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Christmas postponed due to drugs

Posted by Robyn Dunphy on December 25, 2014 in Mrs O, Our New Life

This is for the much appreciated supportive readers who are following my health challenges. Even though we are postponing Christmas, we wish everyone a wonderful and safe festive season with friends and family.

We’ve postponed Christmas because I’m just not up to it. I’m also not Radioactive Robyn, as it turns out.

Over the last week or so, the results have started to come in. You know how I mentioned two of the specialists said I was seeing too many doctors and we needed to reduce this? Yeah, well, I see all three specialists again in January, so I guess that reduction in numbers isn’t happening any time soon! I’m expecting Medicare to investigate me for medical over servicing any moment! The drugs are increasing too. Gone are the days I never even had Panadol in the house. Missing below is the Prednisolone I was on briefly as a trial and may yet be on again. Banned is the diclofenac that can be useful for the knees but is not on the gastroenterologist’s approved list for me. None of them are really serious shit like chemotherapy drugs, thankfully, but I have a feeling there are more to come.

My selection of medicines

My selection of medicines

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Parental Controls and the Internet

Posted by Robyn Dunphy on December 23, 2014 in Family, Mrs O, Our New Life

When I was a child my parents never had to worry about me getting into trouble on the internet. We didn’t have a TV until I was about ten, let alone computers or mobile phones. This is what I did for entertainment:

Robyn in 1965 New Zealand

Robyn, Felicity (the lamb) and Joe – December 1965 New Zealand

Now the internet is a parenting challenge. Everything connects: laptops, iPads, phones to name a few devices. Youtube can be watched on our TV, controlled by an app on a smartphone. We have Police arresting people for grooming children on the internet.

One issue is actually SLEEP! Young brains need sleep. Sleep hygiene is very important: brains stay “wired” when exposed to screens. Remember hiding books under the covers when you were a kid? Now kids hide phones and iPads under the covers and don’t even need a reading light. Further research? Click this.

Yes, I could turn the modem off at the wall every night, but that rather inconveniences me!

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Blanc, Bernardi, visas and free speech

Posted by Robyn Dunphy on November 9, 2014 in General

Australia’s police chiefs have cited society’s “vulgar and violent attitudes toward women” as a primary cause of the nation’s high level of domestic violence. Changing men’s behaviour is seen as the ONLY way to address the problem.

Tasmania’s commissioner, Darren Hine, said cultural change can begin with society’s influencers – sportsmen, businessman, actors and other personalities – standing up to condemn violence against women and children.

Yet the same week we had a foreigner and one of our own senators sending different messages entirely.

The foreigner, Julien Blanc, had his visa cancelled and departed. Or departed and then had his visa cancelled, depending on which report you read.

His tactics, which include choking women and pulling them into his crotch, were criticised online as misogynistic and abusive. (Source: ABC.net.au)

Lovely. In my view his attitude is both violent and vulgar. The cancellation of his visa, however, raises other questions. Gay Alcorn and Wendy Harmer are among those who have expressed concerns over Morrison’s possible overreach of power, a dangerous precedent. Section 501 of the Migration Act 1958 has been raised by some. I suggest people be careful of criticising Morrison’s decision simply because he is Morrison. I am not one who supports Morrison: hell, I killed him off in a bit of short fiction. In this case, however, I support his decision. I’m not alone.

http://twitter.com/Drag0nista/status/530634807227588608

I do have an issue over Morrison protecting us dear little Aussie women from Blanc’s vulgarity while at the same time treating asylum seeker women so abominably. Then there is question of the visa cancellation by Morrison versus Brandis and his belief in our inalienable right to be bigots: protection of the people versus freedom of speech. Bigots often incite violence, just as Julien was considered to be doing. Trish Corry asks will Brandis shirt-front Morrison? Surely we can’t cherry-pick our freedoms? Freedom always has to be balanced with protection: Blanc is this week’s illustration.

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Leaving Islam – the greatest jihad?

Posted by Robyn Dunphy on October 22, 2014 in General

by

green sign with the word islamic state in arabic and english language standing in the white sand of the desert.

