Our family grows

Peter and I both liked the idea of living in the country but the reality was we were city born and bred. We knew nothing about looking after two acres of land. We had never built a house before. The girls were going to go to a small country school. What if they hated it? We were 100 km from Canberra and our very comfortable life. Peter had a new job and I couldn’t see much. What were we thinking?

Our first few weeks here were interesting. We moved a couple of days before Christmas and the TV didn’t work and the washing machine died. It was also very cold and we had no curtains until we found some old ones and taped them to the bedroom windows. Buying curtains was fast tracked and it was lovely to close the house up on a cold summer night! The house was surrounded by dirt and when it started to rain we had to go out in the middle of the night and dig trenches around the verandah to stop the water coming in. The girls were unhappy and feeling isolated and we had many trips into Canberra to see their friends and bring them out to visit for a couple of days in the country.

As the weeks went by we started to settle in. We met more of our neighbours and when I was able to wear a contact lens and drive for a few weeks we went to the Braidwood pool and the girls met some local girls. We went shopping and bought the things we wanted and needed for the house and as time went by the house became our home.

As the house wasn’t quite finished our gate had not been put back up and there was no way of keeping our dog Madeline in when we went out. We tried tying her up on a long rope and using her car harness to make her more comfortable than having a rope tied on her collar. We had to go out for a few hours so into the harness, tied to the rope, lots of water and a bone. She was set and off we went. When we arrived home she came running to greet the car – how? Maybe someone had been over and let her off? Maybe we didn’t put the harness on properly? No – she was a very clever dog and didn’t like being tied up. This had happened a couple of times and we finally figured out that she had pulled the rope tight and wriggled out of the harness backwards. How clever was our Miss Houdini? Tying her up wasn’t going to work but as she was a dog who didn’t wander we decided each time we left to give her a big juicy bone to keep her occupied. We were very lucky with her and discovered that each morning she went for a walk to say hello to each of our neighbours and then came home. That’s as far as she went so we felt comfortable leaving her alone. Little was she to know that her days as the only pet in the house were numbered.

The minute we moved out here the conversations started about which other animals would come to live with us. We needed to get something to eat the grass but we needed to do some fencing and of course put the gate back before that could happen. The girls were also putting pressure on to get another dog or two and had the support of their dad. The argument was that two dogs would keep each other company and not annoy Madeline too much. This argument had merit but I didn’t see the need for three dogs.

We went into Canberra one weekend for a couple of birthday parties and spent the weekend there. We all went and were staying with friends around Tuggeranong. Even Madeline had a sleepover with friends as the kennel was fully booked and there was my argument. What do we do with all these animals when we want to go away? It would cost a fortune to put all the dogs in the kennel and what about the rest? We would need to find someone to come and housesit.

We had this conversation in the car on the way to Canberra and we arrived at Teresa’s house for her party and surprise, surprise we left with two pet rabbits! Rabbits were never on the list of animals on request! What happened here? Teresa had some baby bunnies and yes they were very cute and the pressure was on all through the party to bring one home. It was 3 to 1 so what hope did I really have? Ok, we had to find somewhere for them to live, what do they eat and who would take responsibility for cleaning their house? Emily totally fell in love with these little cuties and I was telling the partygoers how my CWA cookbook has lots of recipes for rabbit stew! So the rabbit we were getting became Stewie! But wait there’s more! Stewie would be very lonely by himself and before I knew it we had Louie as well!

Teresa assured us they were both boys and I told her that if they weren’t the offspring were going straight back to her house!

Time to move

We moved into our new house a couple of days before Christmas and spent the holidays unpacking, buying all the things we needed and learning what it meant to live in the country. The weather was awful. It was cold and foggy for the first three days and we could not believe that this was Christmas in the country. We put up temporary curtains and used the heater instead of the air conditioner! The washing machine died and I had to wash everything by hand. The TV also didn’t work and as it was the Christmas holidays we could not get someone in to fix it for two weeks. Needless to say the girls were not amused. This was it, we had moved to a small village in the country, had no idea what our new life was going to be like and there was so much work to do around the house. We knew no one, I could not see very well and did not know how we were going to manage when Peter went back to work?

