My mental health is interfering with this Mental Health Day post

I wanted to do a really interesting post, but my motivation is totally crap at the moment. This is what it’s like having depression and I continue to learn to live with it. The weather here has something to do with me not perking up as summer approaches [here in the Southern Hemisphere]. It has been fairly cool and grey for two weeks after a few very warm days of almost 30 degrees C! The gardens started growing madly, the depressed people cheered up and many started visiting the beach. Alas, it didn’t last and I have had a little hiccup in my climb towards January’s brightness.

Cool & cloudy at the beach

I’m at the stage in my depression where I know I CAN feel better but I can’t force it. I was really good last year when I was taking my pills and managing my thoughts while being occupied with study and other interests. Since  that time various delays have had their effects on me so that I can’t finish things to which I had committed. I have been having a rather hard time, in spite of the efforts of my partner and friends to entertain me and add some spark. However, I try to do the things that keep me more cheerful, like meeting friends for coffee or a meal, going on walks to keep a bit fit and having photographic excursions to the beach. For instance, last week I met two old friends from uni and had an extraordinarily cheap lunch at the Casino! We got lunch for $6 each, including a 600ml drink! One friend was feeling very down about her job, post uni as it is far too much being an unpaid social worker with indigenous people and no data crunching as she had foreseen. We tried to get her to focus on the money & experience for the meanwhile and think about changing jobs when she is performing well in this one. My other friend, an Indonesian pharmacist, is doing postgrad work with an established group at one of the local unis, so she just has to put her nose down and get moving! I was setting her straight on what to concentrate on so that she gets her proposal in quickly- she was trying to read the entire literature without putting pen to paper. I said she should make a list that said “Wanna know” and another headed “Quickest way to get there”. She thinks I saved her life!

Anyway, back to me. I really love photography and it is one thing I can make myself do even when I’m at my lowest ebb. When I can’t even be bothered getting dressed properly, I take photos in the backyard and inside the house. I take photos of odd things like rusty bolts or I take photos from strange angles to make it difficult to recognise the subject.

At the end of the jetty

Last time I ventured to the beach a girl tossing sticks and balls into the waves for her dog asked me why I was photographing them. I told her “This is what I do to make me feel happy. I photograph things and people at the beach”. She seemed OK with this, so I captured some more shots, then headed out along the jetty for alternative subjects.

Waiting for a stick

It was a cool, windy day, but the sun was shining often enough that lots of people had ventured out, hoping that Spring had sprung.

I was hoping the photos of this dog, happily jumping about in the waves would cheer me up a bit and I think they have.

Come on

Must get it

I’m hoping for more sunshine in my life so I can enjoy myself as much as him.

The Hunter

Brain too full to post!

Trying to finish this Masters degree means I have to work hard on restricted topics for long periods of time. So why can’t I write a bit about one of those? Well- I feel guilty devoting any words to anything other than an essay or dissertation! My other blog has also died, even though I could write exactly the same thing in that blog as an essay (http://healthforhumans.blogspot.com).

My dissertation could have been finished by the end of first semester if I had been able to get ethical clearance and worked on the data then, but life ain’t like that in the Land of Research! I had written the background to the project, a “skeleton” article to pop the results into when I got them, plus an ethics committee submission for the university in the first 4 weeks of Semester 1. Now it is nearly Week 9 of Semester 2, with that plus weeks 10, 11 and 12 before uni breaks up for Christmas/summer! I still haven’t been granted access to the de-identified/anonymised data from the state health department- it takes forever until each little level of bureaucracy is satisfied I don’t want to publish the names of the patients and hospitals who have problems on Facebork or whatever! My supervisor and Head of Department have signed so many pieces of paper, they are getting RSI. And I have a wonderful task for them on Tuesday (Monday is a public holiday here)- ANOTHER bit of tree to sign! Must be patient…

I even had a little lecture on how to address an envelope suitably for the health department when I ended up trying to deliver a report to the exec officer for the ethics committee- the security guy said I should put my stuff in their internal mail to make sure it got to the top of her desk when she returned. So I got a security pass from him and toddled up to the first floor. There, an autistic person objected to the name I had put on the front of the reports with “To: X on 10th Floor” or whatever. I had to listen while she told me that my boss at the university should find out how the health department likes addresses to be formal, formatted in a certain way and on a WHITE label, ON an opaque envelope. I had a set of reports in a transparent plastic folder so they didn’t get separated! I could have clobbered her, but figured she really was autistic and had to go through her spiel no matter what anyone said. So I stood and took it.

Now I’m fiddling with the data I managed to get for free and without password from the Australian Medicare database containing info about how many prescriptions are dispensed for every medication in the system, in which state and whether paid for by Medicare itself (Public), Privately or by the Veteran’s Affairs Dept. I was able to download all my necessary numbers from here in January- now I have an extra 6 month’s worth to play with, thanks to everyone stringing me out!

