Tiger's new Cat grass...

never having owned a cat that had to be incarcerated all the time because of her hunting ability - Tiger recently acquired some indoor cat grass...She took to it straight away and hawked up the first couple of lots - she has wormed her way into my heart and thankfully she is not the brightest cat upon the planet as even after all these months she still can't figure out the cat flap - which means the other one Cuss (rhymes with Puss) can go n and out except for night times...

Just a lovely spot that I love to go to

The Mack Attack!!!!
I have been a waiting some time to address this funny issue...funny peculiar not funny ha ha...some time back my eldest sister and I went for a drive up into the mountains to a vineyard - yes I know - to be a teetotaler is best but - on the drive up we went past about a half a dozen huge and scary Mack Trucks all a loaded up with stone from the quarries...the road was not much wider than the trucks so we clung to the edges - but no we did not get killed although we haw hawed with laughter knowing about the Mack Attack joke inside our family. today on my way home out of town two nasty looking Mack trucks nearly took me out on narrow roads with not much room to spare - but hey here I am for better or for worse - so I lived to enjoy another day - but also to tell this story... please suspend any belief in family loyalty and love for this little episode... - when your husband is really sick and then is killed by medicos don't think your extended family will cut you a little slack ... rather they go the other way in their smug little self contained worlds... so whats with the MACK trucks you may ask???
As we all know there is an old saying about getting "hit with a Mack Truck" and its always been one of my favourites...I often say..."Okay but whatever happens I might get hit by a Mack Truck today" which means to me... value the people you are with, the things you do because who knows this might be your last day - there really might be a Mack Truck with your name on it out there...I have used this term almost all my adult life - hey even Mae West used the same term all those years ago...

So the issue is that in about 2002 when finally so hurt and frustrated by an elder sister's letter saying that it would be my fault if she didn't see my husband before he died - and after she returned my mail - I wrote "What would it take... a Mack truck to wake you up?" We all know what that means... it meant just get a grip and have a reality check but no this sister took it to mean that I was a coming for her with a Mack Truck - honestly. She convinced her family, husband etc and then my other sister's husband that yes mad and bad old Therese was capable of this - a mack truck a coming for you sister...

Unbelievable!
Brother in law number two then was warned that I might even then harm his wife with a bloody mack truck...ha ha...

Like how many gears does a mack truck have? Please someone tell me. I have never learned to drive anything other than an automatic VW van - and I think I would have trouble even getting inside a Mack truck...the old back is a bit rigid these days.

I know from someone who used to know these creepy people that they talked about this as if I might even do it... all the while Don and I were battling just for him to stay alive...each day was scary - the furthest I got was in town to do groceries and banking whilst paying for someone to stay with him - even after he was killed they did not let up.

So everytime a Mack truck doesn't take me out I have a little chuckle... can have a picture in my mind of my bunny hopping a mack truck down my little road - much less driving it all the way into another state where my sister and her smug husband live - so respectable...and so stupid.

Why this has come about is that my sister accused me of doing the very worst thing a wife could do to a disabled husband...of intercepting her faxes to him and answering them in his name...all untrue...and she would have known this as she stayed with us often enough and saw how we were together. He had been bed bound at that time and I delivered all his mail and he responded. He even contacted a JP to notarise each letter to say that he had seen and responded to her silly demands. The JP was astounded at the lengths Don went to to clear my name. For a disabled person and their wife to interfere with their autonomy is a huge crime...worse than having an affair in my mind.

Finally in frustration and because he was as upset as I was and rightfully so, Don made a DVD before he died...stating truth...a truth that is too uncomfortable for my sister and her husband to listen to -it was returned unopened which upset my husband a lot as he had been so ill when he made it... last year when another brother in law was killed ( one of the good ones sadly) this scummy lot generated the rumour that I might do something to my sisters when they came over for the funeral - lucky that my two other sisters knew better... out of all this I have realised that it does not take all that much for people to blacken your name - but luckily my kids and two sisters know the truth...as far as those who have intimated I might run over them all with the Mack truck I can not even drive...nor afford to drive... -

Its so funny ...when Melissa and Alison were home on Don's birthday in 2009, we made a home video sending up a "Mack Attack" and every time we watch It we laugh so hard we hurt our throats...if ever I feel down remembering happier times before Don was killed... I put this video on... its such a bloody good send up of the relatives who have injured our family too much - and my Mack Truck is my old Kombi van all dizzied up...but still an automatic... and with all th grunt VW's are know for - ha...like a line of traffic behind me as I drive up a hill...

