Nicole's Blog

I’ve been busy working and trying to enjoy life. I got some roller skates a couple of weeks ago and finally got some pads for my bony points. Last Sunday I got on the skates for the first time and it went actually pretty well. I didn’t fall down which is what I expected. Last week also I went and saw SATC 2 at the gold class theatre in Southbank. The gold class or premiere theatres are just like super luxury screening rooms that are at a regular cinema. You pay more to sit in recliners and be in a theatre with only about 25 seats. So you pay about 35 per ticket but you can order food and drinks from a waitperson who comes to your recliner to take your order. Alcoholic drinks too! I ordered popcorn and a berry mojito to eat and drink while watching the movie. It was worth it for me!!! It’d be a good thing for a night out with the girls or as a special date night. I’m back to working 3 days per week at the Alfred and will hopefully be picking up some ICU shifts with inurse. They would like me to take ACLS so that will be coming up in August. I’m a bit nervous because from what I’ve heard of ACLS at home it’s pretty intense. I think it will be really fun though because I love to learn new stuff as all you know. The other day I rode my bike to do some errands and I rode through a park. The parrots were so active making noise and flying from palm tree to other trees. So cute!!! I recorded them and posted an audioboo. Here’s a couple of pics of the park.

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I’ve started doing audioboos in order to blog but spend less time on the computer. Stay tuned for short verbal updates.

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Hey Y’all

So I’ve been busy beavering away at work and trying to into some projects. Patients seem to take up the most time though and so my projects are a little slow. This week I started working 3 days a week as per my contract. It was so nice to have Monday and Tuesday off this week. I chilled and made good dinners for the two of us. Mandy and Blaze also got more snuggle and play time. They also got the royal spa treatment too. Ears cleaned, nails trimmed, furminated, washed, blow dried, and blankets all washed. They weren’t very pleased about it but we liked them better. They even got to spend the night in the big bed. Well Blaze did, Mandy was up at the crack of dawn doing laps on the bed so she got evicted by Dad. When you are on the bed you never want to wake Dad up or you’re outta there! During this time, Dad told me later, Blaze kept his head down and his eyes closed so he wouldn’t get evicted at the same time. Al painted his guts out this weekend and the place looks spectacular! He painted the living room and the bedroom a taupe-y colour and painted the trim, ceiling and moldings white. Before the whole apartment had been painted cream. Cream ceiling, cream walls, cream baseboards, cream crown moldings. It was like the band Cream came over and said “Paint us a tribute!” It looks much different now. I can’t wait until Al can paint the other rooms! The apartment is going to look so awesome.
Yesterday I went to Adelaide with 2 colleagues to conduct a lung transplant clinic there. South Australia (the state) doesn’t have any transplant programs of it’s own so they send their patients to either Melbourne or Sydney. We conduct a clinic 3 times per year. Adelaide was very pretty and it a gorgeous day when we landed. The plane was late due to fog and I had a problem my tickets. I almost missed the plane and we ended up being late for the start of the clinic in the morning. One of my colleagues has trouble spelling my last name and gave the wrong spelling to the person in Adelaide who books our accommodation and flights. I had corrected it but a glitch happened and the ticket wasn’t fixed properly and so I didn’t have a valid ticket when I showed up at the airport. I was informed by the ticket lady that I had 20 mins to get the travel agent on the phone to have a new ticket reissued. 25 mins later we had a new ticket and I was rushing to security. Guess who had a swiss army knife in the deep pocket of the carryon? Me. Guess who had a bag full of VAD equipment that needed to be xrayed separately? Me. Swiss army knife in garbage, VAD equipment re-xrayed and off I run to the gate. I was the last person on the plane. Not quite holding the plane for me but close. Then the fog descended. It was already rather foggy in Melbourne but we had a 30 min delay getting off the ground. Oh well, we made it to sunny Adelaide and it’s so cute. Apparently a bit of a sleepy town but reminded me of Nelson without the towering mountains. One of my coworkers called it a “hole”. It appears that Adelaide is maybe a little behind on the fashion as Kylie and I saw more than one male individual with a rattail. Does anyone remember when they last saw a young man with a rattail? 1989?The food and drinks were paid for at the hotel and so we had a good dinner after a long day seeing patients. I got upgraded to a spa suite and so I had this massive jacuzzi tub in my bathroom. The bathroom was as big as our living room in Melbourne. I had a long hot soak in the whirl tub and chatted with Al a bit and went to bed. Today was the end of the clinic and the flight back home to the fog. Al had a simple supper planned and he told me all about his new JOB!!!! How awesome is that???? He got the word today that he has a job!!! Yay!!! I’m not the sole bread winner!!! Hallelujah! I knew he’d get one eventually but I’m glad it happened now.! He starts on the 15th of June.Okay… going to bed now. Don’t forget readers, I like hearing your stories too!!! Keep me filled in!

Love
Nick

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Hello from Melbourne!

