Saturday, June 30, 2007



Some excellent suggestions



as to how to go about getting my husband's records organised from



Gina http://eclecticdefined.wordpress.com/



who said "A good friend of mine who is an attorney said to write everything down chronologically, in detail, and in plain English, as completely as possible. Then, tell someone the story, and have them read what you wrote to see if what you wrote matches what you've told them, then present that to the courts/powers that be/whomever. Don't worry about legalese, just plain English." Simple is always best...so thanks to you all for your comments re the post where I mentioned I had Don's records...(also X rays Ct scans...he was having up to 3 Chest X rays a day at one time...so its a bundle)



Don at about 3 when his parents worked on the Snowy Mountain scheme (Australia)

Thursday, June 28, 2007


The look on these boyos faces makes me laugh, especially the littler one

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

I Have the records from Port Macquarie Hospital and Royal North Shore Hospital.

I have started to read the hospital records (if you can call them that)... I am in no doubt at all that my lovely husband was killed by an operation he should never have had.
So where do I start. What am I hoping to do? All I know here and now is that when I think of the depth and level and length of his unnecessary suffering, and know what was done to him...just didn't happen...that those wonderful eyes which shone at me and smiled with love and that the mouth which for years called me "Spider" a term of endearment ...and "honky Tonk" which was just cheeky...will never do so again in this life fills me with a dreadful despair...how does one bear this?
How did he bear the constant assaults carried out upon him? No choice...but still those smiles he bestowed upon us, through it all were like diamonds of love. He deserves that at least I get some Justice for him... for our two girls, who know, who knew and still grieve so much...and for me.
( last birthday with his new leather hat and scarf and jumper...he was born fourth of July and that is cold here in Australia)

His life was sacred and should have finished when his body wore out...as is intended...not by this grotesque parody played out in his GP's rooms, the Operating Theatre and the filthy wards...which all masks as medicine... "first do no harm"... but which cuts, mutilates, infects, drugs and kills and takes and expects to take no responsibility at all and bleats when confronted with the disgusting outcomes of mistakes, negligence and arrogance.






So I have started..even half a page a day...






I will get there and I will do my best to ensure they know that we know...(stupid pricks)...and all I can hope for really...is that when they die they go to some kind of hell for their actions...Can live in hope? I am really angry... along with my grief.

(a man of many faces..and bewdiful to boot.)
I was sure blessed I reckon.

Sunday, June 24, 2007



What a big sook I am.




I am just so bloody lonely for my lovely Don, its unbelievable. We spent barely a day apart since 1972 and it is so hard to realise that when you do finally close the door and quit the endless "smiling" that he is not there... will never be there. That when I reach over to his pillow he will not be there.




We knew...I mean it was always rammed down our bloody throats "how fortunate we were to still be together" bastards... but we always knew this time would come...but I never really believed it would.




Can't ring the kids again and lay this on them... but the lovely red kelpie Thorn is always good for a pat or two... there are no magic words or a cure...I will miss my wonderful man till the day I die...




There is no part of my adult life in which he did not exist... and I find myself saying out loud "where are you"?... "How can you be gone"? I know all the soul and heaven stuff ... I guess this is just grief and its dark...the house is closed...


(Easter 2006)


all I can say to those of you who have a husband, wife, close friend by your side...tonight... be appreciative of the closeness of each other...despite the little irritations...who snores, or takes the blankets or whatever...
(Don and kiddies a couple of years back)
I know people are much worse off than me right now... "Big Girl's Blouse" but just having trouble rising above the murk right now

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Okay Jacqui ...might lighten things up a bit for me to thing of the lighter side...


"Jacqui said...You have been tagged: 8 funny anecdotes or factoids about yourself."

1. On the day I was born (high summer Australia...no air con nor even electric fans) my exhausted mum went to sleep feeding me, and I only survived when a nurse found me blue in the face... baptised me (fully revived and no brain damage (HM)...wonder did they revive me before they baptised me?
Lesson...life can be short!

2. At nine after spending all the summer holidays in hospital with Pneumonia and released just as school started I faked being sick so successfully I was re hospitalised and only recovered (quickly too I might add...it hurt) when they took out my tonsils which they said were poisoning my whole system ( easily fooled by a 9 yr old). An my poor mum never knew all our lives together what I had done...she was so grateful that they save my life.
Lesson...sorry mum but every kid has to have the summer holidays reimbursed if they lose them.

