It has been a glorious day here, just enough little clouds in the sky to provide interest, cool enough to walk comfortably, and lots of good coffee to be drunk.
We had our regular flu jabs this afternoon. Our doctors did a deal with a local school, just a short walk away from the shopping centre. The school provided a large room, the doctors lined up at desks along a wall, and a couple of support staff sat at a table by the door. We walked in, were marked off, and without any delay we went to one of the doctors. Shoulders exposed, needle given (neither of us could feel it), shoulders covered and out went. Normally, I'd much rather that a nurse gave the injection, they being trained to do that painlessly, but the doctors who gave us ours did an excellent job. The clinic was only for 65+, so no need for money to change hands.
Now have the fire lit for a bbq dinner to round the day off.
Painless injections are something I have never experienced. They vary, but they're always painful to a certain extent.
A serious painful injection is the syphilis jab: a 3 ml shot of benzathine penicillin into each buttock. I always warn and apologise before administration. Vaccination vulgaris is a mere flea bite in comparison….
Yes that and the higher viscosity if some drugs. Some antibiotics are so painful if given as intramuscular injections that they are mixed with a local anaesthetic solution rather than with sterile water or saline.
I’ve now had 3 COVID jabs and none were painful, and found past fly jabs ( especially the 65+ version) quite painful when given but no ill effects afterward.
This was the ordinary flu jab - we'd had our 4th covid a fortnight or so before in the surgery. We thought this was a good initiative by the practice, setting up an injection centre a bit away from the shops, in and out quickly, all to give as much protection as is possible. A great advantage is that the regular shots are free for over-65s so there was no need to receive payments, issue receipts etc. It was being well patronised but with 3 doctors there was next to no wait.
As to pain, neither of us usually feels pain at injections. Maybe a bit of a jab, nothing serious. I did have a reaction to the 3rd covid: the nurse had said that I may feel a bit unwell in a day or so. 24 hours later, almost to the minute, I started to feel as if I were getting the flu, took a couple of dispirin and went to bed. All had cleared up by the following morning.
Not long back from our local Anzac Day service, followed by coffee. A cool and damp day for it, but no rain at our service - would have been raining for the service the official party moved to a couple of suburbs down the line. Around 950 to 1,000 for the service, very good considering the weather. There are increasing numbers of young people in their 20s and 30s each year, which is good to see. The surprise for us is that the service was conducted by the Seventh Day Adventists, with a pastor from there to take the prayers.
It has been a glorious day here, just enough little clouds in the sky to provide interest, cool enough to walk comfortably, and lots of good coffee to be drunk.
We had our regular flu jabs this afternoon. Our doctors did a deal with a local school, just a short walk away from the shopping centre. The school provided a large room, the doctors lined up at desks along a wall, and a couple of support staff sat at a table by the door. We walked in, were marked off, and without any delay we went to one of the doctors. Shoulders exposed, needle given (neither of us could feel it), shoulders covered and out went. Normally, I'd much rather that a nurse gave the injection, they being trained to do that painlessly, but the doctors who gave us ours did an excellent job. The clinic was only for 65+, so no need for money to change hands.
Now have the fire lit for a bbq dinner to round the day off.
Painless injections are something I have never experienced. They vary, but they're always painful to a certain extent.
I had to undergo frequent painful injections in hospital and soon discovered that if I asked the staff to bring me an ice pack to apply immediately following the injection the pain would ease much quicker.
It has been a glorious day here, just enough little clouds in the sky to provide interest, cool enough to walk comfortably, and lots of good coffee to be drunk.
We had our regular flu jabs this afternoon. Our doctors did a deal with a local school, just a short walk away from the shopping centre. The school provided a large room, the doctors lined up at desks along a wall, and a couple of support staff sat at a table by the door. We walked in, were marked off, and without any delay we went to one of the doctors. Shoulders exposed, needle given (neither of us could feel it), shoulders covered and out went. Normally, I'd much rather that a nurse gave the injection, they being trained to do that painlessly, but the doctors who gave us ours did an excellent job. The clinic was only for 65+, so no need for money to change hands.
Now have the fire lit for a bbq dinner to round the day off.
Painless injections are something I have never experienced. They vary, but they're always painful to a certain extent.
I had to undergo frequent painful injections in hospital and soon discovered that if I asked the staff to bring me an ice pack to apply immediately following the injection the pain would ease much quicker.
Generally pain after isn't the problem. It's acute pain at the moment of the puncture.
We were at coffee this afternoon to see a bandicoot scurry out of a lane, skirt the base of the roundabout, then finish its crossing and find safety in the small park next to the station. Perhaps it was nothing much in the grand scheme of things, but it gave pleasure.
