Sladjana

Today I met a young lady named Sladjana who is physically disabled with Transverse Mialitis.  She is 19 and virtually paralysed from the neck down.  She was visiting a lady who was her long time carer and accompanied by a young community support worker. 

Sladjana is known as Budgie to her carers.   Her wheelchair is amazing. She can control it with a chin control and when using her laptop she has a remote control mouse giving her all the actions of hands and mouse. There are other aids on the wheel chair such as breathing assist etc etc. 

I am unsure what actually I was invited along for, but I believe I may have interested her in writing a blog about her condition and her day-to-day struggles and wins.  I directed her to my blog and will wait to see if she likes the idea and wants help setting one up.  

Click pictures to enlarge

'Budgie' with computer mouse control

With community support from Clover

Budgie is intelligent, computer literate and artistic.

Regular medical checkup

Over the last week I have had some regular medical tests done....bloods and heart ECG. 

The blood test had a couple of pointers....cholesterol up; iron up and slightly elevated blood pressure even though I take a drug for hypertension.  

The ECG let my GP know that there is problem with irregular heart beats.  He decided to send me for a 2D/Doppler Echocardiogram.  I had that yesterday. The procedure took around 40 minutes and around 40 images were collected.  I will return to my GP on Friday morning to hear what is next.

I don’t receive any age pension, so I missed out on a state pensioner discount of the fee, however Medicare here is good and I paid $480.00 for the procedure and medicare will give me back $196.10.   

PS: My heart seems to be OK for an old fart.  The irregular heart beat will be looked at with a 24 hour portable ECG monitor.

Pilfering

Bunnings Hardware is a very successful Australian hardware chain.  I hope they continue being successful as I have  a moderately large WesFarmers/Bunnings share package.

There is a Bunnings store near me and I buy there regularly.   One thing I have noticed over the years is the senseless pilfering.  It is especially noticeable in the gardening machinery aisles.  I am unsure if the thieving of mower and other petrol engine parts is done by repairmen or if there are people who just like to be bastards.  Click images to enlarge.

In this aisle I counted 18 bits stolen

fuel caps are popular

Carburetor parts taken

This one also lost its chain