September 15, 2004
one day at a time

You know, if you keep your eyes peeled, you can learn at least one new thing each and every day.

Today I took advantage of my sick day off work to take my sister CY to her radiotherapy treatment, and I was lucky enough to learn several new things:

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posted by goldie @ 10:57 PM : comments(6) : ping (0) : view »
September 13, 2004
I know you wanna snog me...

I'm officially sick. Isn't that great?

No, really. I mean it. It's fantastic. You see, I've been feeling like shit for weeks. Kinda fluey, swollen in the neck, and my sinuses have been giving me hell. Plus my ears felt funny. No, I can't describe it any better than that. Believe me, I tried.

But none of it was enough to go bother the doctor with. Hey, we all feel fluey at times. It's probably hayfever (common as sheep among us Aussies). Nothing to make a fuss about.

Then the Disturbing Symptom developed. You know what I mean. Waves of nausea are never a good thing.

So off I trotted to the doc, where I was given the uber-satisfying diagnosis of Nasty Ear Infection. One worth two prescriptions of double strength, horse-pill-sized penicillin tablets. One where I can actually say to any doubters, "Look! I wasn't whining about nothing for the past few weeks! Look at my horse pills. Look how big and anti-bacterial they are!"

I feel so damn justified right now =D.


posted by goldie @ 11:52 PM : comments(12) : ping (0) : view »
September 10, 2004
did someone say relax and take it easy?

Ahhh... nothing like a free day off. A day where I can do absolutely anything I want. A day in which I can be a completely lazy-assed bitch and absolutely no one will care.

Surf blogs all day? Yep! Tweak my new templates so they're just right? Yep! Sit round in my fluffy duck dressing gown til 4pm, drinking cup after cup of strong tea? You betcha baby!

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posted by goldie @ 11:29 AM : comments(4) : ping (0) : view »
September 06, 2004
*breathes a nice, deep cleansing breath*

Wow. Thanks to everyone for all your comments on my last post. I just got through responding to them all (in brief, cos I have to go to work) and realised just how dramatic everything sounded when it was laid out like that. Funny that.

It's not like there haven't been good times. And it's not like I haven't been at least partially responsible for a lot of the bad ones. I firmly believe we make our own choices and lay in our own beds once we've made them. Hospital corners or no.

Which is probably why I have an anxiety disorder. But anyways...

I know I could have coped with any one or two of those situations on their own. It was just when they all came stampeding along, one after the other - BANG BANG BANG - that I started to implode. And that's why I withdrew for a bit. Simple as that.

The main thing I wanted to express was that, as I said in my comment responses, I hope you all understand how much it truly means to me to be welcomed back with open arms like this. How much it buoys me up and gives me joy, to both hear your thoughts and advice on my issues, and your open acceptance of the same from me.

What an incredibly wonderful, compassionate, generous and talented group of people I know online.

Bah! Now I might cry ;).


posted by goldie @ 08:46 AM : comments(4) : ping (0) : view »
September 04, 2004
hey kiddies... part deuce

Hello, hello. It's been a funny ole Saturday already. I was up at 5.30 and rather flushed to find screen shots of my new skins from the delectable Cherry in my inbox. I am sooo excited, you have no idea. OK, maybe you do. It's the little things giving me pleasure right now :).

Since then I've been pottering around with sexy!husband. We were going to plant our herbs today cos the moon's in just the right phase, but neither of us could be effed to even drive to Bunnings for seedlings, let alone get our hands dirty. In fact I was so tuckered out I fell asleep on the lounge floor. Ergo, I have no birthday presents for dear Mark and Amy tonight. Bugger and blasterooney.

So let's see. Last post I'd made it to June. But I just realised I'd skipped a couple of things critical to how I was feeling...

Firstly, to answer Lisa's question on how they found my URL, it was all due to my own stupidity. I gave it to 5 friends at work, who gave it to five friends, etc. With so many people logging on to look at it each day, it's no wonder it flagged in their regular analyses of non-work-related sites. And fair enough too. Yet they only knew it was me cos I was stupidly vain enough to put my pic up. Heh.

SO! Basically, once they'd taken my internet away (like they were punishing a school kid) and told me I had no career there anymore, I came off my hobby horse in a biiig way. And funnily enough, before that I was feeling the best I had in ages... I was enjoying my blog, my job, my friends... everything was going awesomely well. The cynics among you might say that the time was just ripe then for something to go wrong. Those the highest up have the farthest to fall. And fall I did. It might have run off someone else's back, but that punishment hit me at my very core.