The first flood occurred at the end of February, with another one about 10 days later, so its about 2 months, though it could well feel like four. The following is a perspective from the people we meet in my recovery centre.
Recovery takes a long time.
The immediate crisis of safety and isolation has been dealt with apart from places up in the hills where road repair is still taking place and traffic can pass for just three half-hour periods.
Emergency relief is being provided in terms of finance, household items, and temporary accommodation for those that meet the criteria. Unfortunately, this is an area with much homelessness and people living rough, and some, because they do not have an address in a LGA defined as flood affected by government, or have lost the proof in the floods, slip through the cracks that allow them to qualify, despite the efforts of the people focused teams of government agencies and voluntary agencies such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
The Disaster Relief Chaplaincy Network gives the phases after impact are:
Heroic,
Tunnel vision,
Honeymoon,
Disillusionment,
Reconstruction/Recovery
I think that, like the stages of Grief (Kübler-Ross), phases are not necessarily sequential and a person can be in more than one.
Initially, there was a lot of community self-generated support for things like cleaning out houses, providing food or transport. In some cases, arborists used their skills to get to cut off areas. Community support is much more nimble and unfettered by the conditions specified by agencies. E.g OHS considerations prevented quick responses by agencies for boat rescues or entry into flood affected houses. Many of these volunteers were themselves badly affected.
After about a week our Disaster Recover Centre was set up. There are many federal, state, and voluntary agencies providing assistance in financial, housing, insurance, legal, social, and spiritual support. It is so diverse in terms of agencies and what they provide that private persons/business owners need help navigating them simply because of the complexity, and this is compounded when shock means they are not able to think clearly. And different agency definitions to decide if a person is flood affected, or new forms of assistance compounds the situation.
The numbers of people coming for assistance is now reducing. Some are (multiple) return visits, but there are still some first visits of people who have just found out that there is recovery assistance. Our recovery centre will be open until the end of May.
I used to sit with people who were waiting in a queue to see the agencies. Now it frequently happens that an agency person will approach me to be with a distraught person to help them recover composure so that they can continue to pursue their claims. Our centre has a well appointed calm space where they can do this in private. Sometimes an agency person will take their laptops to the calm space to continue working with a client.
Agency people often have little idea about what a chaplain does. My potted version for any who ask is that:
* I help people work out their issues in terms of hope, meaning, purpose, and love, and sometimes all that can be done for the moment is to be with the person.
*My model is that people are body, mind, and spirit; and each part affects the other parts.
*While agency people are focused for their work on outcomes, a spiritual carer is focussed on process. So I reflect on my interactions as to whether I have interacted appropriately and have been lead by the person's needs, while being mindful of not interacting to satisfy my own needs.
Thanks @Gee D for giving me the opportunity to write down my reflections on this time.
PS. I had an adverse reaction to my vaccinations - sore arms and headaches, so I am not going to the Centre today.
Thank you very much for all that detail. The flood areas have basically gone from the news, while there is still so much going on, all the really hard work, that needs our thoughts and prayers. We're remembering you and those for whom you're working.
Sorry to hear about post vaccine reaction; take it slow.
One of my classmates from the gulag is currently bunked down with my sister ( they are friends from way back) after being flooded out in Mullumbimby where she has lived for about 20 years. She is single and has zilch family support so thank God for several friends around New South Wales who are putting her up. She lost just about everything ( what little she had) and it will likely be 6 months before the little flat she called home will be fit for human habitation.
A new month. Enough time to bake my own bread again. The sourdoughs available in the local bakers are fine, but my bread is not so chewy and doesn't have the large holes for the spreads to fall through.
It raining again today. It's a reminder of the floods rather than the "soft refreshing rain" of the "All good things around us." Many will be getting edgy, especially those reduced to living in cars.
One of the letters to the Recovery Centre from a child quoted Eph 3:20 in this way. "God will give us more than we ask for." The sentiment behind it is fine, but I couldn't help thinking immediately of the rain that was more than we would ask for.
I had a Greek mother-in-law called Nina. My husband was born in Alexandria; his father died when he was a toddler, and Nina married Jimmy, a Scottish serviceman. Long story. They ended up in Melbourne. Jimmy died when our two children were small, and Nina became Nana and joined us in Wellington. She was a very dear addition to our family. She and Jimmy had fallen upon hard times, but she was a thrifty and very independent person, who wanted only to indulge her grandchildren. It was with difficulty that as they grew older I realised that she hadn't had a real holiday for years, and told her I was going to take her on a trip with me. "But, Jenny mou, the children!" she objected. I told her they had lots of holidays, and they and their father would be fine for a week without us. So off we went — and we had lots of fun. We went wine tasting in Hawkes Bay — she saw lambs in the paddocks and suggested we pinch one to eat the grass on our lawn and then we'd eat it at Christmas. Another time we drove through native bush and she exclaimed in awe, "Jenny mou, who planted all these trees?" and I told her "I suppose God did," (thinking of the years after the war when Jimmy worked for the British War Graves Commission in bare, dry North Africa). I have so many stories about her!
