FML SOMETIMES!!

Could I just have one week where nothing breaks down or goes wrong???washing machine shorted the house out at 3am Tuesday. Had to unplug everything in the dark cause I didn't know it was the washing machine at that stage, then ring the neighbour as his dogs don't like ppl near their fenceline at any time let alone 3am. Then climb out a window to get to power box (easiest route with no lights) and switch house back on. With me working thurs/fri/sat the earliest the repairman can get to it is next Monday. It was mid load with work clothes, kids swimmers & schoolwear & the mans work uniform. Handwashed swimmers & chucked the rest in the bathtub, but got sidetracked by preteen not doing as asked, came back inside & thought wow sounds like a waterfall OH Shite!!! Bathtub overflowing onto bathroom floor. 6 towels later it's semi dry. Preteen not listening, late for swimming, get there boo has no goggles. Grrrrrrr Grrrr grrr!! Working extra days this week & next week which is good for the bank balance but extra pita when trying to get repairmen out, plus washing machine will eat a chunk of paypacket & car is making weird flashing on dash when first started, so guarantee it needs to visit the mechanic real soon (I told it that if it breaks down before then that I am walking away & leaving it there). In the next three weeks have six school things to attend or drop kids off to, booked in to do a 2day course, working 8 days & attending 2 bday parties with kids, so can't afford car to break down (work is 40mins @ avg 80km/hr away, walking is not an option). Oh yeah & have to deal with centrelink again :/ So please God, CeilingCat & any other entity, let me get through the next three weeks!!!

So what do you do when ......????????????????????

Your man has a low libido and only goes to bed to snore?????????

Your man spends all day watching porn while you are at work and then pays no attention to you when you get home?????

Notices all the "chicks" at the gym in the distracting lycra but is embarassed to be seen with you at the gym cause you are a little overweight and he is now getting muscly and confident with his appearance???????

Wants you to be fit and lose weight, wear sexy clothes etc, but doesn't want to help or support you to do so???

Has a tonne of internet profiles and only one says "in a relationship", the rest say single, or nothing at all, none of them mention my name, none of them have a photo of us together or even just a pic of me with girlfriend or partner labelled on it????????

Spends all his time reading posts on a forum written by males who believe "alpha" means treating all women with disrespect, calling them bishes and ho's and picks up bad mannerisms and patterns of speech and even in his own words, needs to stay away from it, but keeps going back like an addiction???????????

Yet he helps out around the house even though it isnt his home, buys food when he knows i am having a tight financial week, helps out with my kids sometimes & late at night he has nightmares if I am not sleeping next to him.

What am I supposed to think or do??

I am sooo confused.

I love this man, I want to marry him. Even more, I want him to love me so much that he wants to marry me. That he has eyes for no other woman, let alone "chicks". That he is proud to be with me, to have me in his life and wants the world to know it.

Where do I belong?

I feel like I am living a kids story, and maybe I am. I often feel like I am the "ugly black duckling" and I keep waiting to turn into the beautiful swan & find that I do belong somewhere, that I fit in, am accepted.

Is it silly to think that being married makes you belong to another family? My own family (parents/siblings) barely recognise my existance, and while my boyfriends family seem to accept me, I always feel on the outside, cause even after 6 years and six months together, I am still just the girlfriend. His brother got married last year, his parents havent even met her yet (the brother and his wife live overseas), yet when family emails or facebook posts get sent, it seems she is automatically accepted because she married one of the family. Is it so wrong that I want this kind of belonging and acceptance too? And not just from the family, I want it from my boyfriend, I want to know that he accepts me for who i am and is proud to tell the world that by wanting me as his wife, not just as the invisible girlfriend that has never met any of his friends, isnt listed as being linked to him on anything, not even stupid facebook page.

I am only months of finishing my degree and hopefully will get a post graduate position in the hospital of my choice as a Registered Nurse. I will then BELONG to one of the oldest professions and I know there is a culture in itself as being a NURSE. I will be part of a worldwide group, a country, state and local group and also as part of the hospital group and even down to a single ward or speciality. I look forward to this as I have never had that sort of experience in a workplace before either and friends who are already working as RN's have told me about it. So at least professionally, I will belong somewhere.

But I crave the personal belonging. I hate being alone all the time. I try not to be jealous of others, but those people who can call on their parents or siblings for help, who go to family gatherings for special occasions, the ones who get to have things like baby showers or bridal showers ( i never had either of those) and get surprise parties or even just parties thrown for them on special birthdays etc. I want those things and cant have them.