I was so distracted when I was writing my first essay this semester for my last course-work subject, that I almost wrote a whole dissertation on it! The topic was in Indigenous Health (mainly pertaining to Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples) and we had to choose a disease or illness that was a public health problem in this group. I chose Trachoma (an infectious eye disease, familiar in poor, developing countries like the Sudan and Afghanistan). There was masses of material to digest, especially from the World Health Organisation and UN. In addition, Australia has had decades of government policies about providing various health services which would have fixed the problem in no time flat, but they never implement them fully… You might have heard of a bloke named Fred Hollows- he set up a Foundation to care for vision problems, firstly in Australia and then internationally. His wife Gaby now administers the Fred Hollows Foundation and they mainly work in war-ravaged nations such as Democratic Republic (sic) of Congo, East Timor and Uzbekistan etc. Anyway, fred’s team charged out into the bush and fixed trachoma and other eye problems using surgery and antibiotics in the mid to late 1970s, ie. last century. However, the pussyfooting governments since haven’t followed up and the trachoma and blindness is coming back. Hopefully a new campaign, organised by a doctor who was just a young whippersnapper on Fred’s first expedition, Hugh Taylor, will get in there and hopefully eliminate the disgusting scourge over the next year or two.

The head lecturer even lent me a beautiful book by Hugh Taylor (and signed!) to help with the essay, but I’m afraid I just got even deeper into the subject and ended up having to cut what I’d written by two thirds at the last minute!! Oh dear- what a hash. Hopefully I’ll at least score a pass!

Anyway, I’ve learnt my lesson and I’m not consulting nearly as many references for the second (and last ever) essay which I have chosen to write on “Indigenous Mental Health, ‘Country’, and Land Rights”. It sounds like social studies rather than public health, eh?! ABC TV has some programs which help explain indigenous peoples’ attachment to ‘country’- which I certainly needed explaining to me 2 months ago, but now have a good understanding for a white person.

Now I guess I have made a bit of a post, so I can stop. I might be able to write something about analysing my data on possible connections between several drugs and adverse events in South Australia, once I get the de-identified information from the health department. It’s pretty weird stuff, but I think I could explain the essence of it simply!

SO, there you are- pretty boring, huh!

New Year’s Day 12 noon

Last night no alcohol- this morning, no hangover- yayy!! However, we had to get up early as Bridie and AJ were off to drive to Melbourne and subsequently Zeehan, Tasmania. Bridie has gone for a short but indefinite stay, summoned by her old friend Alan who needs company as he goes through the last stages of bone cancer- very sad. AJ has gone to drive the Jeep with caravan and dog in tow so Bridie has some accommodation at various times. AJ will fly back to the mainland in a few days to resume her uranium-mining job at Roxby Downs.
It has been a busy time having them stay 3 months, with one on the family room sofa and the other on a new chair sofa in the front room! We all thought they would only stay a few weeks originally but the job market was not very bright for either of them for a while. Now AJ has the mining job (after training to be both a heavy-rigid vehicle driver and a security guard) and Bridie has as much part-time work as she can handle with a “helping hand” agency looking after the disabled.
During this time I managed to complete a semester of my Masters in Public Health, although I had nowhere to study quietly and do my assignments- didn’t do quite as well as expected, but ended up with a Credit anyway.
My mood is a lot better than it was 3 months ago, although it took a few dives under the stress of coping with extra people in the house 24 hours a day! I know it was a big ask of myself to cope with house guests when I’m not wildly OK myself- but I could hardly leave them homeless- I would expect other people to look after me in a similar situation!
I think the cats will be relieved to have their humans back unaccompanied! Poor Moggsy has been extra shy about coming into the house for food- if she hears Bridie’s voice approaching while she’s feeding she runs and won’t return to finish her meal. Consequently she’s lost some weight- which isn’t all bad! Bendix adapted reasonably quickly but has been a little ratty at times- he was disappointed that Kevin was a dog and not a cat as he wanted to play with him on an equal basis! Moustiers thought Bridie and AJ ALWAYS lived here, and only haunted us in bed at night as she always did- why she couldn’t haunt AJ more often I don’t know!
Our back garden is somehow surviving the 40degC days, although the magnolia tree is burnt again and another cypress pine lost its top in a whippy breeze. The petunias are mostly OK in their pots and starting to flower, we have a pot tomato thriving, some chives and a few pigface ground covers. The cumquats are greener than last year, but not very healthy yet. I wish they’d come good- perhaps they need root pruning and larger pots?
The atrium plants are OK- tuberous begonias are starting to flower and the liliums have finished. the camellias seem to be withstanding the heat as long as we put the sprayers on often to keep the air moist. I bought some colourful resin pots from Ikea but haven’t managed to plant anything in them. They are supposed to be standing in 2 neat rows on the plant stand in the atrium so we have something colourful at eye level! Fingers crossed- I still have to drill holes in the bases for drainage.
So life goes on at Number 13 and we hope 2010 will be happier and healthier. I’ll put in a big wish for WEALTHIER! Greedy me- but I would like to go back to my old way of living with a minimum of money worry! I don’t want to live in luxury- especially the sort of thing that is publicised as “luxurious celebrity-style”- no gold taps for me- just let me pay the bills on time and go to the movies occasionally!