I was going to work in a haze during that time. And between wanting to blog, yet not wanting to in case they read it, doing all my surfing at home and therefore coming in late, and feeling that there really was no point me being at work anyway if the executive managers didn't like me and I had no career... well. You can start to see why I was apathetic about getting out of bed on time.

No wonder I got myself into trouble. Hindsight is 20/20.

Still, I was starting to come good when in late April, a series of misunderstandings lead to me being frozen out by my work friends, who I was quite close with. It happened little by little. One minute we were all planning nights out and shopping every lunch time, and next minute one particular girl had decided I was on the blacklist and suddenly they were always 'too busy' for lunch, or doing something else on the weekend. Unfortunately the rest of 'em followed suit and stopped talking to me so much too.

It didn't help that one of the other girls was in my team. And because I felt so hurt and betrayed I only made half-hearted attempts at trying to reconcile it with her. Hey, they'd ousted me. What was I sposed to do? Beg? When the whole group had rejected me? Especially since none of us had ever really talked about it... no one had ever said to me 'right, you're out.' I never got closure. I think I was just sposed to get the hint. Some might ask why I let it bother me so much, but you spend more time with your workmates than you do your real friends when you think about it. (I now think it had something to do with me being in trouble at work... brushes and tar and all).

Then when I got the news in June about my sister, it was the girl in my team who's office I ran to, an hysterical mess, because we'd been so close before. This sort of thing should bridge friendship, right?

But she wasn't there. I eventually bumped into them out in the hallway, having all come back from coffee together, and I fell into a mess on the carpet, realising the extent of their rejection at the same time as the absoloutely shock of my sister's out-of-the-blue diagnosis.

It was worse the next week. I could barely sit at my desk. On the tuesday it was my birthday, and they gave me a card, a chocolate and a magazine as a group (nothing like the presents and hand-designed cards we've always done for a each other), said happy birthday, endured an awkward silence and went back to their desks. Not one word about my sister or how I was. It finally came to a head when none of them turned up for my birthday drinks on the Friday night. I don't know why I even deluded myself by inviting them. But they finally made it very clear why they weren't there when I texted them to ask.

The following week, right before CY's operation, my boss decided I needed performance counselling again (as I mentioned at the end of the last post). All of my peers had lost respect for my ability to do my job, and all my friends had bailed out. Can you see why I was feeling so bitter about going to work?

About this time I went into coping mode I think. Anything that had been 'causing trouble' in my life had to go, along with anything that made me think too much. My brain was having enough trouble coping with so much change and hurt and shock that I think it just shut down.

Ergo, the ole DQ fell by the wayside. Even though you guys had always accepted me for who I was, and sent monumental messages of support from around the globe. Even though I had been so happy being here with you. There was so much dissonance in my head around blogging... memories of some of the very best and very worst experiences all fighting for precedence, that I needed to reject it for a while. So I could sort everything else out. So I could heal. So I could help my family heal.

I spent most of my spare time in July in front of the heater on the beanbag, reading Bridget Jones' Diary 1 and 2, and then Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the third time. Comfort food for the soul.

It was damn good actually.

I coped by focusing on all the good stuff in my life. I have a fabulous group of friends outside work. CY seemed to be on the mend. We threw a fabulous bash for sexy!husband's 30th at the end of July, which was also damn good (70 people, a DJ friend of G's and a shitload of alcohol. Awesome.). And he took me away for a surprise holiday to Melbourne for our 2 year wedding anniversary on the 10th of August. Fabulous.

Somewhere in there the ISP ate our database, which is why I can't post at my old site, and neither can you post comments. It was hard enough to recover all my archives, let alone get the database up and running again.

Maybe the universe was trying to tell me I shouldn't've been so stubborn back in February about moving to new digs.

Anyway, we came back from Melbourne on the 10th of August, and on the 11th we found out that CY's tumour was malignant. *exhale*

Two days after that, my bosses had decided I wasn't improving at work (would you be, with so much apathy, depression and other stuff to deal with? Not to mention bitchy girls refusing to even look at you in the hallway?) and decided that it was high time they gave me a written formal warning. That meant (and still means) that if I fuck up, they can fire me at a moment's notice.

...

Believe me, I'm sitting her wondering if this post is a good idea. I have no idea if they know about this site yet. I'm hoping not. I've looked at it once from work, but only once, and told no one about it. Who knows. I'm almost past caring.

