A few updates

Just realised it’s nearly half way through the month and I’ve not posted at all in that time. I guess now is as good a time as any.

It’s summer and it’s hot. There’s been no rain of note for over two months. This is what we get for having all the rain in late winter, I guess. We’re in the midst of the first heatwave of the season and it was already 40 C at 11am today. More to come for the next day or two.

We are having Christmas dinner at our house this year. It’s still to be determined whether we are outside or inside. I’m kind of leaning towards inside at the moment but we’ll have to make a bit more space.

The last month or so have been filled with appointments, mostly medical in some ways, and pushing up our credit card to the max. That wasn’t the only thing but it did make up a significant amount of debt recently. Fortunately we do get a portion back from Medicare and it’s likely we will get an increase in the percentage due to the number of claims this year.

Speaking of medical stuff…

I had an ultrasound done on my shoulder a couple weeks ago and found out I have bursitis at my shoulder joint and calcified tendinitis in my supraspinatus muscle. I know where that muscle is now, thanks to doing an anatomy course on the upper limb at the moment…Not happy about the bursitis but I do think it’s cool to know what’s what to some degree when it’s mentioned. Anyway, I’m supposed to get a steroid injection done at some point to attempt to help that out. Funnily enough it’s not bothering me too much right now but probably will again when I do more exercise using my arms. Also funny thing was my right shoulder started hurting in a similar way and for a while was more painful than the left. That seemed to come and go though.

Not really related but similar topic is the wrist swelling and pain that I had for a few days that started up and went rather abruptly. It was painful enough that I couldn’t twist the lid of a sealed jar. My left wrist started feeling similar but it all disappeared pretty quickly after that. I only note this because it was quite strange how it came and went.

I finally got in to see the immunologist this morning for the appointment made five months ago.  I didn’t get called in until half an hour after my appointment time. But when I did get in, I felt pretty good about the doctor. She did a pretty thorough examination and asked me heaps of questions about medical history and family medical history. This was more thorough than I’ve had done before so I was taken by surprise and must admit I wasn’t quite prepared to give proper answers on some family issues. I’m to have a bunch of blood tests done before my next appointment in February. Best part is the whole thing was bulk-billed, which means I didn’t have to pay anything, which is quite rare for doctors these days and even more so for private specialists. (Payment comes from Medicare but is all processed between doctor and the service instead of the patient. )  I imagine that I will end up going in for yearly reviews after my next appointment unless anything of interest shows up in the blood work.

The school year is officially over now so I guess Lego Lover is now considered as a year ten student. Next year we are trying an online general studies course through TAFE (like community college) instead of a usual homeschooling program. If that doesn’t work out we will return to a homeschooling program.

A few weeks ago I managed to procure front row and center tickets to see Neil Finn in March. This will be the first time we’ve gotten front row and to be in the center is a bonus. Seems like there’s quite a few musical acts showing up here in March, which is somewhat late in the season for concerts. There’s also an Icehouse show on my birthday a week after the Neil Finn show but it is on Rottnest Island and with ferry would be too costly. Plus, my priority was to see Neil Finn so it worked out for the best. I know there is at least one other show of interest within a week or so of this concert but cannot recall who it is now. Not that is matters because we can’t afford to go to all the shows of interest. We did miss out on tickets to see Bruce Springsteen. The competition for seats was too great and everything decent was gone in no time…so unless we win some tickets we will miss out on the first ever Perth shows.

I finally got rid of my phone contract with the company that I bought my phone through this week. I have been doing a month to month for the last year and nearly maxed out my data usage this month. I don’t know where that came from since I usually barely use any data either.  I realised I could get more than double the data through a different company for the same price. Not that it’s likely to get that high again but it’s nice to have a bit of a buffer.

We got a bark collar for little boy dog a couple weeks ago. Initially we got one of those static collars but we couldn’t bring ourselves to use it and switched to a citronella one. I can’t say it’s been that effective as yet although I did note it startled the little boy once when it actually sprayed him.