I know they will read this they can't help themselves.

Sorry regular bloggers but this had to be dealt with and its my only way of contacting maybe one day they will grow up and have the guts to watch Don's DVD. The one reason my sister and her husband have not watched Don's DVD is that they haven't got the guts to see the truth because then they will have to face the real truth - that my elder sister lied to the whole family about me. Then they can cease pretending to be looking over their shoulders in case I finally learn to drive 23plus gears of a Mack Truck and run them down - -as if... Talk about thick as two planks...

It does still upset me. The relationship my little family have together is very special. My sister sought to and has achieved with some of the family a lessening of respect of our family's love for each other.

I reckon I could look pretty mean behind the wheel of one of these rigs - but might need a ladder to get in...

Been out of touch a bit but up to good works


Call for Royal Commission into the Health Care Complaints system following death of Port Macquarie man caused by Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital


Statement issued by Therese Mackay, widow of Port Macquarie resident Don Mackay


This morning I will be meeting with Andrew Constance, Shadow Minister for Disability Services, to ask that he and Shadow Health Minister Jillian Skinner press for a Royal Commission into the behaviour and activities of the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission.

The HCCC long ago ceased to act in the interests of those thousands of patients injured or killed inside the NSW hospital and health system. The HCCC is no longer accountable to the people of NSW, and its investigative bias has allowed those medical staff who have acted negligently and caused injury and death to the citizens of NSW to also be unaccountable. This situation has worsened since Labor took office in 1995.

The HCCC bent over backwards to ensure no one was held accountable for my husband Don’s degradation and death at the hands of RNSH doctors in April/May 2007. The Coroner’s office stated: “It is most unlikely that the deceased’s rapid, but lengthy, deterioration would have commenced when it did but for the patient undergoing the various transfers and treatment.” But that is as far as the Coroner went – there was no hearing, no inquest.

Yet the HCCC claimed my husband’s treatment was "acceptable". HCCC officers even brushed aside the admissions of errors and mistakes made by the hospital itself. In a breach of my husband’s human rights and outrageous disability discrimination, these "investigators" said that when my husband had his lungs accidentally suctioned at 10 times the required amount for 22 hours, this “would not have caused him significant pain because he was a quadriplegic” - yet the opposite was the case, as my husband was hypersensitive to internal organ pain. I was left gagging when I read this, because I watched as he suffered horribly. Along with a Royal Commission into the HCCC, I am also seeking a full inquiry into my husband's death.

I would like to see the HCCC disbanded and replaced with an office inside NSW Police specialising in medically caused injury and death and with the powers to prosecute within our legal system. For too long, those thousands of us who have watched relatives suffer and die because of medical negligence have been left without justice. We suffer as much as those who are the relatives of victims of unsolved homicide, without any effective official representation. It is vital that those who have dealt with the HCCC, who have had relatives killed or injured inside the NSW health care system, are able to have their voices heard and that justice be served. Every year thousands of complaints are received by the HCCC but very few if any result in medical staff being called to account, even -as with my husband - in the most grossly negligent of cases.

Lorraine Long of the Medical Victims Error Action Group, who bought the so-called Butcher of Bega to the attention of the media, tells me the Group has a data base of thousands of incidents of medical negligence and/or error that have never been properly investigated, and she is also calling for a Royal Commission into the HCCC.


23 March 2010

I did have the whole complaint in here below but it was way too long and had a lot of glitches in it.

Happy St. Patricks Day
The first one doesn't have film but its brilliant - its the Chieftains and the Stones -On the Rocky Road to Dublin - I think the Chieftains outplayed the Stones in the end...its great


Don't know why the woolie jumpers were all the go - must be a bit chilly...its a "look" that doesn't interfere with the singing






And this is amazing - all these people playing live music just for the love of it - thats something else.


