Took hubby into the hospital again today for his CT scan, and it turns out his ankle is broken. No wonder the poor bugger has been in so much pain. When I picked him up from hospital he had his leg in a plaster cast. He has to go back tomorrow for assessment by a specialist, who will decide whether surgery is required. Hubby may have to have a pin put in.
Author: Melissa
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Ebony’s pups
When Miss E. was first rescued, she was found with a litter of five puppies. Hubby and I found some photos on the Brave Dogs site.
I’m pretty sure this is a photo of Ebony. I’ve seen her pull this same expression many times (particularly at meal time):
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Seeing a psychologist
My mood has dipped in recent months and I’ve been having some blue days. On Monday I was in a very bad way, would have called in sick at work but had to be there to process pays since I’m the only one who knows what to do. It was dreadful I could barely concentrate and I kept breaking down into tears, such horrible negative self-hating thoughts were going through my head.
I closed the blinds and doors to my office and tried to work through it. Later in the morning one of my co-workers came in to see me about something and noticed the state I was in (was Janelle, the same lady I had a slight blue with a few weeks ago). I’m so grateful to her she didn’t act embarrassed or pretend not to notice, she showed genuine concern and was very kind to me. Later on I also confided in Ros about the trouble I was having and she was also very supportive.
The following day I decided to take the day off work and see my GP. I wasn’t really sure whether he could do anything for me but I had a very pleasant surprise, we discussed in some detail what I was feeling and the circumstances and my background. We reviewed my medication and have increased my daily dose for a while, and he wrote up a referral to a psychologist for me.
Part of the referral process was to do a care plan with the clinic nurse, so I returned a little while later to see Jill. She had a stack of reference material ready for me and we chatted for over an hour. She said I should hear from the psychologist in about a week. I’m feeling really positive about this, I hope to finally address the issues that have caused a lot of misery over the years.
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Brave volunteer
Brave Companion Dog Rescue is in a poor state at the moment. It’s a very small organisation, very under-resourced. Recently one of the top volunteers resigned because she felt used and abused, and there are similar murmurings from others.
One of the problems is too much work, too few people to do it. The people who are there are absolutely flogged with work. The main problem however is lack of organisation. There is no real management committee to speak of, no regular meetings. The whole thing runs under Ludelle’s direction, and it is a mammoth task.
Ludelle works incredibly hard, taking responsibility for looking after the pound dogs, and handling most of the phone call enquiries about re-homing, She is the group’s primary contact with council, media and other groups, and it’s main liaison between volunteer carers. She is the group’s driving force, she is also the force that drives people away. She is extremely dedicated to her cause, she is also inflexible and unfocused and frustrating to deal with.
Since agreeing to take over the bookkeeping from former Treasurer I’ve felt drawn against my will into doing more for the group, many times I’ve regretted the impulse that took me there in the first place. There is such a great need for people to do things, and no end to the dogs coming into the programme. As well as the bookkeeping, I still go to the pound once a week to walk the dogs, and look after data entry and filing of the adoption paperwork . Since Jenny resigned, I’ve now taken over maintenance of the web site, and keep a check on emails. Today I drove over to one of the carer’s to take photos of dogs for the web site.
I must be going crazy because there is a scheme in my head to put my hand up for the Secretary’s position, and take charge of getting regular meetings happening. It badly needs to be done, although I don’t know how Ludelle will react when the group starts having a greater say in the decisions. She may not like some of them.
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Clinical shyness
(From Clinical Research Unit For Anxiety and Depression).
If you have had generalised social phobia for most of your life you may think that others see you as too quiet or boring. You may avoid meeting other people and not want to risk telling others much about yourself in case they reject you. If you have these sorts of fears, you may have a more severe social phobia, called avoidant personality disorder.
About one-third of people seen at specialist anxiety clinics for treatment of social phobia have avoidant personality disorder. If you have this more severe social phobia, it is very likely that you will have experienced episodes of depression.
Coping with severe social anxiety for most of your life may have badly affected your self esteem. You may also have become quite socially isolated. If you have spent many years avoiding social situations or speaking to certain people because of fears about what others think, you need to be aware that it will probably take longer to improve with treatment.
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Wot a week!
Poor hubby staggered home from work in early hours this morning with a badly injured leg. He’d been in a tussle with a young delinquent, and reckons if he’d been wearing police issue boots he would likely have snapped his ankle. Was in a lot of pain, had been to the hospital and taken painkillers but we had to loosen his bandages to provide some relief. I picked up some Canadian crutches for him today.
Earlier in the week I very uncleverly managed to bog my car on the grass verge in front of our house. I’d been coming home from walking pound puppies, running a bit late (another story there) and to avoid rigmarole of containing dogs in the yard I decided to park outside the gate. I didn’t think I was going fast but when I applied brakes the wheels locked up and I skidded into the wire fence, digging myself into the mud. There is minor damage – some nasty scratches in the paintwork, left headlight protector is broken and the front bumper is loose where I’ve broken the clips on the left side.
Didn’t end there unfortunately. Hubby towed me out of the mud that evening when he got home, and in the process something snapped in his transmission when he engaged into low gear. He didn’t realise straight away that he had a problem, not until he had to leave for work the following afternoon. He limped it to a nearby town and got a tow. Luckily the damage wasn’t really serious, and the garage that does his servicing fixed it very quickly at no charge.