3. At 14 I was the first escapee from Lochinvar Boarding school to not get caught until they reached their destination. I made it home... some 100kms...but as I crossed the road, I could see the shadow of nun's veils on our front verandah. Mum was glad to see me anyway...I was alive (had hitchhiked) Dad was not so easily impressed.
Lesson... Why go to boarding school when there is a perfectly good school close by... home is good and kids need to live in their own homes if possible.

4. At 17 I found my self with mt feet dangling over a cliff at Mereweather Newcastle...over some relationship...can't remember what he looked like now. My dad had recently been killed and I was really down. The world was black and could see no future. What stopped me was thoughts of how this would devastate my mother who had already suffered too much. I met Don the next year and never looked back...never got that down again.
Lesson...There is always a light at the end of every tunnel...even now. And there are consequences of our every action which we have to consider. But also I know how my mind was working at that time and would never judge anyone because of it.

5. Might lose some mates here, but I believe in a Divine plan, not God as such...but a power for good which we are all part of. But part of that divine plan is that all sentient beings have free will, otherwise we are all just robots and there is no point at all. There is a point to life, and believe that what heaven is is knowledge of truth, without sloppy emotionalism or our own baggage cluttering the aisles. Works for me and is my own church...does no harm to anyone else.
Lesson... Shit happens... its not personal. And when it is its okay to get revenge...

6. Many times my husband and I...he in his electric wheelchair and me "disguised" with grey wig and old ladies shoes and clothes and his mum's old walking stick would print up flyers about whatever was annoying the shit out of us, and go all round the CBD sticking these under shop doors, on windows (no damage) and making sure people could not ignore what was going on... He would wait at the end of each street, because everyone knew who he was, and I would do the street and get more "supplies" off him at the end...what a hoot. Together we would do anything because "there were no rules".
Lesson...there are no rules as long as you tell truth and don't hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it.

7. No surprises here...some people think we were unlucky or unfortunate, because Don was so sick during our adult lives for so long... but we didn't think like that. We were lucky because we found each other, we found our two kids who are scarily like us, and in our little corner of the world we were complete. We didn't need to look outside for pleasures other that a trip to the TAB for him, and the bookstore for me... while we were together we knew we had found the only one ever for us. How lucky is that? After Don died a woman said to me "You must be so relieved"... and another "You are a free woman now" Free from what?
Lesson... you can never know what other people's lives are like... we too often assume too easily.

8. Almost forgot... the "system" by which our world works is buggered... too many bureaucrats in bed with corporations pretending they are doing it all for us.
Lesson... when we finally acknowledge how bad they really are...then maybe we can begin to change things...one person at a time... not too sure I still believe that either.

Thanks Jackie...you stopped me from cleaning out our shed... there's rats down there...big ones from out of the creek...redbacks also

Friday, June 22, 2007

Jacqui said...
You have been tagged: 8 funny anecdotes or factoids about yourself.


later

Thursday, June 21, 2007

How To Not Hire An American - MUST SEE VIDEO

by BobOak
Mon Jun 18, 2007 at 10:47:53 AM PD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

Our goal is clearly NOT TO FIND a qualified and interested U.S. worker.
It's on video, believe it or not, and even presented as a selling point to peddle their services by Cohen & Grigsby Law Firm. That's right, this group of attorneys put an entire seminar on how to screw over the American worker on YouTube. Imagine that, a seminar from lawyers on how to make sure one doesn't have to hire an American worker!
BobOak's diary :: ::
In the video attorneys explain how they assist employers in running classified ads with the goal of NOT finding any qualified applicants, and how they disqualify even the most qualified Americans in order to secure green cards for H-1b workers.
I am not saying it is or it isn't

...its just there or appears to be there.

But the photo that the head, shoulders appears in see my previous two posts...was taken by my sister as the bagpiper piped Don down our driveway...we are in the second car... there was such a sense of golden peace that day...


The tree and cropped bit are on the right above that white van...and when you enlarge the photo just above and around that tree is a wonderful golden light...it was only 2.30 so the sun wasn't all that low...