I am actually dreading next april, as I will graduate then (lol graduation will happen 7 months after I actually finish my degree). I am going to be surrounded by other graduates with their families celebrating their acheivements, whilst I will be lucky if i have my boyfriend and my children there. Considering I wont be able to organise them and get them there (I will have to be there much earlier from what I have seen of friends graduations), it could very well just be me there, graduating with noone I know to see it, let alone take photos of me. I certainly wont have parents there, I am the first in the family to ever go to university, let alone graduate and my family couldnt give a passing thought about it, let alone care to attend my graduation ceremony.

I have been feeling very emotionally precious lately. Time seems to fly away from me and I fear that I will end up growing old by myself, I watch my father doing this as he has pushed away every member of family other than my grandmother (his mother) and I hate that I cant do anything to please him, nothing at all, I am never good enough. He doesnt like my boyfriend, when I tell him my good grades he comments that he wonders if i will complete this, seeing as i have never completed anything else as far as he is concerned (it never occurs to him that maybe the lack of supportive family since i was 9 years old may have something to do with this fact, or that I have raised two children without any family support counts as completing something?).

I am probably repeating things I have put in previous posts, but they are ongoing worries and fears. I dont know yet how to get past them. I will share the secrets when I learn them.

The end of this year brings many changes. I will finish uni, finish up my parttime work, hopefully have been offered and accepted a good post graduate position, have my house up for sale & sold at a good price and then be able to find a nice bit of land and build the home we want on that bit of land and start to live a more stable, secure life as our own little family unit. I still dont know if my boyfriend will be with us or not (he doesnt seem to be able to commit and one minute he seems interested and then the next he doesnt, who knows???) so all I can do is plan for me and two children. Would definitely make it easier if there were two adults and two incomes, but I cant guarantee that, so will just have to do the best i can with just me.

As usual, it will be me against the world. Maybe one day I will belong.......

My WOW Moment

My WOW moment! Had to share, sorry if it sounds like bragging, it is sort of, but not really, just had the most amazing experience. Have de-personalised info, so as not to be breaking privacy rights of the patient.

On a previous practicum placement in an Emergency Department assigned to an older RN who wasn't too happy to be lumped with a final year student RN, amongst doing a really wicked wound packing/dressing & other things, I picked up on a patient being not quite right. A lovely person who had been so bright and chirpy when I started my shift, was now lying scrunched up, apparently sleeping, but it just didnt feel right, couldnt explain why, it just didnt.

So seeing as I could, I did the most obvious thing to me, I stood there while they appeared to sleep (and everyone else had thought they were sleeping) and counted the respirations (how many times their chest rose/fall for a full minute). Now the average adult breaths about 12 - 18 times a minute, generally closer to 12 when lying down in a bed, and this tiny little adult person was breathing 31+ breaths per minute - first alarm bell!!! & I could see some tracheal tugging, just faintly, but there - second alarm bell!!!.

So I checked oxygen sats and they were 88%- third alarm bell!! (you need to be above 95%, preferably closer to 100% ). So put oxygen on and sat person up a bit more in the bed, got another pillow to help prop person up a bit better, and person told me inbetween their lungs was hurting and so was their back - 4th alarm bell!!!.

So I put 2 and 2 together and instead of getting 4, I got a window of clarity!! All that study paid off!

So talking to the other RN I was attached to (being still a student myself I am limited to what I can do without supervision, but this RN didn't mind having me in her space or bugging her to come do something), I said I wanted to do an ECG, was told patient had had one earlier thatmorning, but yes go do one for practice, will be a good learning tool. So I do the ECG, and dig out the earlier one, and go show the RN, cause my patient wasnt just a good learning tool, they had just had a very obvious infarct!!! (my window of clarity). So then i go get the doctor involved, and now the doctor is talking to me like I am a very important person, rather than just another student.

Then I get to use the brand new, noone ever used it before, new monitoring equipment, and modify it to suit my patient, and by then the patients designated RN (the one who isn't so happy to be lumped with me and is now even less happy about it) is back, only to find out all of this has happened and all this stuff has and is being done by the student, so I spent the rest of the day doing obs on this patient every half an hour, doing all the documentation (there is lots of that!!), the doctor kept coming to me to ask for information and to get things done for the patient (some of which I cant do yet as a student, so then I had to go round up the RN - total role reversal there lol and no RN likes it when the student is doing their job better than they are!!). In the end the patient, who before I counted her resps was being readied for discharge, ended up being admitted to the HDU instead, so I got to do all the admission and ward transfer paperwork as well (paperwork is endless, good thing I don't mind it too much lol).