My eldest Melissa and her Husband are in the Rocks area of Sydney today and would be right in the heart of the Australian celebrations - Having descended from Flanagans, Butlers, McGoldricks and the like - this day is for me a sort of triumph of survival - no matter what was thrown at the Irish throughout over 800 - yes 800 years of occupation - wherever they went the spirit grew in them and now millions of people celebrate, worldwide (many with no Irish ancestry)the survival of that culture, and its music and of the Celtic way which is in so many of us - Ah must be time for a little drinkee by now -
Actually I think the whole world has Irish Ancestry - they were always thorough and successful in following the Pope's orders to get out there and procreate - by God

Some more views about the plac

- I recently bought this little table and chairs from a restaurant which was changing decor - for some reason when I sit out here as soon as I do its as if a wave of blessed peace falls about me...everytime.

















Looking back up - it all takes a lot of work - and I know one day I will be forced financially to say goodbye to it - but for now our home is like a haven from what sometimes seems to be a world gone mad.







My mulberry trees are just beginning to drop leaves - as the earth spins around the sun and we start slowly to cool down - down under - or are we really on top - just because the globe is always shown with the North Pole up what we consider the top - I somehow think that that matters not a jot out there in the solar system...we may well be on top.

I will now feel easier about sitting down there, as it cools - just days ago I got a slasher in to do the paddock - he killed 2 red bellied (large ones) when he ran over them in the long grass...In the summer heat I tend to be very watchful when I walk about.



Some more of the Rainbow Lorikeets

Some Autumn piccies... only the Mulberry trees are losing leaves yet...but even though the days are still warm, the nights are just beautiful. I am an open window freak, can't stand being shut in no matter how cold - there is nothing like the smell of the night time air to make you realise what a beautiful world it can be.

I may have posted these plants before who can tell - but these are Don's Blue Ginger plants. We bought them years ago at a nursery in Wauchope, and remembered to bring a few bits with us when we moved here in 2004...we will have been here 6 years in 2 weeks. Its amazing but while these are in flower you hear a constant buzzing. The bees just get inside to the pollen and go beresk and come our laden with pollen.
After seeing Sling's amazing photos my camera doesn't seem so clear and quick...

The two little visitors which Sara identified kept popping their heads up at me like two naughty kids..I'll have to go back in my blog to get their names - so for now they are some sort of Finch...I couldn't et any closer as they were really aware of me and ready to fly.

And down the bottom is one of the all time and very common Rainbow Lorikeets - they mass about, mess about and are really garrulous - you can usually get closer than this to them but they seemed particularly watchful ...

Its St Patrick's day today so will have to find something Irish to post.

Don's lovely sisters... old photos again. These two girls, Jeanette being the one with the darker hair and Judy the fairer one were Don's two older sisters. I never got to meet Jeanette as she, her husband, four year old son and unborn baby were all killed when a drunk driver slammed into their little Volkswagen near Woodburn NSW on Australia day 1969. Don was 19 then and I was only 14, so we hadn't met. The stories I heard about Jeanette made me realise I had been very unlucky in never getting to meet her. Don used to say that Jeanette was the only one who could keep their mother under control as she was afraid of nothing. She was all of 4ft9inches but I got the feeling from Don that she was the fire and spirit in the family. The day he closed down his mother's house after she had died.... he sat near the front door of that house and wept. I thought he was crying for his mother - but he said he could still remember his sister opening the front door at 4am after he'd driven all night from Queensland to see her...and she threw open her arms and hugged him into the house...it was her house at that time.

When Don was dying in that filthy Royal North Shore Hospital it was this photo of his sisters, and one of Melissa and Alison (which I had stuck onto an piece of A4 paper...together)... it was this one that he would ask to be bought over so he could touch the faces.

When his other sister Judy was dying from Cancer in 1998 Don sat beside her for the three months of her dying and I would hear them chattering away - sometimes I would go into the room and she would be having some blessed relief asleep, and he would have his wheelchair stretched back and be asleep beside her.

Judy I did get to know, and I liked her straight away. I felt comfortable with her and unlike so many others she was one of the people who knew how to spend time with Don...a visit to us was a visit - not a holiday. When she visited us she spent time with us and renewed their relationship. I still have images of the pair of them out in the yard looking at this plant or that, deciding what to do with this or that tree...and always if Don was stuck in bed as he was for too much time...she would be the one who would hop up beside him and comfortably watch tele or chat. A visit wasn't just saying hello, eating and sleeping and then buggering off to enjoy the sights....she understood that we couldn't do too much of that stuff - she had a wonderful insight into Don's reality that few others have ever had apart from our girls.