So we are settling in and getting on to the business of living in a new city. We are starting to make some friends here too. Our boxes of belongings finally arrived yesterday and I snuck out of work early in order to get home in time to help Al carry up the boxes. It seems that the guy who screwed up and didn’t deliver the boxes on Tuesday got fired for the error. Apparently, this wasn’t the first screw up. We have started to unpack the boxes and I got out my bike panniers and my bike jacket. My shoes and favourite boots are also unpacked. I haven’t unpacked my clothes yet but that will come soon. I did find a box of scrubs though. Not that I really need them now with my office job. On Sunday we met with our friends Jurgen, Mica and Lola for brunch. It was a lovely morning and afternoon. I finally got my bike fixed for good. My bike had a series of flat tires which turned out to be a little piece of wire that no one could find the first 3 times. Then when it was wet I couldn’t ride in second gear because the chain was slipping. Finally, I took the bike back to the store and they fixed it. Not sure why the chain was slipping but they fixed it. I have been doing mostly transplant coordination as I’m pretty up to speed with the clinic part of the job. The VAD coordinator is giving me some of her tasks in order to get ahead of her paperwork. I’ll be going to Adelaide and Hobart in the next few weeks to attend the interstate clinics. I’ll put up some photos soon.

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So… I haven’t updated in a little while so I thought I would make a little blog post. Trouble is, Al beats me to everything in the blogging world. One minute after I delivered the much awaited work statement letter to the NBV he had posted it on his blog. If you all follow Al’s blog then a lot of what I write is repetition. Oh well, I know that some of you don’t read his blog, much to his dismay so I’ll keep updating.
Last week I was observing at work from Monday to Wednesday. The hospital made me an honorary observer in order to be at work, meet people on the transplant team, and to start learning the hospital systems. Everyone I’ve met so far has been great and I’m learning a lot.
On Thursday, Al and I went on a field trip to Bunnings which is like a smaller home depot. We found some heaters, a new shower head and some weather stripping. The holes around the windows are pretty atrocious. We need to do some winter proofing around here before the cooler weather arrives.
On Friday, we went to Healesville sanctuary and saw all sorts of animals. It took a really long time to get there, like 3 and 1/2 hours. There were a lot of native Australian animals and we had a great time walking around and taking photos.
Saturday was another beautiful day weather wise and we hung out around the apartment and chilled for most of the day. We had tickets to go see the Roller Derby match of the Dead Ringer Rosie’s vs. the Toxic Avengers. It was out in Reservoir at an indoor roller hockey rink. It was a long trip on transit out there and we had a good time. We had to walk back for about 25 mins to get to a tram line but it was a nice night so it wasn’t bad. We came home through the CBD and downtown was totally busy and full of people. We saw some interesting characters on the tram which is kind of the equivalent of the Number 10 bus in Vancouver. We saw a caucasian lady wearing a complete chinese outfit including the bamboo hat and dark sunglasses at 11pm at night. The Roller derby was fun but a lot slower than I thought it would be. The skaters seemed less coordinated than I expected too. I was thinking of trying out for one of the teams but seeing it live has made me think twice. I’m still thinking though as the people that were there seemed more my kind of people. Lots of heavily tattooed people.
I’m still getting people staring at my tattoos. I am not sure if they are disapproving looks or just curiosity but people here don’t seem to feel any shame at being caught staring at me. At home if someone was curious about my tattoos they would ask me about them or smile shyly if I caught them looking. Not here. I’m totally covered up at work just in case people make judgements about me on the basis of my tattoos. I really had taken for granted how accepted my tattoos were at work. Hopefully once I get established at work I can be less cautious about my clothing covering up the artwork I have spent so much energy and time on.
Saturday I had a nice long chat with my parents and Darren. I told him all about our trip to the zoo and he was really interested in the animals especially the snakes. My mom is feeling more recovered from her surgery and she’s walking and getting exercise.
Here are some photos of the zoo.

I’d love to hear from anyone!!! Love to all!

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These days while we aren’t working we usually spend the morning on the computers (Al looking for jobs, me playing on facebook), the afternoons are spent planning dinner, visiting the babies, and sightseeing. I have also been doing some research about lung transplantation. The evenings are spent making dinner, going to the beach for a walk, and reading the information/articles that my work colleague gave me to read.
One day we went downtown and looked for a couch. There is a shop in the General Post Office ( a very grand building) called Acne. Who in their right mind would call their shop Acne? Anyways, I have a pic.The other day we went to the Shrine of Remembrance which is a huge monument to war veterans of Australia. There are ceremonies on ANZAC ( Australia New Zealand Army Corps) day in April and Remembrance day in November. We spent some time there and took some photos. You can go up to the balcony and there are beautiful views of Melbourne.
Thursday we went to visit the babies in the afternoon. Due to the Easter weekend the quarantine was super busy and we had to visit with the kids in a seldom used exercise yard. Not ideal due to the very large dogs that continually barked at us. We won’t be able to visit until Tuesday. Then it’s Sunday and we get to take them home!

Today while Al was doing some work I rode about 8.5 km to see a movie. Movies here have assigned seating! I watched “She’s out of my League”. Funny but not spectacular.
The pictures are the lead shot tower in Melbourne Central mall,claymation characters (Chihuahuas Sonny and Cher) for a popular australian claymation cartoon, sitting outside in Federation Square, Blaze and Mandy at quarantine visiting hours, the shrine of remembrance, Sumi from the balcony, the Melbourne Botanic Gardens and Mandy and Blaze!

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This link is to a myspace video called “The Largest Street Gang in America.” It’s an hour but it will blow your mind and make you thankful that a lot of us live in countries where stuff like this rarely happens.

BoilingFrogs | MySpace Video

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