Oh yeah and somewhere in there i got to do other stuff for other patients as well.

At the end of the day I got praised by the RN infront of the afternoon staff, thanked by three staff members, had two doctors talking to me as if I was an equal, and then praised by my clinical teacher (who was informed by the doctor!! about her wonderful student) at debriefing, who told the other students infront of me (and I am not good at accepting public praise) saved a patients life today. Then the other nursing student staying here in the accommodation told the med students how I saved a life today.

Yet at the time it didnt seem such a big deal, i was just doing what needed to be done. It was just so obvious to me, like second nature (which it isnt, most of the time I feel like I am a bumbling fool learning my way around in a new and strange world). So I was feeling a little dazed when clinical teacher and the other student were making a fuss over me.

So after a celebratory meal with the other nursing student, and a small celebratory drink (i dont drink beer, so I had some Green Ginger Wine - Stones of course), I am sitting here doing my daily "reflective practice log" thinking WOW I DID THAT!! BY MYSELF!!! I may very well have saved that persons life.


Considering my career path its pretty certain this is the first of many, but WOW!!!!!

HI BLOG! I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN YOU!

Wow life gets so busy that even though I write wonderful blog posts in my head while I am pretending to sleep at night, or while I am sitting at one of my children's extra curricular activities, I never actually get on here to blog it.

I am a walking ball of stress lately, assignments, practicum placements, getting a preteen ASD child accepted into a high school for next year, trying to work out where I want a post graduate year before I need to put in the applications to the dept of health, trying to work out where I am going to go when I move out of this house, facing the fears that it isn't all planned and in front of me - very scary indeed!

My man seems to have become more settled, mature maybe, focused and committed even and this is helping as I am feeling a bit safer there, but in four or five months time i am going to be uprooting my entire family out of the house I own, to clean it up and sell it, but I don't know yet WHERE we are moving too, so this is not going to help any feeling of security.

Why is it that some people seem to have such simple easy lives, no matter what they do they never seem to have stress? They don't have partners walk out on them, they seem to have the perfect life, families that are supportive no matter what they do, good jobs that are never unstable or uncertain???

I want that life, but its not possible, for starters I don't have the supportive family, even though I have 2 brothers, 2 sisters, a father and a mother, I really don't have any family at all.

My mother might as well be dead for all the interaction I have had with her in the last 20 years, in fact as far as she is concerned, I am dead. One of my sisters moved to the other end of the country to get away from everyone (didn't work very well, my mother learnt how to get to the airport and fly cross country, which means her plane flies right over my house, yet she has never been here and never will by her own choice anyway). My other sister is the baby of the family and in her early twenties and still acting like a spoilt three year old. I had hope that she might grow out of the foot stamping and tantrums, but from what I am told, its still happening.

My brothers, well I love them both, but they are still at home, still haven't ever had to look after themselves let alone anyone else, so they never think about anyone but themselves, they work, sleep, eat & play computer games. I keep hoping that they will meet a nice girl and move out of home and settle down to adult life, but as they get closer and closer to being 30, the chances are getting slimmer. At least I get to see one of them every now and then, when I travel interstate and arrange to see him, it never happens the other way around. This is a pity as he would make such a great uncle, but my kids only get to see him once or twice a year and only when he is at work or occasionally has the time to come see a movie with us while we are visiting him.

And then there is my father. I used to be angry at the way he treated me, but all I feel is sorrow and pity for him now. He is determined to die a lonely old man. He will turn 60 on Saturday and will spend the day by himself, away on yet another business trip! He has a wife and three daughters, a sister, a mother and a granddaughter, but he HATES WOMEN! The only one he goes out of his way to see or speak to is his mother, who is 89 and has the early stages of dementia happening, the rest of us he has driven away. I keep trying every now and then, but I cant force him to like me or want to see me. Of all his children, and all of his family, I am the very first to ever go to university, and this year I will complete my degree, so I will be the most qualified member of the family, but even this isn't good enough. Out of all my grades, I currently have 9 distinctions, 5 credits & a single Pass (of the gradeable units), so not a bad effort considering I also have children to take care of, paid employment to attend too and all the other things a mother has to do, yet I still cant even get my father to acknowledge I have done something with my life.

So, the only family I have that I can count on are my children, currently aged 9 and 12.  My aunty is wonderful, but she is busy and has her own life and she lives 3 hours away, so we don't get to see her regularly either, but when we do, she is like a grandmother to my children, spoiling them & making them feel wanted and loved, which is good considering my own mother doesn't even acknowledge their existence.

