Today Al and I went for a long walk along our beach path. We took the train down to Brighton beach and then walked back to St. Kilda and got groceries for dinner then walked home. I made Pad Thai with the bean sprouts and ground peanuts and everything. It was pretty darn good actually. Work has been super busy this past week. After a full week I was on call with Kylie (a colleague) in order to learn the process for organizing a transplant. I was up late on Friday night watching a movie when Kylie called. We arranged to meet at the hospital at 4am when the cross matches would be ready and the team could decide on who should get the organs. The whole process lasted until about 1pm the next day and I was pretty tired riding home on my bicycle. Tired but happy. Two people will have a second chance at life. The pressure to coordinate the recipient surgeries and the donor procurement and the arrival of the organs to our hospital is huge. It's going to be stressful for me but I'm sure I'll get a lot of help from my colleagues as I learn.
Work has been pretty good. I'm learning a lot about lung transplantation and the way the Australians run their program. It's quite different. They are quite vigilant and do a lot of prospective testing just in case whereas my Canadian experience has been more reactive. Treating when symptomatic. The nurses I work with are all great. Well except a couple but whatever. You can't love everyone all the time right?
I spoke with my Mom and Dad today. Oh and Darren. After a couple of minutes he said "I'm tired of standing, love you, bye." and was gone. My Mom is recovering from her heart surgery and seems to be feeling much better on the cardiac score. She has a neck spasm currently which is delaying her return to work. She can't even sit at a computer right at the moment. I also phoned Erica, Nat and La in Roberts Creek. They are having fun celebrating La's 40th. Happy Birthday Lalena! Miss you guys! I really miss all my friends in Vancouver. The people I work with are mostly all middle age and not in the same place in life as Al and I are and so finding friends has been rather difficult. Slowly but surely right? It just takes time to wear people down right? They'll come around eventually. We are looking forward to getting some couches soon. We are waiting though until Al gets a job... don't want to spend our money and have an emergency come up.
I finally signed us up for Ambulance cover. It could be majorly expensive if you don't have cover and you need an ambulance. Just 150 bucks a year. The public and private system along side one another just trips me out. Takes a while to get used to it.
We also have some extra health insurance too. For the dentist and massage therapy and stuff like that. I joined the gym at work. It's in the basement and you can get in 24 hours a day. It isn't staffed 24 hours but during my night shifts or when I'm on call and waiting I can work out for a while. Well, that's all the news that's fit to print. Skype me peeps!