So yeah. There you go. The last 8 months seems to have been all about the universe teaching me and mine a lesson we won't forget in a hurry. I've had my victim moments, and my moments of complete and utter optimism and strength.

In my 'weaker' moments (mainly in the last 3 weeks) I've contemplated cutting myself to let the hurt out. To watch it all bleed away, slowly... cos it's the only outlet I can see for release, even though I've NEVER done anything like that before. I've cried my heart out hysterically in the toilets at work more than once, asking why my family, why me, and thought about going back to my desk, printing out a lovely long and detailed suicide note (mentioning the bitchy girls and my boss in particular), and slitting my wrists in the toilets. Just so they could come find me.

Sometimes I really earn the title of this blog, eh?

But I'm strong enough and experienced enough to know that the feelings pass eventually. Those who suffer from depression know about 'the hole', and if you wait long enough, you can eventually climb back out. I'm lucky I have such an understanding and caring husband, let alone my family and friends. But lucky him gets to see the bulk of it.

Aa a status update on the work sitch, I have my final meeting next week to resolve the formal warning. My boss has indicated to me that she thinks everything's fine and there should be no probs with the warning being lifted. I realise I've made her sound like a dragon, but I guess in her situation I would have wondered what to do myself. She has a business to run. We're actually on very good terms, quite friendly really. But it was my mum (a manager herself)who gave me the best piece of advice on how to eventually resolve it all: "unplug yourself from what you see as the unfairness of the whole situation, stop seeing your boss as the enemy and start thinking of her as your best ally. Only she has the power to help you through this. That way you both win." And, like most times, my mum was right. I was just so caught up in my emotions that I couldn't see it before.

I realise that I got myself into a lot of this mess, and I take full responsibility for my actions. Even when I'm feeling like a victim, it's because I'm cursing myself for being so stoopid ;). But i can't think about the maybes and what-ifs. I'll drive myself even more insane if I do.

And as for dear CY... well, this post is as much as we know. She's in radiotherapy 5 days a week, for 6 weeks. We can only hope the side effects will be minimal and that the malignant crap will be excised from her head completely. And hopefully (metaphorically speaking) from mine too.

So. It's officially 'new start' time. A new chapter in my life... New blog, new group (thanks so much for taking me on, Pixy and the MuNuvians! You guys ROCK!) and soon a new design.

It's all downhill from here.


posted by goldie @ 06:22 PM : comments(18) : ping (2) : view »
September 03, 2004
whew!

I totally forgot how many of you there are. Thanks for being so wonderful with your comments on the last post - I've read them all and appreciated them wholeheartedly in between (slowly but surely) visiting everyone on my blogrolls, and surfing for pics for my new layout. Actually, I've found a couple of gorgeous images, after surfing 9 sites and probably over 250 pics. Thanks to Cherry for being so gawddamn patient with me sending her multitudes of jpgs as a form of talking to myself about which one I wanted.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention - Web Divas (also staffed by the bitchalicious rachel) are doing some fab design work for me (along with blogmoxie). What a bunch of talented chicks I know...

It's been a funny ole day. Our dear lil cat Josie had what one might call a mild dose of the trots last night, resulting in some lovely skid marks all over our slate and carpets and a wonderful perfume pervading the entire house. Charming.

And today was also my sister's first day of radiotherapy treatment for her tumour. I went along for moral support as did my other sister Lauren, and my mum of course. Things haven't been all easy with this. We found out last week that the radiotherapy may not be side-effect-free when administered to the brain area, as it may be on other parts of the body. CY may be in for anything from blindness to losing her ability to have children. Not to mention losing some intelligence. And any hair loss may either be permanent, or grow back completely different from what it is now. IE, one woman had brown wavy hair and ended up with jet black straight hair. Spooky n weird.

I also saw her CT scans for the first time ever today. I have deliberately avoided them cos I've always been queasy of inside-body parts, but she made me look. That bloody tumour took up almost a quarter of her brain area in it's thickest part before they took it out in une (thank god they got it all). I could see where her cerebrum had been squashed over by it. Fuck me.

The main problem is with CY thinking she's going to be an utter freak, and that no one in the future will want to be her friend, let alone love her romantically. That coupled with some lil issues around 'control' and 'independence' between her, Lauren and my Mum isn't making things easy (and believe me, I'm caught in the middle cos I can see both sides of the story... not that my mum has really done anything wrong in my eyes. Seriously ill people have so many things to deal with, and losing their independence is certainly one of them for my dear sis). But she coped amazingly well considering. My Dad has also come for a visit from Hong Kong. Which is surreal. I don't have much respect for him really you see.

