Did aliens take my patient????

We are still waiting to hear back from Bill's interview. Overall the store manager wanted to hire him, the 2IC was very insecure about him and they were offering a much lower salary than expected.



But I'm taking one day at a time and see what happens... will keep you posted :)



I had an ambo job at 1.30am this morning. I never do night jobs well ... it always takes about 10mins for my brain to kick into action.



On our way there COMMS came back saying two patients were at Waihi Police station so they reassigned our paramedic and one ambulance there and sent us (the other ambulance) to the scene to check there were no other occupants hidden, lost or abandaned at the scene.



When we got there we had a good look around the smashed up car and in the bushes, had a chat to the fire brigade and police and there didn't seem to be any patients unaccounted for.

I gave an update to COMMS ...

"We are R23 code 2"

Their reply ... "Sorry, Waihi Beach1 can you repeat that message!!!??!"

"We are R23 code 2 ... ohhhh ... ummm ... ooops ... sorry, correction ... (pause) ... we are R35!!! code 2"

I was so embarrased ... My boss's boss came on air next to say "Thankyou WaihiBeach1 you can stand down and return to station" with a chuckle in his voice ...

why was he (and everyone else listening to the radio) laughing???? ....

... because ... what I was supposed to say was ...

"R35 code 2" which means ...

R35 ... ambulance stand down ... code 2 ... patient gone by other transport

What I did say was ...

R23 ... PATIENT DEAD!!! code 2 ... and gone by other transport!!

I can't believe it did that!!! HOW EMBARRASING!! and infront of all those people!
Hmmm ... think I might be up for a blooper award on that one at the mid winter ambulance awards.

...

I'm very excited to say we are off for the weekend to go to Lee-Anne's wedding. Bill and I without the kids. The last time we went away without kids was ... I can't honestly remember!!

We've organised a babysitter to stay overnight with the kids, staff in the shop and my ambulance rosters to be covered... a big mission but we did it!!

Then we rang the babysitter to check we were all good for tomorrow and her reply "ohhh am I staying overnight??? I didn't know that ... ohhhh ..."

WTF???!!!??

We told her that at the start ... lucky Bill was on the phone to her not me. He was much more polite than I would have been!!

So yes to still do have a babysitter ... just as well!!!

We're off ... and boy do I need it!!!

Yay go Lee-anne!!!

MEN!!!!!

How am I today??

Interesting question ... Numb would be one word. Angry another, helpless, manipulated, alone, lost, nervous with a small amount of maybe I'm over exagerating and it's all about nothing!!!

I certainly hope I'll wake up tomorrow and it's the latter.

As I type this Bill is driving to Rotorua ... for a job interview!

Yep! We have a business we run together, yep I am trying to train as an ambo officer which takes a good 40hrs a week, yep we have 4 kids together.

Why??? Because for the last 3 winters we have struggled financially, because he's lost the passion for the shop, because he's bored.

So much spinning through my head. My life is at a crossroads and will turn in a dramatically different direction depending on the decision of one man in an office in a supermarket in Rotorua!!!

I'm mad!! I have followed this man all around the country for the last 13yrs of our marriage so he can persue his dreams. The whole reason we have this shop is because HE wanted it, not me! And now that he's bored of it he's thrown his toys out of the cot and followed another idea. Leaving me to pick up the pieces.

What will happen to my ambo work?? I really don't know! I finally found a passion. For years and years I sat at home without a passion, no reason to wake up in the morning. Then I stumbled across something that made me feel like I was useful. Now I may have to throw it all away.

Put your foot down and say NO! you say?? Do you not think I have tried that? My husband is a very stubborn man!

What do I do now?? Not much I can do that I haven't already tried. My hands are tied and I'M PISSED OFF!!!

Thankyou letter

Another 400g gone this week. Definately not complaining about this one, given I did indulge in a little bit of chocolate over Easter. Not huge amounts tho. What I did find was that the 4 or 5 easter eggs made me cave in to other temptations.

I'm definately an all or nothing personality, so when I slip up in one area I find it hard to keep tracking my food and stay OP. I know all the theory behind this and did manage to stay ontrack ... just. I guess my focus was gone this week.

But that's all good because this is the first day of a brand new tracking week for me and I managed to squeeze in with a loss. So what am I actually complaining about?? lol Not actually sure. Guess I need to refocus my motivation and give myself a kick up the butt and be grateful the scales were nice for the few indescretions.

Onto other news...