Other than my children, there is my partner, yet I am reluctant to rely on him, I am still fearful of the past and this is going to take time to change the insecurities, especially when those insecurities get thrown in my face when I see or hear a certain persons name. I still feel like crawling into a hole, curling up in a ball and dieing every time he mentions her or looks at her web pages. Its been two years next month, but it still hurts like hell and has me waking up shaking in cold sweats from the nightmares. I do trust him, but I don't know how to let go of the fear and insecurity. It isn't as bad as it was, it is slowly fading, but I often wonder if it will ever fully go away. I was too trusting back then, was completely secure and happy and then everything shattered around me and I don't know how to get back to that feeling of secure and happy. I get close and then she crops up in the computers history or gets mentioned for some reason and the nightmares and the doubts and fears start again. I wonder if this is normal, then I see and read about other females who have had similar situations and a lot of them are far worse off than me. Most of them never get their partner back, so I guess I am lucky, mine didn't wander too far and didn't physically cheat on me, but I still felt very betrayed and hurt, and that is what took so long to heal. This is something only I can change or deal with though.

And all of the above is why I am so scared of not knowing what is going to happen next, where I am going to and what I am going to do. Cause it all falls down to me being in charge, I don't have anyone to share that burden with. I am old fashioned and believe in marriage, but even that is not a certainty or a guarantee that it will work. Let alone my partner not only doesn't believe in marriage, he is dead set against it. So as much as I might dream, it isn't going to happen. I will be lucky if he ever even admits I am his partner. In six years, he has met a lot of my friends (only ones he hasn't met are the ones I haven't physically seen in those years, like my beautiful friend who moved back to Egypt). The only friend of my partners I have ever met is the one girl mentioned above, because I needed to see her face to face to deal with my demons. I have been back to his hometown with him several times, but he never visits anyone. I am in his friends list on facebook (finally, only took 5 years) but there is no link saying I am anything but a random friend. I don't even have a single bit of jewellery that I can look at and say "he gave me that". I still have no idea why that is important to me, it just is and as he hates jewellery (something to do with the fat cats making money off silly females that like shiny things), well it's pretty much a given that I will never get a piece of jewellery from him. I guess I cling to the idea of marriage because it is a public form of commitment and I am still a scared little girl who fears being alone. I probably should have been of marriageable age in the fifties, what I crave seems to be of no importance to men or society in general in this day and age.

So now I have to try and plan for at least the next 12 months, without knowing where I will be, if I will have a post graduate placement, or if I will have to hunt for suitable employment without the safety barrier of a post graduate year (extra support and learning packages etc but only a limited number of local placements available each year). Add to this moving out of my home. My eldest starting high school (and all the fears that go with that, especially as he needs the extra security and help and moving house isn't going to be helping all that). I pray that he will be accepted into the school we want, as he will have friends there, and they provide extra help and support and can offer him so many opportunities that just aren't available at other schools.

My poor Boo is always left out, I feel guilty that most of my worry goes to my Moo. I don't worry so much about Boo as she is so independent and capable, just like I was at her age, although I was more mature then because I had to be as eldest child, whereas she is the baby, but I am happy she doesn't have to have the responsibilities I had back then, she gets more of a chance to have a normal child hood. She will succeed no matter what, she is too stubborn to do otherwise. Today she is sitting Naplan tests for reading and comprehension for year 3. She tells me this morning at the school gate that she will do well as she is aiming to beat her brothers marks. I tell her this wont be hard to achieve cause he never even sat the year 3 Naplan testing (seeing as the school he was at back then didn't think he could read at all, they simply didn't include him in the testing, stupid school considering he was reading at tertiary level, he just didn't find their books interesting enough to read to them). However I think my Boo is trying to beat his year 5 NAPLAN scores, which he tested at above year 7 level for reading and poor Boo is slightly dyslexic, so I am not sure its possible for her to test that high in year 3. However with her determination, by the time she sits the year 5 tests, I wont be the slightest bit surprised when she tests higher out of pure stubbornness!!! I know I wont have to worry about her being accepted to any high school, all her report cards talk about her willingness, her extraordinary effort, her wonderful personality, her compliance with every request the teacher makes, how she helps other students. She is never the top of the class in grades, but she is never far behind and her effort makes up for that fact (unlike Moo who can be the top of the grades without any effort but half the time doesn't try at all and it shows).

OK blog, well that's enough insecurities and fears and hopes and random ravings for now. I still have an assignment to write, kids to collect from the bus stop, extra curricular activities to attend to and plenty of housework (never ending!) that needs to be done.

