Life and living in the rental belt
Selp Portrait from 1990s, Feeling a bit that way again
It was surprising but there were appointments at the doctor available. He had a pile of documentation ready for me and we had a good chat about everything.
Last year we made one of those GP management plans and this year he had it all caught up to include everything I have been battling over the last few years. It is the first time I have ever had a GP who was able to encompass all the range of illness and disability and it is the most satisfying doctor visit I have had yet.
This Munmorah Medical Center is a really good team with excellent record keeping technology and staff and doctor’s who can make it work as it should. It is such a pleasure to deal with a medico who looks me straight in the eye and speaks plainly and knows what he is on about.
I sincerely think a lot of doctors from my past have been the equivalent of a combination of self-promoted demi-gods and bone rattling witch doctors.
He was even set up with all the paperwork and information to allow me to find another dentist to look after all of the tooth related illness lately. A huge, huge relief!
Not all is well. The woman I live next to (the other side of the half house) knocked on the door and was visibly upset.
The house we live in has gone up for sale and our lives and habitation are no longer secure. Most rents around here are double the amount we pay here and neither of us can afford to live here if we face that.
I know just how far my health will be destroyed if I have to face a heavy move and hunt another place to live. The chances of even finding something that is worthy of considering is very low indeed. Last time I moved I lost all of my sculpture supplies, dozens of paintings, most of my pot plants and most of the heavier art supplies to name a few things. The illness I am emerging from began with that move.
I might avoid emotional comments just now. Things were looking good last night
Painful and threatening sight
The sign has gone up out front and every time I look at it I feel threatened and physically ill.
One thing I have to be aware of right now is that the rental market has gone mad and there may be simply no place I can afford to move to.
Best way to plan at the moment is to fight this current bout of illness and try to finish a few more paintings.
Wrap up all the things the family will want to keep, memorabilia, family history, documents like the University Degree and books on old Ikey.
I have to find a safe harbor to place them in until the family picks them up. Real-estate agents being the way they are, were I to die suddenly Mum would arrive here to find my body and and my stuff left on the roadside for a rubbish service pickup and another tenant in the place the day after it happened.
Fiona O’ Connell from Ray White (I think, I lost the card) came down to pat us on the hand and reassure us that they were all hoping it would be an investor who would keep the rent sane.
This process of “hoping” things will go well is an interesting one. I might try it right now> Without any malice towards them I hope the owners die a quick and easy death and we all find they decided to bequeath the place to the current tenants with no more than a reasonable repayment to the family or nothing.
Or I hope that the owners have a sudden burst of altruistic good-will and include a codicil in the deed that we are allowed to live here until we get sick of the place at our present rent. Hmm all that hoping…. doesn’t even seem to have made me feel better. Of course a good estate agent will just go pooh pooh you are just worried because you may be about to end up sick and desperate on the streets and lose everything.
See, now I feel much better
The bout of illness at Christmas seems to have lingered and combined with the heat left me unconscious for a while a few days back.
It is a strange sort of drift away from physical control of muscles and mind rather than anything containing illness or desperation.
I noticed my legs went a little rubbery at about the same moment the computer went dead from the heat. I had not realized it was that hot which is another warning sign although how you recognize not feeling something is a problem.
I splashed water all over me, went outside into the breeze but the area of sight was decreasing into a little tunnel. It seemed as though this was a really dangerous moment so I raced back inside, grabbed one of those plastic freezer blocks, wrapped it in a cloth and lay on the bed with it under my neck just as I passed out.
I awoke feeling pretty good. The freezer block against that big artery in the neck cooled me nicely. I am glad I had the foresight to put it in a cloth. My whole body feels like it is made of rubber which wants to bend its own way rather than the way I am going. It took all morning to convince myself to leave the chair and take the washing out to the laundry then I was exhausted.
Breakfast was toast with jam rather than bacon and eggs because I couldn’t cook and the percolated coffee was cold from last night. I couldn’t even be bothered putting the cup in the microwave. If I r5est every time I do anything I can cope with the weakness. I am still trying to cook myself a burger from some mince. I started two hours ago and there is some butter in the pan and a bit of toast but I cannot stand the idea of standing there making the actual burger so I am sitting here investing my little spurt of energy in recording it instead.
The Estate Agent has made an appointment for tomorrow morning and I have managed to put a few sheets over the paintings and drawings as well as changing the one on the wall for an empty canvas. Bloody awful being exhausted after so little work.
Two couples came on Saturday Morning. Fiona rang on Tuesday to ask if another couple could come through on Thurs but I was to busy so I said no. She rang again on Wed morn to tell me that a couple had dropped in and wanted to look over the place so they came in after midday.
People telling me to hope that I get an investor who will just continue the rent and keep the place running as it is but I don’t think anyone believes we will be that lucky.
They they ask what I will do if the other scenarios arise. There is much I can do. The tiny places available here or almost right across Australia for rental I can afford are not even large enough to store the paintings and other things I own let alone work in.
I have already covered all the other issues. I just shrug and tell them there is nothing to be done. It is a real rental crisis and I am among the vulnerable whose lives may be scarred or destroyed by the lack of options it leaves me
I mean…there is NOT much I can do
My personal self-esteem has plummeted to a point where I am really struggling to face people. Just going out and shopping has become something I struggle to face and so there is no food in the house today and I am struggling to find breakfast.
Perhaps some rice.
A sense of pervasive grief and loss overlain with confusion is also affecting me and causing a deep depression. The constant struggle to find small bit of money for the most basic things wasn’t really worrying me before but now has weight and adds with its own desperation.
There seems to be no physical expression of the stress so far. Unusual in the course of the illness ME/CFS but I should be glad of small mercies.
I know at least a part of what my brother felt as he sat alone and took his life. I have always known what that was and have seen so many lose themselves to the total lack of regard we face when we become vulnerable. Indeed one three-year period saw seven of my acquaintances lose their battle to find a reason to hang on to life.
I do not want o face the possible disintegration of my little bit of life I have made here with a smile and approving manner. I want to crush and destroy the people who would do this to one another.
Moo, says I in the great feed lot of life
Deeper into withdrawal. There seems to be no escaping the thoughts that any security gleaned from having a roof over my head and a place to work is on the chopping block here.
A month from now all of my drawings and paintings could be lost or damaged in a tiny apartment. Any of the friends made here as well as the support mechanisms I have come to depend on may be left behind and the medical assistance it has taken most of the last thirty years to come by may be things of the past as well.
It looms
Every time I come home to be faced by the FOR SALE sign any feelings of safety or future well-being simply evaporate. There is a grim feeling in my stomach. People tell me not to worry and to trust things will balance out. Perhaps if they had lost everything and spent time surviving crippled and on the street as I have they would be less inclined to think there is some natural justice in life.
God, I remember the fight to keep or get disability support with no permanent address and how painful it was on that street.
Rarely leaving the house anymore, struggling to put pencil or brush or palette knife to paper or canvas, nightmares are back. Life starts to look purposeless. Am I repeating myself? It’s my blog and the fact is that these feelings are running through me all day long and everyday at the moment.
That long struggle to get some quality of life may just be on the verge of being pointless and worse.