The shop was crazy busy over Easter! It was our biggest Easter yet, one day we were up by over $2000 for the day (compared to Easter Saturday last year). That definately helps ... ohh except for the fact that Bill paid $3000 to the wrong person last night on internet banking!!! A big $3000 whoopsie!!! The stupid bank wouldn't help us because we couldn't tell them our phone pin number! And of course he had to pay another $3000 to the CORRECT person ... I tell ya sometimes I think that man is a natural blonde under that dark cover!!

Ambulance has also be crazy busy over easter with so many people here at the beach. No major catastrophe stuff which is good. Been doing study this week (for my Nat Cert in Ambulance) on irregular heart rhythms and then recognised an odd ecg rhythm strip on a job and was able to query what heart condition she had. Very cool feeling to have my study actually come together on a job.

There was a letter this morning in the local paper from a patient I took to hospital (well it was the mother of the 18mth old patient) ... rather than reword it I'll type it in here for you ...

Volunteers' effort a priceless asset ...

This letter is dedicated to all the mainly volunteers who work for organisations who assist people within the Waihi area.

Our son has a severe condition where quick response from a doctor and St John is essential.

We are highly impressed and very thankful for the unselfish effort the people of Waihi/Waihi Beach put into this mainly volunteer work.

We were recommended to move closer to the hospital but we think we are better off living in Waihi where midical first aid is extremely professional, quick and effective.

Thankyou all very much to the people who support and help us.

A town is just as good as its inhabitants - Waihi rocks!!!

When people ask why I love ambulance so much .... this is why!!

See you can lose weight over Easter ...

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!

See? You can have easter eggs and lose weight!! Just do what this easter bunny is doing for 15mins prior to consumption This easter will be a pretty uneventful one for me. I'm doing an ambo shift today and working in the shop for the rest of it.


I heard an interesting thing on the radio yesterday from an obesity campaigner (preventing obesity in children). They said not to limit chocolate for kids over easter, infact feed them up on it if that's what they want. They had my attention with that statement! Because one or two days of eating chocolate is not going to make a huge difference in the big picture. It's the everyday treats that we should be trying to limit.


Very true!! Infact in my opinion if we don't give ourselves a little bit of chocolate every now and then I think as females we deprive our central nervous system ... and turn just stark raving mad!!! Well me anyway! Infact, I also heard on the radio yesterday (yes I was actually working, not just radio listening all day) that 33% of women feel they need chocolate every single day.
I don't think I'm quite like that, but certainly need it every now and then, just a little to keep those mad, crazy neutrons in my brain from exploding!


How bout you guys? Are you going to give in to the chocolate urge?

who needs a soap opera ...?

I'm very happy to report a 100g loss today. Much better than the horrid gain I thought I would have. It's just the kick start I needed.

Thankyou all so much for your wonderful comments. Blew me away with your support.

I'm still getting used to this new computer with it's little quirks, but we've come to be quite attached to eachother now. The first night the internet kept freezing and I got frustrated and closed it, giving it some abusive names.

I've since learnt it was infact the modem/internet that was playing up not my laptop. I had to apologise for the name calling. Must have worked because she's behaved well ever since.

Had to take Malachi (10) to the doctors yesterday. The school had rung up to say he was in the sick bay with a 'croupy' cough. I said to the office lady over the phone that I don't think it would be croup. Kids grow out of that around 5 or 6. He had it a couple of years ago and was considered very old for it then at aged 8.

I went down and picked him up anyway and on hearing his 'bark' cough had to admit to the lady that she may be right, it did sound like croup (damnit I had it when I'm wrong!! lol).

Sure enough the doc confirmed it ... a very surpising case of croup in a 10yr old. He had a really loud audible wheeze you could hear from over a metre away. Not much the doc could do as to give him steroids late in the day would mean him being up all night (makes them ultra alert).

So we hoped and prayed he wouldn't get worse overnight with the temperature drop. Gave him some panadol before bed and rang the ambulance crew on duty to prepare for a possible callout if he did worsen.

But surprisingly enough he slept through the night and seemed alot better this morning. So I think he's over the worst of it and managed to get better himself without any further medication.

Well that's my day's 'shortland street' episode.
Back to normality again ... touch wood!

Where would I be without you!!

TTOM finally turned up yesterday ... 6 days late!!! Yes! I thought I was pregnant, not what I needed this time in my life. I was secretly stressing out about it which just made it worse.

So I had two weeks of PMS and my hormones were sending my brain in a spin. Making everything seem so much worse than they actually were.