I will try to get on here more often and write something witty and cheerful for a change lol. I am always surprised anyone reads what I write (most especially my anonymous reader who comments that he/she/it doesn't like my writing style, so I have no idea why they read it, considering its my blog I don't really have to conform to any style, there are no rules involved!)

Thank you blog for letting me get this out of my head, its like a form of counselling, without having to tell this all to a counsellor, or even open my mouth. Actually its better than counselling, cause I don't have to explain what I mean if I don't want too (or simply can't).

HUGS!

The Hard Way

Everything I have learnt in life was learnt the hard way, making mistakes, facing consequences, sometimes having to make multiple mistakes of similar nature to learn that they all end with the same set of consequences. I keep wondering when I will get to be able to learn and do things the easy way.

Well now I am wondering if I am going to yet again learn the hard way.

You see tonight, well I gave the man I love a letter, telling him a lot of the things that I cant voice aloud, or things that I did voice that he seems to have not heard or dismissed as me being dramatic. I told him exactly what I wanted and asked him to go spend some time away from me and to work out what it is that he wants now and for the next ten or twenty years (at least). I also put a somewhat of a demand in there, he HAS to make a decision and tell me what it is.

So if I have made a mistake then I may just have ended my relationship with the only man I have ever loved so much that it physically hurts when he isn't here or we have an argument.

If I haven't made that mistake then maybe he will finally make a decision and I wont have to live in limbo while I wait, teetering between two extremes - fearing he will find something better and just walk out or hoping he will realise that our relationship is worth it and that while his parents and my parents may have stuffed up their marriages, that not all marriages equal doom.

See the biggest problem is that I crave the security of knowing that he is committed to us, he fears any form of commitment, most especially anything related to marriage.

I have been married once before (one of my learnt the hard way lessons). The man I love had never had a relationship last even six months, until he met me. Last year after 5 and a bit years together, he walked out, well not physically at first (its long and complicated, like everything else in my life – add sarcastic yet sad lol) and then after months of angst and pain, including him moving temporarily to his mothers place and then into a granny flat, he realised it was me that he wanted after all (long story, but he was/is suffering depression, and had never had to look after himself for more than a few days, so didn't realise what he had until he threw it away). Anyway, since valentines day we have been back together, not officially for a bit, but slowly working on it and doing ok for the most part.

There are still issues that plague us and that commitment thing is the crux of it, because it seems to be linked to his depression, and because the fear of not knowing, the living in limbo, makes me a walking emotional hormonal mess.

Oh and just to add to the list of problems, because of the depression, he has a lower libido than me (very backwards there, I was always sure it was the male that was supposed to want sex ten times a day, not the female), and because he works long hours in a physically demanding job, then spends 2 to 3 hours an evening punishing himself in the gym (yes he does look good with muscles and it makes him feel better about himself), he is too tired to be interested in anything else on a regular or even semi regular basis, making me a very edgy and unhappy girl, who just wants to know she is wanted and needed and loved by the only man she has eyes for.

So apparently I am weird, not only do I have the unusually high libido, I also would happily go live in the fifties, where the men did the men things and the women did the women's things and there was very clear defined roles.

At the moment in my house I am the breadwinner/homemaker/housecleaner/mother/father/wife/husband/accountant/teacher and just to add to the stress, I am also the student. I juggle the housecleaning with finishing my degree, I am rebuilding broken bits of my house, can replumb my own taps or toilet, paint, plaster, tile. I CAN do lawn work and own a brushcutter and good mower, yet I DONT WANT to do the lawns or maintain the garden, I want to just enjoy them, the same way that most men DONT WANT to clean the house or do the dishes, they just want to relax and enjoy a friendly, warm, inviting house and eat good food served on clean dishware.

I want a husband!! I want a partner, one who will share the providing of income. I am getting a degree in nursing and do plan to work as a nurse, I have no problem with working plus keeping a house and mothering, I just want to share the load so that I don't have to be both sides/halves of everything. I thought that wasn't too unreasonable a request. I want someone who will be there for me, I don't have family to do that for me, other than my beautiful kids, so surely its not much to ask for a man who will try to remember my birthday, Christmas, an anniversary (once a year, I don't mind if its not the exact date, or the right day, wrong month, don't care, just once a year do something special) and be there for special things, like when i fuck up an assignment, or pass a stressful exam, or drive me to said exam because I am a basket case that hasn't slept for a week while studying madly! I want help raising my kids, I can make all the decisions, set punishments, decide rewards, do homework etc, but someone to be there as a backup if I have to go away (pracs are good for that), someone to stand with me when I am standing up to a teenager pushing the boundaries. These are the sorts of things I want.