The magnitude of what we had done hit me one night when I was having a chat with a very unhappy Emily. The house didn’t feel like home. It wasn’t the house she had grown up in and she didn’t want to be here, away from her friends and the life she knew. What were we thinking? We had changed our whole life and moved to a lifestyle we knew nothing about. We took the girls away from their friends and the life they grew up with. It was easy to say to them. ‘We will keep in touch with your friends.’

The reality was a bit different as I was not able to drive, Peter was away a lot and their friend’s families were just as busy as we were. They did phone their friends, talk on MSN and write letters. We did try to organise for them to catch up with their friends whenever we were in Canberra and during school holidays.

It was important for us to move to Majors Creek at the time we did because of the kid’s school age. They were going into year seven and nine at school and we thought it would be easier to move then rather than a year or two later when they were getting into senior years of high school. The girls had been quite positive about moving until a couple of months before we were due to leave. They were getting upset about leaving their friends, going to a small country school and not knowing anyone. We did our best to reassure them and we took them to the school for a meeting with the deputy principal. He showed them around the school and told them how the school operated and they came home from that meeting feeling a bit more relaxed. As we went out to purchase their uniform and all the other items they needed we were very aware to let them be in charge of the purchases they made so that they were comfortable with everything they bought. We left them to it at the Hyperdome with a large amount of money and a very long shopping list. We went off to an eye specialist appointment and met them a few hours later. They had done very well and were ready for school and had bought lots of items to decorate their rooms.

The kids in Majors Creek are picked up by a school bus and the bus stop is at the end of our street. On the first day we offered to drive them but they wanted to go on the bus. We insisted on walking down with them but were given strict instructions not to be at the bus stop when they came home. Peter and I were a bit anxious during the day, as we knew if they didn’t like school we could be in a bit of trouble. They finally came home and were very chatty about the bus, the school, their teachers, some girls they had met and we knew they were going to be ok.

We did it all. We sold our house in Canberra and built a new one, Peter changed jobs to one where he travelled a fair bit, I could not see very well and took leave from my job, the girls changed schools and we left the city and moved to the country. All of these things are at the top of the list of the most stressful times in our lives and we did it all at once! I was on an emotional rollercoaster with my eyesight drama and dealing with the changes this made to my life and I was menopausal! When we decided to move my sight wasn’t great but we never dreamed it would get worse and I would be nearly blind by the time we moved. We were sure this was the right move for our family and I guess time will tell.

Surgery begins

Because there was so much going on my sister and brother-in-law flew over from Perth to take me to Sydney. They were pretty shocked when they saw me and realised how bad my eyesight was.

When we arrived in Sydney we went for a walk and it was pretty scary as there were so many people around and I kept walking into people and being pushed around. My operation was early next morning and I was a mess. I was so scared about what would happen during the surgery and what the outcome would be. I didn’t sleep much that night, which I am sure was not the perfect preparation for eye surgery. My operation was called a vitrectomy and was going to clear away a blockage that had been building up for years and wasn’t diagnosed until it was at a point where it was blocking my vision.

Dr Chang was very pleased with how the surgery had gone and I was amazed at how I felt. It was very weird being awake. When my cornea transplants were done it was under general anaesthetic and I don’t remember any part of it. This time I could hear the doctors and nurses talking and answer the questions they asked me. We left the hospital two hours after we arrived and went back to our hotel where I slept all day.

The next day I was very ill and in a lot of pain. I went to Dr Chang’s rooms for my post-operative appointment and spent most of the time throwing up in the toilet. The pressure in my eye had risen dramatically and the side effect of that was that I was very sick. When he put eyedrops in my eye the pressure started to drop but it took a while for me to feel better. We had checked out of our hotel and were about to head back to Canberra and there I was throwing up in a plastic bag on the streets of Sydney and not one of the people walking by batted an eyelid. It was obviously a common sight! I slept all the way back to Canberra and then spent a couple of days recovering at home.

It was great to be able to spend some time with Vicki and Lyle and we took them to Majors Creek to show them our house and our new village. When they left I was amazed that they came all that way for a couple of days to look after me. I will never forget what they did.

My recovery went really well and then it was time to move. I was very incapacitated and seriously wondered how I would manage living in the country. I was feeling very insecure moving away from Dr Kate and was scared about being isolated in Majors Creek and not being able to drive myself anywhere.