She could be a bit crazy at times - in a good way - as she was always planing big endeavours - some of which she pulled off... and she wrote the very longest and most illegible letters I have ever seen. She like Don saw the world as if the glass was half full not half empty - and thats what drew me first to Don and to her.

Judy was married twice. Only a year after marrying the love of her life (her first marriage) when she was in her late teens, he was killed in a car accident. She was driving but not at fault... she held him as he died. Por Judy. I know she held a real spark for him for the rest of her life - and I have no doubt but that they are together now.

And here they both are so young with such big smiles...anticipating a wonderful life - which they did have most of the time.

I think what reminded me of these two girls...was I was looking at their respective wedding photos which are on the wall in my lounge room - (I have a wedding photo wall!!)...and thinking about Alison who is to be married in September. When I was down in Melbourne I went with her as she tried on some wedding dresses...one dress she tried on was so elegant -not all frou frou and puffed up like too many of them - but simple and elegant with 1930's shoulders...and for some bloody reason when she stood there, with her long hair gathered up, looking like a queen, I just burst out crying...and its not my style to cry like this over weddings... she wasn't standing there all aware of her own beauty...I don't think she was even aware of how she looked, and that humility made this moment so precious. There are no "princesses" in our girls...just Queens - and there is a difference.

Its moments like these I miss sharing with Don...moments like these that I have to hope that Don can really see and feel what is happening in his daughters' lives - and if there is a heaven or somewhere just as good - I have no doubt but that there are these two lovely girls looking on as well...

He's been in my head constantly lately...I guess it might be like this for the next few years as March rolls around - in my head its as if it is all happening again in the background of my mind. I am still not able to have my manuscript published, I have now had 14 rejections but still have 10 still out there... I cannot accept that even though RNShospital admitted they did dangerous surgery on Don without following any procedures - None - not one - zilch. Why this is not considered criminal and needs Inquiry is beyond me - and I have to wonder at the power and pull of those who wish to bury their mistakes.

I don't live my life all down and miserable and am a happy little Vegemite most of the time, but it is up to me to see this through - and as we have a state election coming up next year...I am going to stir up the opposition as much as I can so as to have that Inquiry declared when they come into power. There is no one else who can or will do this...and I feel for me and the girls this is one if not the most important thing I will ever do with my life.

The Celts have a maxim - "To do the right thing because it is the right thing to do" - not for any rewards, or public acknowledgment or even the thought of eternal reward after death - but simply because it is the right thing to do. This is how Don and I tried to live (with a few naughty exceptions that harmed no one at all...for me, what I am doing and planning to do is the right thing to do...and I sometimes get a strong feeling that I do get help ... maybe from the angels - which I do believe in - maybe I get a little push or help from Don and maybe those two sisters of his -who knows - but some things just seemed to have worked out so right...and if I work towards it with the right mindset - who knows what might happen.

Remember Peter Spencer,
the man who spent 52 days up the wind tower on a hunger strike, trying to get the NSW Government to deal fairly with him and hundreds of other Australian farmers. He came to Wauchope recently and I was able to video his talk. All Australians need to listen to him as he speaks not just for farmers but for any one who imagines that they have title deed rights to their property. Its in four parts.

Back from Melbourne
I have just arrived back from Melbourne...visited our youngest daughter and had some surgery done as well. I admit to feeling totally buggered and sick but as of this afternoon I think I will live.

Some nice pictures taken are of Alison on my last morning there - she lives in Armadale Vic... now since moving from South Melbourne...the gluten free pancakes and eggs she cooked - she and Andrew and myself as well are all gluten intolerant - so no bread or wheat etc -



and it all tasted great... she made sure it tasted great...lots of maple syrup and in her case peanut butter...lots of butter... the real stuff .

















Andrew and Ali






























Ali and I
































And Ali's childhood friend Toby the teddy bear panda...he was with her since she turned about 15 months old... I got him from a second hand store when she was sick in hospital with Vaccine induced Pneumonia - a condition which nearly killed her...he represents the life she has had since then...I remember watching her "dying" but she didn't luckily...and here she is now 32...someone with love in her heart...someone who can sing to make you cry...someone who is soooo precious...ahhh... and Toby saw it all and no doubt saw more than I can tell