I also want to have a shared dream/goal. We used to have that, but then all of a sudden (well it was sudden for me, he didn't tell me things had changed until well after), that shared dream/goal was gone. Now I have future plans, but they are vague, I am working towards them, but without knowing if its just me or if their will be an “us”, I find it hard to make them more clear.

The kids and I want to live on a property. I always wanted 100 acres, but now that I am restricted to within 30 minutes of my current residence (due to kids schooling, as well as most of my friends are here, and my mans work and mother are here as well), I find myself looking at properties that are well and truly over inflated in value (two hours west of here 100 acres with no house would be anywhere from $65,000 - $200,000. Here the same bit of land is worth $1,200,000!!). So, I am willing to settle for as small as 10 acres if I really must, just to get out of suburbia (and away from the neighbours from hell, whose favourite pastime is bashing and terrorising white females/children or breaking and entering houses and cars). I want a NEWLY built shed home (after 11 years of fixing things on my 40 odd year old ex housing commission home), and I want a veggie garden and some chooks, horses, goats and a cow or two, as well as my existing dog (aussie cattle dog) and my two cats.

Now I can probably get enough of a loan (once current house is sold) once I am working fulltime as an RN, for a small parcel of land and the basic shed home. But I cant see how I can maintain such a property and work fulltime, when I already have trouble maintaining my current quarter acre while studying and working part time.

So, I at least have an idea of where I am trying to head, what I am working towards and roughly what I need to do to achieve this, but I have no idea what my man wants, mainly because he either doesn't know or doesn't want to admit it or tell me.

So in telling the man I love that I want all of the above, and that I want him as a 100% partner, committed, in the role of husband if he cant face actual marriage (its really just a bit of paper) and role of parent (he is already partly been in that role for years, no real change there, other than admitting it to himself) and that I want him to work out what he wants so we can try to make a shared future. I may have just chased him away, or I may have done the right thing and he might actually face some fears and it might work out.

But right now, I am alone (i did ask him for time out, so that i can get some stuff done that i have been putting off but need done before my next prac which is in three weeks time), I need him to hug me and tell me he loves me and doesn't want to lose me, and I am terrified that he will misunderstand me and end it, or that he wont be ready to make a commitment and end it because of whatever reason.

So now I am even more fearful, hopeful, terrified and wondering if I have yet again fucked up something good. Except this relationship, it isn't just good, its special, fantastic, everything, and I am afraid of being alone for the rest of my life, living in regret.

Ok well I had to tell someone, thanks for reading if you made it this far.

POO!!

LOL well I had this wonderful topic rattling around in my head last night, so decided to share it.

 

What is Poo?? 

Well for starters, we are not talking about that loveable character “ Winnie The Pooh “ by E.E. Milne.

Well as a noun it is a slang or colloquialism for faecal matter, yet it can also be used in the form of a verb, for instance a young child is told to “Go Poo” (preferably in the toilet).

It can also be a statement, when walking into a room with a noxious odour, a person might say “Poo” while madly fanning the offending odour away from their sensitive olfactory glands.

Another meaning arises when a person needing to swear, yet trying not to because little ears can become parrots, or older ears could be sensitive, so the person says “Oh Poo!!” instead of “That's BullShit” or “FUCK!!!”.

It seems Poo is almost a taboo topic, yet everyone does it, everyone knows about it, but we rarely discuss it, other than in select groups, i.e. new mothers suddenly find poo is a common topic of their daily lives, as it is also for nurses or those working in aged care.

Most people are shocked to find that doctors, nurses, naturopaths, dieticians and many more “professionals” are interested or concerned about their patients/clients poo.

Yet it is so because it is a very simple way to measure the inner health of a person, not only their digestion, but their kidney & liver function, their immune state, and much more.

Many couples are horrified that their partner might walk in and catch them in the act of pooing, that seems to be a line, a boundary, once its crossed, their really isn't any more mystery or secrets (thanking my lovely other half for that comment, which was said in jest, but it fits my topic so well lol). I wonder though, if you cant discuss poo with your partner, who can you discuss it with?

Maybe because I am studying nursing, my other half has gotten comfortable with telling me intricate details of his daily motions, questioning my bank of knowledge to analyse any changes, allay any fears. This has partly come about after he had to have stomach surgery and then found out he also has a food intolerance, so has become hyper sensitive to changes in his poo habits as they indicate how well he is tolerating new foods (or not tolerating them).