Having Aunty Flow (painters and decorators) round to visit this morning hasn't helped either *sigh*.

So now that I've been so focused on my new design and a whole heap o' other 'day-to-day' stuff, it's suddenly got to 11.30 and I won't be continuing my story from yesterday just yet. Thanks again to all for your encouraging words and thoughts. They mean the absolute world to me!


posted by goldie @ 12:46 AM : comments(10) : ping (0) : view »
September 01, 2004
hey kiddies, learn a lesson from grandma goldie mkay?

Heh, I think a couple of people got the wrong end of the stick with my last entry... I meant I was going to spring-clean my blogroll of course. Although I'm not sure I did too much actual cleaning. Cos that's a dirty word an' all.

(Note: I apologise for the severe lack of extended-entryness. I hate it when they're not 'collaspsible' and take you to another page, and I can't be bothered installing a script tonight. Yes, I am anal about my blog - if I can't do it right I just won't bother. Oh, and apologies to those who've heard all or part of my melodramatic hooey already *kiss kiss*)

So. Now I'm sitting here, with a minor codeine-withdrawal headache, wondering exactly where to start.

Do I start with our ISP woes? (I mean, what kind of ISP gives their clients 36 hours notice via email to back up all their files or they're screwed? It's not like they didn't have enough space on their porn other servers to back up some small personal sites. But then THAT would constitute actual customer service, which I'm sure they'd never want to be accused of /rant)

Do I start with why I finally stopped writing a couple of months back, after months of negative reinforcement?

Do I start with my sister's tumour actually being diagnosed as malignant 3 weeks ago, after we were told it was very likely benign?

Oooooh... the DRAMA!

You know what? I'm so bloody tired I can't even make up a silly story in an attempt to make you laugh. Instead, I'll give it to you straight:

Back in February (yes, it goes back that far), I was severely disciplined at work for certain entries I wrote on my blog about how 'things' were 'done' there. They took my internet away as a punishment for three months, even though it severly hampered my ability to do my job and even though I'd never made a post from there (not since i was on blogspot anyways). I was also told I had no career there amd that i was lucky not to be going to court. Even though i never used any names. Even though I was only venting my feelings, not stating anything as fact.

I was given an offical warning straight up. Which I prolly should have seen coming. But anyway. And I prolly should have switched domains straight away to give myself some peace of mind. But anyway again.

I wasn't going to let them get to me, you see? I wasn't going to let them win by switching domains. But I was constantly wondering of course. And knowing that they were monitoring everything I wrote, my stubborness eventually lead me to censor myself. Any idiot could have told me I was going to do that. So they won anyway. Bloody pride.

I'd already developed a major blogroll problem (mainly cos you're all just too cool). That coupled with my addiction to surfing and *gasp* commenting on other people's sites, meant that I was getting to bed after 1 most nights, then getting up at 6.30, surfing some more, and getting in to work late. Even though I was already in trouble.

When it comes to my little pleasures I have very little discipline (as many of you will know). So of course this turned into a vicious cycle. I was always in late, always tired, and as my job as an editor requires a certain, shall we say, attention to detail... well, it wasn't long til I was in major league issue-town.

About this time my anxiety and panic attacks came back with a vengeance, and I finally pushed myself to visit the doctor and start on what sexy!husband and I refer to as my 'brain pills'. Yum. Little white cruchy ovals full of serotonin producing-goodness. I still don't know why I waited so long.

Meanwhile my boss started performance counselling sessions in an effort to 'rehabilitate' me. I was nearly through when my sister was diagnosed with her brain tumour in june. I went literally to pieces for a week, which i took as sick leave (this was less than a 1/3 of what I had accrued). And according to my boss I'd 'lost my focus' once again. She sat me down and gave me a good talking to when I came back to work. She was actually really MEAN to me. She told me I had to separate my personal life and my work life and just get on with things.

No, really.

I suppose some people might think that your 25 year old sister being diagnosed with cancer was an everyday emotional occurence that you could just block out and keep working, but I'm just not one of them.

Fuck this for a joke, I just lost half my entry. No seriously!

ARGH...

To be continued (cos there's no way I'm going to soend another half-hour rewriting what i just wrote ;)


posted by goldie @ 09:35 PM : comments(17) : ping (0) : view »