Image courtesy of shutterstock.com

 

The news is full of muslim converts striking out for Syria to answer the IS call to jihad, but what about those who no longer feel connected to Islam? In a religion inconsistent with science, logic, human rights and ethics, one so riddled with contradiction it offers equal endorsement of opposing arguments, rational-minded individuals must be leaving Islam in droves.

Aren’t they?

Tectonic Drift

Summer is a speck in the rearview mirror and Autumn is well underway. The metamorphosis outside echoes my internal state of flux. Tremulously yet inexorably, as a compass needle seeks true North, my worldview is re-orienting and an unexpected casualty in this stripping away of superfluity is my faith. It’s been a slow creeping process, this revolution of mine – seasonal in its pace and just as imperceptible. But I can see now it’s been building for a while. Continue Reading »

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The Journey from Apartheid to Pistorious

Posted by Robyn Dunphy on October 21, 2014 in General

Social media is alive with news of the sentence in the trial of Oscar Pistorious in a South African court.

There is another story here which we are overlooking. Let us not forget that black South Africans first voted in 1994 in post-apartheid South Africa. That is a mere twenty years ago. Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison, battling for freedom.

Tonight we witnessed  a black South African woman sentence a white South African man to jail. Despite what any of us may or may not feel about the actual sentence, there is no denying this was a momentous occasion.

Judge Masipa would have been a teenager or young child when apartheid ended. Her people were not even entitled to vote. Today she sat in judgement of a fellow citizen.

There is no question this was a high profile case that attracted international news coverage. We could watch the sentencing live.

While I personally think the sentence should have been longer I take into consideration the prosecution failed to disprove Pistorious did not shoot at a perceived intruder. I do not know the sentencing standards in South Africa, but I did listen to the Judge’s reasoning comparing similar cases and her rationale. So while in my country I would have expected a longer sentence, I take into account my ignorance about the South African legal system. Many experts had been predicting no jail time, so I think any jail time is better than none. I recall OJ Simpson was acquitted.

Let us not let our debate about the length of the sentence overshadow the advances black South Africans have made in a mere twenty years. Many of us in the Western world have little comprehension of the history.

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Muhammad Ali in full flight – why is everything white

Posted by Robyn Dunphy on October 19, 2014 in General

This video says SO much. Watch his cheeky grin and you know this is edutainment. Of course, being an atheist I can’t buy Muhammad’s “learning the truth”, HOWEVER given Islam abhors racism it is see clear why he  reverted and much of the truth he talks about IS truth (losing names and history etc).  The title in YouTube is “funniest video”; yes, it is funny but the message is deep.  Muhammad’s brain was faster than his famous fists.

It is interesting that his sentiments here about the now versus the hereafter differ from the views expressed by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

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I claimed asylum before passport control not after

Posted by Robyn Dunphy on October 18, 2014 in General

This experience came to my attention today. I am publishing with the permission of the writer. I have made some minor grammar and spelling corrections as requested by the writer.

I came in Australia in August 2012 with a visa which I received from Australian embassy in Moscow however I’m considered as an illegal arrival by the Department of Immigration because I claimed asylum before passport control not after, my visa been cancelled and I was pronounced non legal non citizen and placed in Villawood Detention Centre for 6 month with my then 4 years old daughter.

So technically I wasn’t ” immigration cleared ”  – I don’t have an entry stamp of Australia in my Russian passport, as the officials from the DIBP saying this is why I was issued with temporary protection visa in February 2014 instead of permanent one. Australian government twists the laws as they please in their favour, same as any politicians in any country of the world, they are not different.

I fulfilled all the required criteria to come to Australia by plane, with passport and visa but not, that’s not enough for them, they are saying I should have claimed asylum after passport control not before, I should have claimed asylum once I’ve got entry stamp in my passport . What a nonsense?? Then in 2012 I didn’t know that Scott Morrison will change the law and will want those who arrive in Australia first be stamped with entry stamp in their passport and only after that claim asylum. Do you imagine absurdness of the situation? Isn’t it that the potential asylum seekers should ask for help on the first possible opportunity, not after having passport being stamped? Any judge will put under doubt asylum seeker’s claim should he or she not to apply for protection immediately upon arrival. The new requirement imposed by Scott Morrison first pass passport control, stamp your passport with entry stamp, then claim asylum doesn’t make sense. Put yourself in shoes of the asylum seekers who fled danger. Will you wait or you will ask for help immediately upon arrival?