And then I had a call from my brother asking if he could have my (his) computer back. I had it on long term loan. He offered for me to buy it from him but this wasn't an option (it was a very high spec laptop, very expensive). Added to my raging hormones was the fact that I wasn't able to keep my feet on the ground in blogland.

It was amazing to me how much support I actually get and missed both from reading your blogs and updating on here. Without it I felt lost!

Consiquently my eating was just stupid. Which of course didn't help with my headspace. I felt like I was in a downward spin. Like a skydiver who had their parachute in a knot. I didn't know quite how to get myself out of it ...

Then .... yesterday ...

... my darling husband gave me a present ... my very own brand new laptop!!! Yay! I was so excited, my superman flying down to cut my parachute ropes and pull out my reserve!!

I'm very lucky to have the wonderful man I do!! Not that I'm a fickle female who can be bought with some gift. But it was the fact that he knew how much my blogging meant to me and how lost I seemed without it, that he went out of his way to make me happy.

I love you Bill!! Thankyou honey!!

Damn! Damn! Damn!

Bill bought me a lovely new charm to celebrate my 20kg loss mark ...

In his words it's 'graduating past 20kgs lost' ... graduation cap. I wore it with pride all week. Now I feel like a complete hypocrit because with fluid and my week before TTOM craving sugar, sugar, sugar ... lead to a 1.6kg gain this week ... BUGGER!!!

Not much else to say really... stupid teary hormones have started today too ... Sometimes it sucks being a woman!!!

I'm still here

Firstly ... THANKYOU all so much for you encouragement!! :)

Quick update to let everyone know I'm still alive. Too tired to do a proper update tonight, just got back from 7hrs continuesly on the road on ambo. My boss had to stand me down, to stop me collapsing!! Been all over the countryside!! I'm k..nackered!!

I'll pop back tomorrow when my brain is actually working...

Happier than a cat with 10 fish!!!

I was shocked to see a weight of 101.1kgs on the scales this morning ... I stood in stunned silence for a moment. My weight has been the same all week (if not slightly up) and thought I was going to have another 100g pathetic loss like last week ... but no!!! 

1.6kgs gone!!! And that means .......

... I'VE LOST 20KGS!!! Yabba Dabba dooooooo!!!!

No make that 21.5kgs I've lost!!! *big grins*

Sooo ... you know what else that means???  A new photo (finally) to put on my blog ...

Before ...

20kgs gone ...

Don't really like to skite but there's no one else I can skite to, so sorry guys ... I'm quite chuffed even if I do say so myself!!!

Hmmm ... now which charm to choose!!

What some positive words can achieve ...

Thanks for all your concern about Bill. It certainly was a shock at the time, but have since heard of others who have had similar things happen. Although we are still no closer to find out why, the doctor has told him he is fine to go back to work and carry on with life as normal.

No more incidents have happened since and he's feeling 100% better.  I'm at least content in that.

...

Had a very cute little 5yr old girl in the shop today.  Her mum and dad have an account with us.  She came up to the counter with a couple of iceblocks and nervously asked if she could put them on the account.  I looked out the window to catch mum's eye who was waiting in the car.  With her nod of approval I treated her like I do her much older sisters, asking her name, and then got chatting to her about what class she was in school and who her teacher was. We had a lovely chat together and she excitedly ran out of the shop skipping off to her mum's car, smile as wide as could be!

Next minute her mum came in and asked me if she asked to put the iceblocks on the account correctly. "Yep! She did really well"

"Ohhh she was so excited to be just like her older sisters and do it by herself... but she was worried tho. As she hoped out of the car to walk in here she was saying to herself 'I can do this! I can do this! I can do this!!' "

My face lit up ... how cute!! If only we could all positive self talk as innocently as this little 5yr old and acheive as much, despite the fear of walking through that door!!!

The magic 15%

My weight has been up and down all week. It seems this 20kg mark is going to be a hard wall to get through. But positive I can do this. I mean all I can do is stick to points, drink my water and keep my steps up ... after that whatever the scales decide to do is out of my hands.

Even though it doesn't feel like the scales are moving I have suddenly been overwhelmed with compliments from customers about my weightloss. It's funny how it all came in one week! With a year of doing ww and maybe only 1 or 2 comments from strangers all year and then this week I had 5 comments in 2 days!!! Very bizzare!

My cousin told me once about 5yrs ago that people never notice till around 15% weightloss. So? ... 122.6kg x 15% is 18.4kg loss ... well looky there!!

So those of you who are getting disheartened because no one is noticing ... hang on till that 15% mark ... seems it's true!