Poo is a constant topic between mothers and their children. About to leave on a long car trip, its common to send children to “go poo and wee NOW”, knowing that it could be at least 2 hours until the next available toilet. Or simply going grocery shopping, halfway through filling a trolley with the needed items, your child announces that they DESPERATELY need to poo. Not all shops are ok with minding your half filled trolley while you leave the shop, especially if it already contains perishables or items on sale.

Having a son on the “interesting” scale, at almost 12 yrs of age, I still have to ask him to wipe properly or wash his hands with soap and I still have to soak poo trails out of his underwear and probably will have to do this for the rest of his life (or at least until someone else takes over his washing for me). However I thank God regularly and remind myself that I am pretty lucky, I know other parents with “interesting” children who have it far worse on the Poo scale, some having to clean up daily poo parties that involve linen, walls, carpet and even family members tooth brushes (Hugs K!), So in the scale of things, I am very lucky that when God was handing out all the different traits the “interesting” children could choose to make their own personal rainbow, that my child didn't choose anything worse.

I also deal with poo on a daily basis at the moment as we have a kitten in the pica stage of development, making cleaning her litter tray interesting, as you remove chunks of poo decorated with bits of colour paper, balloons, beads, crayons and anything else she decided might be interesting to eat. I am often amazed she manages to pass some of these things through her gut.

This often reminds me of my children going through daycare/preschool. I could always tell the days they had made playdough as they used to make it with glitter in it for decoration and my son would eat it, resulting in a nappy full of “glitter poo” later that night or early the next morning.

By now, if you’ve read this far, you may wonder HOW or WTF got me onto this topic. Well to be honest I am not totally sure. It could have been a post I read from a mother of a young child that reminded me of the “glitter poo” nappies, or the discussing with my partner after we both came down with gastro due to drinking bore water while away on the weekend, or it could have just been my unusual brain’s habit of providing me with random topics to keep me awake at nights.

So before I finish, I will leave you with some interesting facts.

• If you are healthy, you should poo at least once a day, at a fairly regular time.
• It should not be pale or khaki in colour, nor dark or black.
• It should not be runny, nor should it be hard, pebbly or dry.
• It should not float.
• Mucousy poo is a sign of bowel inflammation.
• Black is processed (old) blood, so if you haven't eaten raw meat or taken iron supplements, then go see your doctor ASAP if you have black or black flecked poo.
• If you find it hard to poo regularly, try drinking half a litre of warm water about 20 minutes before your “poo time”.

Mine is in the mornings, normally 20 minutes after my morning coffee, so I know something is wrong if this time has come and gone and I haven't “gone” (In my case this generally means I have been naughty and eaten wheat and will suffer painful cramping and bloating later on).

Keeping a track of your poo may sound gross, but having that knowledge ready means the next time a nurse or naturopath or doctor etc asks you about your bowel habits, you can pleasantly surprise them with detailed knowledge.

Alright well that's enough shit about shit lol.

And if you haven't already today :-

GO POO!!!!!

Midnight Ponderings

Have you ever had something that you really wanted, a goal or a dream, that wasnt entirely impossible, yet it terrified you beyond imagining, kept you awake at night, or woke you up from a sound sleep feeling anxious??

I often turn the lights out, put my head on the pillow, get comfortable, yawn, cuddle up to my man and then theoretically I should just ease into a sound and peaceful sleep. Right???

Wrong.

Just like tonight, my body is exhausted, I have to be up in a few hours and yet I cant sleep, and its all because my brain wont shut up and worst of all, its worrying and anxious, bordering on depressed, and not being able to get the answers it needs because to do that, I would have to admit my fears and worries and then put everything on the line, risking more hurt and rejection than I am already feeling and worrying about.

True, its possible the answers might be good and make me feel so much better, but to be truthful, I have very little confidence in that being the case, and there lies the crux of my problems..... Confidence.

I had a great friend in highschool, many many moons ago, that was one of the most cheerful, happy, lovely girls I have ever met. At sixteen she was at least 20 maybe 30 kilo's overweight, and while it bothered her, she never let it stop her enjoying life, friends, parties etc. The only time she ever admitted it bothered her was when we had a heart to heart one day about the most common thing a sixteen year old girl talks about ... BOYS. She had had many crushes on boys over the years, only for them to treat her like just another boy, while making googoo eyes at all her friends and she was certain this was because of her weight. I asked her why she didnt do something to try and change her weight, offering to be there to support her if she wanted me there, her answer shocked me.

