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5 weeks in hell

2013-02-15

As a couple of you know I have been in hospital for the past 5 weeks. It wasn't an easy time as I suffered both heart failure and respiratory failure. What this means is my heart was unable to supply enough oxygen to my body and my lungs started to fill with liquid, causing me to slowly drown. This was caused by ongoing complications from a previous illness and spider bite. It is no fun being in hospital for weeks and not knowing if your heart is damaged or not. As things got more serious and more tests were performed it turned out to be the case that my heart has no long term damage though I will be stuck at home for at least 3 months recovering from the illness.I can't say how good it is to be home, though I am still very weak and can hardly walk and have trouble breathing, at least I am out of danger and will eventually make a full recovery.Some photos taken with my phone camera....My bed in hospital. Very comfortable it was.The view inside the emergency department (ED). I was brought in by ambulance.A typical evening meal.This poor old man was very close to death. He did survive though.View of a typical ward. I was moved around several times to different wards but the room layout was much the same in each rooom and ward.View of the entrance to the room. Two showers and two toilets per 4 beds and one nurse per 4 patients. Meals supplied by the hospital. It's very different to China.The man on the bed beside me had a massive heart attack later in the day and eventually died. Such is life (and death) in hospital.

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Elite Member

2012-08-23

What can I say, the Gods of CD have honoured me with membership of this exclusive club for users who contribute a lot to the site. It came like a bolt from the blue and apart from being unexpected was a very nice thing to happen to me. I just hope I can live up to the ideals of the group. Anyway I'd like to thank the other members and the CD moderators for such an accolade.

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I just love the rain

2012-08-21

Perth is a city that desperately needs rain. We have had years of little or no rainfall each year. Couple this with an ever increasing population that has doubled in the past decade and a bit and politicians with no forethought and you have a recipe for disaster. Well disaster is fast riding in to town, the water levels in the dams are down to around 20% and we have just had the driest July on record. Oh joy even blind Freddy can see that this is not going to be a happy ending. Do our beloved political masters care? Not one jot, we get to tighten our collective belts and use less water, have ever tightened water usage restrictions placed upon us while the powers that be go fawing after a new massive casino hotel that will use enough water for several tens of thousands of houses each day. Does the hotel have to pay water rate levels such as we the average citizen pays, hell no, they get "large user" discounts and pay a fraction of the cost we the poor domestic customers are extorted from each year. Take my bills for water. Nearly 4000 RMB a year just to be on town water and then another 2000 RMB a year billed for the water consumed at my house. It's not as though I luxuriate in half hour long showers or have massive lawns to water. I don't. my garden is mostly native plants and they are never watered. I have a short shower and have a washing machine that uses very little aqua pura. I am frugal with water. I shudder to think what an average household here with a couple of teenagers pays for water. I am so dismayed by the lack of foresight I think I'll go and have a nice glass of water even if a coke is probably cheaper.

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