Preparing for surgery

Before we moved I had my first operation on the road to restoring my sight.

Dr Kate had given me the names of two surgeons in Sydney who she thought would be able to help. Within a month I had an appointment with both doctors.

When I met Dr Chang he explained that when the initial cataract surgery was done some remnants of the lens were left behind and over the years they had calcified into a large piece. This blockage was now affecting my vision. My specialist had been telling me over the last ten years that it was very difficult to see the optic nerve in my left eye because the tissue was so thick. There was a blockage, which had gone undiagnosed, even with this current drama. When I next saw Dr Kate and read the eye chart with the left eye, I could just make out the ‘a’ on the top of the chart, not anything else. With the right eye I could actually see the ‘a’ the ‘o’ and the ‘e’. That’s two lines!

A couple of weeks later I met Dr Con Petsoglou, and as with Dr Barrett in Perth, the minute we met I really liked him and knew he would fix this. He was amazed at how I had managed with so little sight for so long and had spoken with Dr Chang and they agreed that Dr Chang should do his procedure and when the eye had recovered from that surgery he would look at doing another transplant. Dr Con wanted me to wear a contact lens for a few months before he operated to give him an idea of what vision he would be able to achieve with another cornea transplant.

I was quite teary for most of the day after Dr Con’s appointment. At last something positive was going to happen and hopefully a little vision would come back after the first operation. It had been very difficult waiting for these appointments to see what the two surgeons had to say. My head was preparing to hear bad news but hoping for good news.

The optometrist Dr Kate recommended was very helpful and within weeks I was trying a new contact lens for my right eye. My optometrist put the lens in and told me to wander around the shops, have lunch and come back after a few hours to see how it felt. It felt wonderful. I phoned Peter and yelled into the phone, ‘I can see, I can see.’

I didn’t see well for very long. Soon it was time for my vitrectomy and Dr Chang didn’t want me to wear the contact lens again until a couple of weeks after my surgery. Even though the contact was for the other eye he did not want to risk any kind of infection.

When I rang Dr Chang’s office to find out if a date had been booked for me, I was told my surgery was booked in for the 13^th December! That was the day the removalists were coming. Perfect timing! While we were talking the booking officer felt sorry for me and found a cancellation – the next week. ‘Could you be in Sydney next Thursday which was the 23^rd November?’

‘Yes, I will be there,’ was my reply, having no idea how, but it would happen.

Before Christmas we had to move out of our house and find somewhere else to live for a couple of weeks, move into our new house and head up to Sydney to have some eye surgery. There is never a good time for all of this stuff but I wasn’t going to say no to the surgery.

Transplant Games in Canberra

This post is not part of the story I have written but because I had a very special experience today I want to share it with you.

I went to Floriade in Canberra today to attend the opening ceremony and parade of competitors in the 12^th Transplant Games.

I was blown away by the spirit and friendship I witnessed today.

A friend of mine is involved in these games as her husband is a kidney transplant recipient and it was Tahlei who first told me about them. Nick has competed in the games for many years now.

A lone piper led the parade and I was teary as the competitors marched past me but cried when the donor families marched past. I was surprised by the emotion I felt.

All of the competitors have had a transplant of some kind and these games are a celebration of their second chance at life. The Governor General Ms Quentin Bryce opened the games and encouraged us all to DISCOVER the facts about organ and tissue donation DECIDE about organ and tissue donation and DISCUSS your decision with family and friends.

It has been twenty years since my first cornea transplant and over three years since the surgery to remove them. At that time I went through a very difficult grieving process. My transplants were life changing for me and when I had the surgery to remove them I felt that I had lost a major part of me. I felt I had let my donor down as after so long my body had rejected the transplants. I know that was pretty irrational thinking but that was how I felt as the time.

I feel very strongly that tissue donation is as important as organ donation but doesn’t always get same attention in the media.

I wrote about my story and why I thought corneas were as sexy as hearts, lungs and kidneys and had the privilege of being published in 2007 in an anthology of transplant stories – mine was the only cornea story in the book!

I watched people of all ages today dancing and singing to the rock band at the concert following the ceremony. They were enjoying themselves so much I want to remind you all to DISCOVER, DECIDE AND DISCUSS!