20180502 – Wednesday – Trailer

20180502 – Wednesday – Trailelr

Dear everyone, it is 3.15 am Wednesday morning and I can’t sleep because my brain is too active. So I have finally got up and I am sitting here at Gail’s dining table to get it all out on “paper” so that I can go back to bed and get some sleep and somepeace. 

I feel that I owe you all an explanation for my extreme behaviour of yesterday, and the reason WHY a visit to the doctor has become such a traumatic event for me.

Back in Adelaide before I left home on my travels, I had developed a pattern of behaviour that was a bit of a worry. I would get up in the morning and go out to my “office’ in some coffee shop somewhere and I would do my transcribing and my studies, and then I would come back home and I would be so tired that I would go to bed, and maybe stay in bed for the rest of the day. 

I felt that I was slowly “dying.” I was very overweight and just piling it on and I knew that it would not be long before my health would deteriorate. But I knew from my experience 2 years ago on my first “grey nomad” adventure, that would all change. That the moment I got on my way and left Adelaide, that would all change. 

Travelling with my little trailer and I am free, free to be myself, to still be able to study and do all the things I do at home, but without the cares of a household, keeping it clean, going to the shop to buy in food and all the mundane chores of life.

But I also knew that the complete change of activity would most certainly “stuff up” my system until my body adjusted to my new routine, and it did. I had hypos because my normal pattern of insulin intake was disrupted and I had to work out a new pattern and “get it right.” 

Also I know that the isolation of travel for a woman alone is pretty complete. I am not free to interact with other “grey nomads” as couples are able to interact with  large caravans and such. I am a woman alone, and I am vulnerable. So I don’t meet up with people I don’t talk to people, I just keep to myself and go on my way.

I don’t have a lot of money, and the big question for me along the way, is “will I have enough $$ to survive between “ pay cycles.” 

Now there are people who have helped me along the way. Dear friends have put money into my bank account along the way. I could not have done this trip without the help of my friends. In order to do what I can to “reward” them and show my appreciation of their kindness, my blog has been my way to “pay them back” for what they have done for me. 

I write so that my friends can follow my journey and share my adventures. Not only that, since I am not free to make friends on the way, it is my source of “community” and it gives me a sense of “belonging” that there are people out there who care about me and who would rush to my aid if I should find myself in trouble.

And I know for a certainty, that somewhere along my trip, I will BE in trouble and need help from God and I know he will most probably provide that help by using “his ministers,” my angels, my friends. 

When I had my stroke in 2008 life changed for me. I lost some eyesight and the ability to walk freely. AT first I thought I would just need knee or hip replacements, but when I had X-rays, they told me that I did NOT need knee or hip replacements, so my question was, “Then if I DON’T need knee replacements, why then can I not walk.” And to this question there seemed to be no answer.

Now because I have diabetes, even though mandatory testing of the eyesight of everyone over 70 has been abolished, it still applies to those with some serious health issues. I have diabetes, badly controlled. Why? Well because I hate being bothered about my diabetes and simply do not work hard enough at controlling it. But now that I am travelling it is different. I HAVE to control it and I have to lose the excess weight, or I won’t be able to keep travelling.

And THAT is why a trip to the doctor is enough to send me into a panic. I am running out of my insulin so I have to get new prescriptions and a new supply of drugs. I have to get all my records sent to a doctor over here, I have to get my eye-specialist to agree that my eyesight is good enough for travel. And with diabetes, my eyesight is always irregular. A year ago when it was time for my mandatory testing, I went to the doctor and managed to read only 2 levels of letters and If I had not even able to read that 2 levels, my driver’s licence would have been cancelled. 

That terrified me. But next time I went to the eye specialist, my eyesight was fine. So I was expecting to have an eye test yesterday and was so afraid my eyesight may not have been up to par. Well, I didn’t have the test, because I have to send to my eye specialist for my records, and I know my last test was okay, so I don’t have to worry about that any more, but I still have to wait for all of my records to be transferred over.

So yesterday, THAT trip to the doctor was so scary, because I can’t go ANYWHERE without the doctor’s say so. So I am here in Hunter Valley until all my medical are sorted out. 

Today I pick up my trailer and hopefully the new canopy is okay, but THEN I have to find a tow bar man to fix my jockey wheel because in the process of lifting the jockey wheel higher it is now not strong enough for the jockey wheel to be upright, so that has to be fixed before I can travel on up north.

I was about to give up and just “go home” because it was all seeming “too hard.” But now the kind conference people up in Qld have helped me out with somewhere to stay during the conference, and so I am now committed to head north, and fleeing to safety and “home” is no longer an option. 

So yesterday I was beset with all these “imponderables” and wondering which way to turn, so that accounts for my “melt down” of yesterday. 

And you see, this whole thing has got bigger than me somehow. I am writing to entertain my “friends” who have helped me to go on this trip. Instead I find I am writing to the “whole world” it seems, in fact I have no idea WHO reads my stuff. It is like I sneeze and they get the flu in Africa. 

I think about stopping writing at all, but then I will be so alone, and I can’t do that. So I am hoping that all you who read my words will please understand that sometimes I “talk unadvisedly with my lips” and I don’t mean to offend anyone, but inevitably every now and then I do, and then I just take that “offending post.” 

 So my facebook friends, you have all been wonderful to me. I don’t want you to think I am just egotistical and full of myself. I write for my “friends,” and if you class yourself as one of those, then I am writing to YOU. But if you don’t like reading my stuff, then just unfriendly me, and that will solve the matter. 

Now I can go back to bed and hopefully sleep.