She was SCARED of losing that weight, because she would have nothing to hide behind then and she had seen how bitchy and unhappy most of the skinny girls were and didnt want to be like them. That was an answer I had never expected to hear and couldnt understand at the time.

Yet here I am now, understanding because I have similar fears and wishing I hadnt lost contact with that girl (have been trying to find her on the internet for years now), so I could talk to her again, see how she went, did she conquer those fears??

You see when we had that chat years ago, I was 62kg, putting me at least 5 - 10kg underweight for my height and bone structure, even though I ate enough for three people every day, I just had a hyperactive metabolism. Then when I was diagnosed with endometriosis at 17 I started taking the recommended drug (depoprovera) and within 6 months I had almost no metabolism, barely ate enough for an ethiopian child to survive on, and had boomed up to 96kg. Several operations later plus the birth of 2 children and the resulting total hysterectomy, I weighed in at 135kg. Double the weight I had been 6 years prior. I was so unhappy and never felt like I was "ME" but try as I may, I could only get down to 105kg.

Thats what I weighed when I met my soulmate, the man of my dreams (literally and figuratively). He fell in love with me in spite of my weight, the size of my clothes or the fact that I wouldnt wear swimmers or swim in public. We used to walk all over the place, do activities that I hadnt done in years, have fun etc and I was so happy that with a little help, I managed to get down to 83kg, but I lost a lot of muscle tone in doing that, so wasnt as fit as I had been when we first met and this was noticeable because I wasnt as active, tired all the time etc.

A year later our relationship hit rock bottom without me even realising until it was too late that he wasnt happy, and one of the many reasons he finally told me was that he wanted a partner that was fit and active like he was, one that he could play football with or go to the gym with or swim at the beach with. I was devestated to say the least. It took 8 months but he got past the other issues that had been causing him to feel depressed and came back to me and slowly we have rebuilt our relationship, yet it isnt totally rebuilt yet and I often fear that one day he will leave again, and because of that, my self image is very fragile. Simple comments can shatter me when they were not meant that way and seeing myself in the mirror makes it all the more scarier because he is so active and fit and has such strong goals to get muscled up, that I wonder if he is revolted when he sees me naked. I wouldnt blame him because I am revolted everytime I see me in the mirror. So I got a gym membership and have slowly begun getting fit, slowly because a normal workout means I am exhausted for the next two days and in pain for at least three.

The fact that I dont go to the gym more than once a week seems to frustrate him, and it frustrates me too, but I cant explain or tell him my fears, so there is no way he could know just how hard it is. How do I explain that I have noticed that while I am getting fitter and stronger, I seem to be looking fatter! I know I am not getting fatter, but unfortunately all those operations and two babies over 9 pounds have left my stomach muscles very weak and the skin stretched, maybe beyond the point of self repair, so as I lose weight, my stomach seems to sag all the more noticeably, making me look worse and worse and while my arms and upper body start to tone up, my legs seem to be looking more and more shocking.

Dont get me wrong, I know its a long process, I know that it takes a lot of work to lose weight and tone up and I was prepared for that, but I wasnt prepared for the stomach. I guess i had kind of hoped that if I lost the weight slowly and gently that it would have a chance at repairing and tightening and toning itself. It makes me wonder about all those people that go on things like the biggest loser, how much stomach surgery do they have to have later on, how much do they not tell anyone about when it comes to fears and image problems that are actually worse during the process than they were before they lost weight.

Even worse is that my mind runs away with me, my man has been very tired this week, especially with daylight savings buggering his body clock and making it that he has to get out of bed an hour before his body is used to waking up, getting up in the dark again after he just got used to the fact that the sun was up before he was, so he hasnt been interested in any bedtime activities other than snoring soundly. BUT when he fails to show me that much needed extra attention, my low self image and low confidence suggests that maybe he has noticed the even more saggy stomach and is revolted by it as much as I am, but is just being too nice to tell me so. So instead of curling up warm and comfy with him, I lie there feeling like a leper, worrying that he will see some cute young female during the day (he is a tradie, comes across all sorts of people everyday) and that he will start seeing and comparing the differences, or worse, has already done that and found me lacking. Is this really the case?? Well I dont know, I certainly hope its not, but I am too petrified to ask, because maybe it is, but if it isnt, maybe he hasnt noticed the extra saggy belly and I dont want to bring attention to it, so I curl up and face those fears and worries by myself until my exhausted body takes over and simply knocks me into unconciousness.

And all those worries and fears bring me to remembering that conversation that day with my friend about how she could be SCARED to lose weight.

I understand now. I just wish I could find her and tell her that and maybe make up for not understanding back then.