Jin got it...

must be her artistic eye, honed after all those amazing cakes n stuff she makes...
Its right in the centre...it/he/she
I have enhanced this to show up the figure the head is just above the second blue/green coloured branch. The whole image flows down rh the bottom branch...
I'll show you the whole picture next time. This is just a small segment of it.Some will then say its a tric of the light...others will like me ...wonder...whatever... doesn't matter

Tuesday, June 19, 2007



Can you guess what this is?



may need to enlarge this picture


Travel up the tree and follow the right hand branch till where it divides in a little right hand hook.


Right next to that hook there is a branch of a piney tree with sharp leaves.
Follow that branch in a bit and you can see a definite head
attached to
shoulders and down further amongst the branches there seems to be a gold coloured mass
which just drops below the branch beneath and touches the one beneath
that.


will tell you later...

Monday, June 18, 2007

Jacqui sent this...worth a watch


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVawKZcyXZc

the above link is stunning...about 3 mins long ...give it time to load...it is worth while.

http://jacquiboyd-alden.blogspot.com/

Sunday, June 17, 2007





Fast Lady




In an old tin box, yesterday while looking at cards and letters from before 1972, when Don and I met, I found an envellope full of at least ten speeding tickets... and the penalty at that time was $6 Australian (circa 1967-69).




This is the car he loved and finally smashed ...it was called as you can see on the driver's side front.."Fast Lady". He lived at Blackwater (Queensland) and aged 16,17 and 18 worked for the US company called Utah Mining.


But on second thoughts I think that the above car was a Vauxhall or older Valiant...and this car also named "Fast Lady" was his brand new Valiant. Car type people will pick it...


all the grass around the car as well as that car are is burnt...but not the lovely Don.


He went through the cars at that stage thats for sure, in his reckless youth...I am so glad he had an angel on his shoulder, or I never would have met him...


when he finally did get hurt seriously it was just at work and something which couldn't be helped and nobody could have forseen. Funny that.


I went out to the cemetary at Wauchope today - because I had to...like sort of reminding myself that "No he is not coming home"...he is not just down the street, nor asleep in bed...


Like most of us, our little family has had its fair share of close deaths, luckily no children of any of us... but the ache inside me is unbelievable. I know that this is grief, and its normal. When you lived as closely as we did, almost 24 hours a day 7 days a week , and live with the knowledge of the preciousness of life, because we knew that any day since his initial accident, something could go wrong...we lived in the present... not wishing and dreaming about this and that... not needing to travel, accepting not going to the beach, and being unable to visit people's homes (most were impossible to access)...we became very self sufficient...and happy...apart from the odd blue which is okay.


Right now it just feels impossible to think I will never see him again in this life, but even as I write this in my mind's eye I can see his eyes filled with so much love. He wasn't perfect, we were not perfect... our family was /is not perfect, but what we had was real...


and he sure had a good time in his misbegotten youth. This was taken at about 17 before the long hair, beard etc... and he assured me he was quite the catch in Blackwater, and in a town actually called Dingo (I kid you not)...another town called Bluff ( hm!)...girls every where he assured me...
I sure had good taste ... when I met him he had long fair hair a thick beard and moustache and the best set of shoulders I had ever seen (apart from my own dad) all from hard work not the pooncy gym...
and his "Fast Lady" days were over as the first car we bought was a Hillman Imp...from the wrecker's yard for $142 and we drove it up to Cairns in north Queensland and all over...rolled in on Port Douglas beach up there... and drove it back down to NSW with the back windscreen out ( a bit chilly to sleep in at night..)



Tuesday, June 12, 2007

A most amazing Man.


Today I was talking to a lady we know, who is a real estate agent we have learnt to trust...expecially Don.


Some months back in early 07 he called her out to value our house without telling me and I was upset when she turned up as I love this peaceful place we have chosen to live in. and the thought of selling it or even valuing it made me mad...


Today I told her that I knew Don was not sure he would live out this year (which does not excuse the malpracticeof the docs who had him in their so called care)...he just seemed to know and accept his time was short...


