeing The King in the flesh. It made me appreciate how inspiring Wally is as a man.

A wonderful account of The King’s biggest battle outside of rugby league, epilepsy. It was nice to read more about the man who inspired so many on the sporting field, and now is arguably doing even more important work in lifting awareness of the disorder – and even taking control of your health generally.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

View all my GoodReads reviews

 

Also, I went through our Brisbane holiday photos from 12 months earlier.
On that trip we managed to catch a Broncos home match, where the boys got their first encounter with King Wally Lewis, the Emperor of Lang Park!

Wally Lewis statue
Broncos vs Parramatta Eels 24/08/2017

 

#AlcoholFreeApril

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Once again, I challenged myself to drink no alcohol for the month of April. And I pretty much succeeded.

I failed to check in on one day – which does stand out on the calendar.  It happened after a lot of deliberation with myself. I decided a friend’s (all-inclusive) wedding was a reasonable excuse to enjoy a few drinks. I convinced myself it’d be rude of me not to.

Throughout the year I feel I’m a moderate drinker.  Some nights I enjoy a beer or two.  At times though, it feels a little too much of a habit. And the reasons to enjoy a drink seem to outweigh the many positive reasons to not have one.

April is a good enough Cold Turkey demonstration that I don’t need alcohol in my life.

I knew I could do it. Although the notes I logged through the month don’t seem to show an unwavering resolve:

Once the month was done, I joked that I could wake up at 12:01am on the 1st of May and get smashed, or wait until breakfast. Instead, I stayed alcohol free a few more days into May, which is a good sign.

I might now consider a few further teetotaler initiatives which people refer to through the year.

There is the increasingly popular Dry July fundraiser, and the month of Oc’Sober’, and “No Alcohol November” which might be a good lead-up to the excesses of Christmas.

Let’s see.

In fact because of Christmas excesses, in January I used to reactively take a month off alcohol.  The results were impressive. On top of no alcohol, I would return to eating normal foods and quantities, and easily drop around 4 kilogrammes.

 

The end of this #AlcoholFreeApril made me think further into an idea I had for a supportive system – dare I say it, mobile app.
Its goal would be to help people understand their own drinking habits. It’d do this objectively, and set such clarity that it’s easy to follow progress. And intelligently it would encourage/”gamify” when it would be better to not have a drink.

Here are a few of the features I’ve considered:

  • Help to identify a goal you record & track against, which highlights how well your weekly behaviour is aligning.
  • Set a particular day or two where you never drink. Breaking this comes with a penalty.
  • After drinking for a few days in a row, there should be the right encouragement to pause.
  • And likewise, after drinking certain quantity of drinks, there is a baseline to get you back to your goal.
  • On the positive side, perhaps it could give a green light to have a drink, after a length of time or after certain physical activities/stresses .. perhaps you can save these up for the right time.

 

OR, you could just go through life using your own will-power; supplemented with the occasional month off.

Although, where is the fun in that?