(Jenny mou: dear Jenny)
YaY - I'm back. Shiny new computer without a touch screen or mouse, which will be a bit of a challenge. Life got a bit difficult for a while. First my computer died then my internet provider was taken over, but the nice man from Geeks on Wheels set everything up for me and I'm happy.
I'm grateful to Schroedingers Cat for passing on a message for me.
I note that while I was away Whittaker's Chocolate were again voted the most trusted brand in NZ
for either the 11th or 13th year. I think it's also because they are ethical traders.
YaY - I'm back. Shiny new computer without a touch screen or mouse, which will be a bit of a challenge. Life got a bit difficult for a while. First my computer died then my internet provider was taken over, but the nice man from Geeks on Wheels set everything up for me and I'm happy.
YaY for Geeks on wheels! Sorted out all my (Apple) problems, partly due to my elderly (6-year-old!!!) computer but installed latest OS etc. And when I got a major glitch a couple of weeks later I was able to get straight on to an emergency trouble shooter on line who needed 45 minutes to disentangle the mess. (I told him I'd got my first computer in 1982 — 'Two years before I was born,' he said.) Always friendly and courteous — 'real nice blokes'.
I've just found an organization more suited to my needs and cheaper than Geeks on Wheels, but I think it's unique to Christchurch. It's called Gran Skills, and was started by a group of university students. The women who founded it found themselves as the go-to people for any problems their grandparents had with technology and reasoned that there were probably other people with similar difficulties. They had also been part of the Student Volunteer Army that helped out during the quakes and so were looking for a way their knowledge could be useful to others - hence Gran Skills.
I had a young man come out today and he was really helpful, not only with things I asked him to do, but also with suggestions of what I might need. He was brilliant and managed not to make me feel like an idiot for not knowing things.
Thanks Gee D. I managed to get in and post a couple of things but was (understandably) thrown out when I failed to authenticate. Pease's answer to a question put on my behalf by Schroedingers Cat allowed my helper to understand what was needed.
I was reminded of the saying that "it takes a village to raise a child". My version is -- "it takes a community to help a technopeasant post when they have stuffed up." and I am very grateful to everyone involved.
Before the Gran Skills person came I mentioned the existence of Gran Skills to my G.P who asked me to get a card for the practice waiting room and the audiologist also wants one. I guess health professionals hear a lot from older people about their technological frustrations.
I am willing to leave their cards wherever they may be seen as I was so impressed with the service I received.
In more general NZ news - Jacinda Ardern has COVID and will miss Budget night.
A diminishing number. We saw a headline when were out walking which strongly suggests that Morrison thinks he's lost - maybe he still likes himself though
What is a "white picket fence wife"? Its not a phrase I've heard before.
Budget day here. I've been out most of today and the only detail I've heard is about a substantial amount of money toward Maori health. This isn't at all surprising as the pandemic has highlighted wide discrepencies. This is a small step in the right direction in my not-so-humble opinion.
Comments
Painless injections are something I have never experienced. They vary, but they're always painful to a certain extent.
Not always, this being an example.
I think there's a lot of individual variation. Some people always experience pain; others for whatever neurological reason do not.
I’ve now had 3 COVID jabs and none were painful, and found past fly jabs ( especially the 65+ version) quite painful when given but no ill effects afterward.
As to pain, neither of us usually feels pain at injections. Maybe a bit of a jab, nothing serious. I did have a reaction to the 3rd covid: the nurse had said that I may feel a bit unwell in a day or so. 24 hours later, almost to the minute, I started to feel as if I were getting the flu, took a couple of dispirin and went to bed. All had cleared up by the following morning.
I had to undergo frequent painful injections in hospital and soon discovered that if I asked the staff to bring me an ice pack to apply immediately following the injection the pain would ease much quicker.
Generally pain after isn't the problem. It's acute pain at the moment of the puncture.
Fluvax today: painless and ( so far) no il effects
Strange to say, it's a fairly quiet bit of road. Much more pedestrian than motor traffic.
Tennis later.
Recovery takes a long time.
The immediate crisis of safety and isolation has been dealt with apart from places up in the hills where road repair is still taking place and traffic can pass for just three half-hour periods.