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Grattan on Friday: Tony, pick up the phone to Barack on Ebola

Posted by Robyn Dunphy on October 17, 2014 in Family, General

Conversation
By Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Here’s a thought for Tony Abbott. Why doesn’t he ring up Barack Obama and David Cameron and ask them to help remove the impediment that’s apparently stopping the Australian government providing assistance on the ground for the West African Ebola crisis?

If it is really beyond the wit of officialdom to make arrangements to evacuate any Australian who contracted the virus, surely this would be a logical step, especially as Obama was pressing nations this week for more effort.

Abbott was quick to offer every assistance to the US for the action against Islamic State. Nothing was too much trouble for Australia.

Yet everything seems too much trouble when it comes to the West African crisis, which Obama has called “a top national security priority”.

The government’s attitude is not “how can we find ways to give greater help?” (beyond the $18 million Australia has donated) but “it’s too hard”.

The government and its officials keep talking about the 30 hours it would take to bring an infected person back.

“We don’t believe … an Australian health worker put into harm’s way in West Africa would survive the 30-hour flight back to Australia to be repatriated to receive medical support if they were to contract the virus,” Health Minister Peter Dutton said on Thursday.

This is a furphy, and the government knows it. No one would be contemplating an evacuation to Australia, so why talk about it? Any evacuations would be to countries much closer.

It is also being said that other countries are not willing to take – or guarantee to take – Australian nationals.

Non-government organisations with health workers on the ground – 30 Australians are volunteering at the moment – have emergency evacuation arrangements. But these third country arrangements are “not secure”, Dutton said.

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Ebola – is this the Bubonic Plague of our generation?

Posted by Robyn Dunphy on October 16, 2014 in Family, General

I remember the first outbreak of ebola in 1979. It only killed a few poor, black people, right? Wasn’t impacting on the rich, white people, after all. So why worry about it?

Ebola virus

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Jones felt burning heat and fierce throbbing

Posted by Robyn Dunphy on October 12, 2014 in General

Continued from Pain.  If you have just joined this story and wish to start from the beginning, go to What goes around comes around.

Some semblance of quiet settled over the tent. The baby was quiet now and the soft murmur of the women’s voices hung in the air as a reminder of the cycle of life. It was late, darkness crept ominously across the inhabitants of the tent. Jones feared never seeing daylight again. Finally he slept. Exhaustion took over both his mind and his body.

He was woken before dawn by the pain in his neck. It was getting worse. Jones felt burning heat and fierce throbbing, as if his neck was about to explode. He knew he was suffering an infection. He felt for the call button to summon a nurse before he remembered there wasn’t one. Instead his hand hit the water running beside his mattress, instantly reminding him where he was. He reached up to touch his neck and could feel a large swelling and something oozing. He smelt his fingers, the odour was putrid: rotting flesh. The doctor had been very clear there were not medicines available, everything had been used treating the ever-increasing hordes of humanity that had descended on this tiny nation. His chances of survival seemed marginal. Any thoughts he had of escaping now turned to simply living another day,  another hour.

Jones started to shiver. He knew this indicated fever had set in. Fever, the body’s natural mechanism to fight infection: would it be enough to save his life?

The doctor appeared as a ghostly shape; Jones struggled to focus his gaze, but he could see the doctor wasn’t looking at him in a hopeful way.

“You have developed a serious infection in that wound”, the doctor stated dispassionately, “and there is little I can do to help. We will wash out the wound and redress it as best we can, but we have no antibiotics.”

The doctor turned and walked away. Jones felt abandon. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t find the energy: he was burning up. The doctor returned with a steaming bowl of water, some cloths that had clearly once been tea-towels and a wooden stick. His eyes filled with the sorrow he felt for this person upon whom he was about to inflict pain beyond imagination.

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