She told me she had been puzzled by his calling her out to value the house and realised what he was doing. As we are out of town, he had been trying in his own way to see if the house was worth enough should I need to sell and move back into town, because as she said "he did not want you to be lonely"...


and I am lonely...itis heartbreakingly lonely but would be as lonely in town as it is here and here I have the peace and thebirds and his quietness about me...


but what a guy...to be thinking of me and how I would be. I feel so touched and a bit ashamed that I did not twig what he was on about, because bastard... bastard...he was a rough diamond and would never tell me if he was doing something nice and soft...and sometimes I missed the clues.
This is a man who will go intoour local shopping centre (just after the girls left home) put on a blonde wig (like our eldest) and take her 'little red port' in - that little red port is a famibly joke - and make me pose with the youngest's favourite Teddy bear "Toby"...whack it on a christmas card and not worry that our more respectable neighbours might note us having our piccies taken with Santa...who mainly had 7 yr okds on his knee...this sort of thing was the normfor Don and it was always and constant... he only cared about the present for himself but was concerned about our future...al;lways. Are'nt I the lucky one to have been so blessed?




Thursday, June 07, 2007


It rained today.

The two "After Dark" trees were planted for Don, Tuesday and it began to gently rain Wednesday with follow up today...we have not had rain for ages.
Bear with me for a short while...okay. I have been looking through old photos from the 1970's and found some really wonderful ones. A time for some of you bloggers,...when you were just babies...and a time for the rest of us when we were young. If you had someone to love in the '70's who loved you...it did not matter if you had a new cot, nor security, or if your car was a bit old. We didn't have a telephone...but we had kids and each other and it was wonderful...and you know what, apart from the usual "adjustment" issues when two pepople from different families try to merge...I remember thinking most of the time how happy and lucky I was...but t'was always a happy little vegemite...
and I was very lucky. It may hurt like hell as it does now, but it only hurts like hell because we loved. And thet really is all there is.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

After Dark

IN about 1973 to 1975 there was a show on Australian Television called "The Aunty Jack Show". We (Don and I) were very young and this show was like "our" show. For a time (3 months) we lived at Don's mother's house and used to get our old black and white TV and watch this in the spare bedroom, while she made loud comments outside the door as to why didn't we come and watch "Temptation" or something.

http://members.pcug.org.au/~stmcdona/auntyjac.html

http://home.aanet.com.au/dag_fest/Sounds/

http://www.auntyjack.org/

We loved this show...and being young a few episodes were watched whilst smoking Don's own (purely organic) crop of the dreaded weed, wrapped expertly by me in a cigarette rolling machine Don had. We only smoked once or twice a week and this was the one. We would go outside and have a smoke and then come inside and watch our favourite. And you know that show is even better straight. The Aunty Jack Theme became our theme...and has bought tears to our eyes many times.

But there was an episode of that show which delighted Don for ages...it was the one where John Mellion played a constable circa 1880 and he had a sidekick caled "After Dark" who was a blue eyed aboriginal black tracker...soooo poiltically incorrect these days. The kids and I played a repeat of this show days after his funeral.

Today I went to the local nursery (as per Mirk's siggestion) to but a memorial tree...and guess what I saw as soon as I went inside...

a tree called "After Dark"....

Don's Trees (two incase one karks it) are called Agomis " After Dark"
Jim & Jackie Koppman, who have been in the horticultural industry for over 30 years, are the breeders of this new exciting variety of Agonis.
Jim & Jackie found this plant as a lone specimen growing in a propagation tray with other Agonis cuttings, it appeared to have darker foliage than the other green leaved plants. They knew that this plant had special qualities and planted it into a pot and placed it to one side in the nursery. When placed in the full sun the magnificent burgundy colorings of the foliage were clearly seen, this lone plant had the most stunning dark burgundy foliage with brilliant claret new growth.
As the plant grew it was observed that the leaves were thinner and it had a semi weeping habit as the plant matured. In bloom the flowers are white with a deep burgundy center compared with the normal Agonis variety that has green broader leaves with fragrant white flowers with dark green centers. As a mature specimen the ‘After Dark’ grow to 6m high X 3-5m wide, smaller than the normal variety of Agonis.
Agonis ‘After Darks’ for sale took 7-8 years of hard work
Jim & Jackie found that this new plant was very hard to propagate and the only way to produce large numbers was to tissue culture it. From the day that they found this lone plant in the propagation tray to releasing the Agonis ‘After Darks’ for sale took 7-8 years of hard work. Jackie informs that the Agonis ‘After Darks’ love to be grown in well-drained soils but love plenty of water, and they will grow best in full sun. They can be pruned back hard which will encourage the colorful juvenile growth. For good color Jackie recommends to fertilise well with a fertiliser that is high in phosphorous, Devotion™ Time Release Fertiliser & well-rotted horse manure are good to use.