Emergency relief is being provided in terms of finance, household items, and temporary accommodation for those that meet the criteria. Unfortunately, this is an area with much homelessness and people living rough, and some, because they do not have an address in a LGA defined as flood affected by government, or have lost the proof in the floods, slip through the cracks that allow them to qualify, despite the efforts of the people focused teams of government agencies and voluntary agencies such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
The Disaster Relief Chaplaincy Network gives the phases after impact are:
Heroic,
Tunnel vision,
Honeymoon,
Disillusionment,
Reconstruction/Recovery
I think that, like the stages of Grief (Kübler-Ross), phases are not necessarily sequential and a person can be in more than one.
Initially, there was a lot of community self-generated support for things like cleaning out houses, providing food or transport. In some cases, arborists used their skills to get to cut off areas. Community support is much more nimble and unfettered by the conditions specified by agencies. E.g OHS considerations prevented quick responses by agencies for boat rescues or entry into flood affected houses. Many of these volunteers were themselves badly affected.
After about a week our Disaster Recover Centre was set up. There are many federal, state, and voluntary agencies providing assistance in financial, housing, insurance, legal, social, and spiritual support. It is so diverse in terms of agencies and what they provide that private persons/business owners need help navigating them simply because of the complexity, and this is compounded when shock means they are not able to think clearly. And different agency definitions to decide if a person is flood affected, or new forms of assistance compounds the situation.
The numbers of people coming for assistance is now reducing. Some are (multiple) return visits, but there are still some first visits of people who have just found out that there is recovery assistance. Our recovery centre will be open until the end of May.
I used to sit with people who were waiting in a queue to see the agencies. Now it frequently happens that an agency person will approach me to be with a distraught person to help them recover composure so that they can continue to pursue their claims. Our centre has a well appointed calm space where they can do this in private. Sometimes an agency person will take their laptops to the calm space to continue working with a client.
Agency people often have little idea about what a chaplain does. My potted version for any who ask is that:
* I help people work out their issues in terms of hope, meaning, purpose, and love, and sometimes all that can be done for the moment is to be with the person.
*My model is that people are body, mind, and spirit; and each part affects the other parts.
*While agency people are focused for their work on outcomes, a spiritual carer is focussed on process. So I reflect on my interactions as to whether I have interacted appropriately and have been lead by the person's needs, while being mindful of not interacting to satisfy my own needs.
Thanks @Gee D for giving me the opportunity to write down my reflections on this time.
PS. I had an adverse reaction to my vaccinations - sore arms and headaches, so I am not going to the Centre today.
One of my classmates from the gulag is currently bunked down with my sister ( they are friends from way back) after being flooded out in Mullumbimby where she has lived for about 20 years. She is single and has zilch family support so thank God for several friends around New South Wales who are putting her up. She lost just about everything ( what little she had) and it will likely be 6 months before the little flat she called home will be fit for human habitation.
Makes one count one’s blessings, it does.
It raining again today. It's a reminder of the floods rather than the "soft refreshing rain" of the "All good things around us." Many will be getting edgy, especially those reduced to living in cars.
One of the letters to the Recovery Centre from a child quoted Eph 3:20 in this way. "God will give us more than we ask for." The sentiment behind it is fine, but I couldn't help thinking immediately of the rain that was more than we would ask for.
(Jenny mou: dear Jenny)
I'm grateful to Schroedingers Cat for passing on a message for me.
I note that while I was away Whittaker's Chocolate were again voted the most trusted brand in NZ
for either the 11th or 13th year. I think it's also because they are ethical traders.
I had a young man come out today and he was really helpful, not only with things I asked him to do, but also with suggestions of what I might need. He was brilliant and managed not to make me feel like an idiot for not knowing things.
Total cost for an hour's help - $47!
I was reminded of the saying that "it takes a village to raise a child". My version is -- "it takes a community to help a technopeasant post when they have stuffed up." and I am very grateful to everyone involved.
I am willing to leave their cards wherever they may be seen as I was so impressed with the service I received.
In more general NZ news - Jacinda Ardern has COVID and will miss Budget night.
And in the latest new, Neve, her daughter also has it. I think she's about 4.
Don't make inferences from statistical outliers, except that there are statistical outliers. I suppose Scott is an out liar.
In a previous life I knew his aunt, has since passed away, and she couldn't stand him!
Budget day here. I've been out most of today and the only detail I've heard is about a substantial amount of money toward Maori health. This isn't at all surprising as the pandemic has highlighted wide discrepencies. This is a small step in the right direction in my not-so-humble opinion.