Back to the Present

I will finish tales of my holiday later  (I think) as there is the whole Sydney slot to mention but am needing some quiet contemplation and brain power for that so thought I would more concentrate on more current happenings.

I pretty much hit the deck running on my return to Geraldton and environs.  My work roster had been changed to incorporate several chunks of training so did not quite have the expected days off etc I had planned to catch up on myself post holiday.  It was great to see our kids - one of the babies soon to turn has begun to walk and the other is scooting over the floor with his own style of crawling.  There were hugs all round on my return and one of the babies has become glued to me when I am on shift. 

The first training I am involved with is in house and comes by way of an American parenting program that has simple but obvious concepts however they are explained mixing developmental age and stage behaviours to recognise and shows what can get in the way of helping a child to achieve safety and secure feelings.  It has been fun practising with the babies going at their pace and seeing how much the techniques work.  It is an excellent fit for our work with traumatised children as we work a lot with the children's emotional ages rather than their chronological ages.  Traumatised children often have developmental and emotional deficits to averagely grown children.  Working with traumatised children you are always looking for the need, want or fear that underlies  their behaviours and a good part of our work is trying to grow them into secure beings which means they can then go on to learn and achieve much better at school, kindy etc.  Part of the course focusses on our own behaviours in certain situations, the lack or not in our own childhoods that causes us to react or not to better understand our interactions with the children in our care. 

It wouldn't be a return to work without picking up something so the second week I was back, I had another bout of gastro - 24 hours thankfully but I naturally thought I was dying for the 9 hours that I felt the worst.  I had just completed day one of my Senior 1st Aid course and had bought a roll from down the road and lunch time.  It had felt a bit heavy on my stomach but had had a coffee with full milk so also thought initially it may have just been too rich so ignored it.  By the time I got home at 4 pm I wasn't feeling that bright so lay down on the couch and just felt progressively worse.  It was a hot day so lay out in the porch where the air con was on but continued to feel hot and bothered and uncomfortable.  I ended up by getting a cold, wet flannel and lay with that on my head, back of my neck alternating every 10 mins or so.  The level of discomfort was increasing not abating and after a day at 1st Aid I am lying there thinking, this is not recognisable pressure but I am now feeling hot and clammy, is this a sneak heart attack???  I didn't think I had chest pain like I normally feel but at the same time it was a pressure feeling.  I thought if I have some GTN spray and it goes away, then it is my heart, but if not, then back to the check list.  So, at about 7.30 had to puffs of spray under my tongue and flip flopped back on the couch.  I still felt yuck (great medical diagnosis there, lol) and wasn't sure whether I was in fact feeling any better or not and decided to get a bucket handy just in case as nauseous was the best way to describe how I was feeling a little later.  It proved to be good thinking as half an hour later, up she came, my late lamented lunch, which did provide some relief.  I waited a little longer then hied myself off to bed for a good nights sleep which seemed to do the trick.  At first I thought I may have had a dose of food poisoning being as I had had a chicken roll for lunch but on relaying the nights events to workmates the next day, I was informed that one of the babies had gastro as had two other staff.  Though feeling a little shady the next day still I was able to complete the 1st Aid course so am now current if CPR, using a defibulator, bandaging wounds with bits protruding, and how to assess someone unconscious and or not breathing.  We also had a segment on snake bites (not in any NZ first aid, lol) and poisonous things in the sea which reinforces my feelings about not swimming in the ocean over here at all.  I am also revising gardening and do not think I will ever garden over here anymore without gloves on in case of spider bite.  There are the most deadliest spiders in the world in Australia we were told, thankfully the worst one only lives on the east side so feel a little easier about that.  None of this helps with my insect phobia and of course I raced down and refilled all my non-stop repellents in the house and fitted them out with new batteries, once again to provide myself with as insect free an oasis that I can make it.

This week I am at Taffe or Durack as the place is called doing a 5 day Health and Safety Course.  I was voted in as the OHS officer at work last year and have not known much about anything in all that time so what an eye opener the course has been.  We spent the first day on legislation covering the Act, Worksafe Australia and Codes of Practice .  Yesterday we covered hazards in the workplace that included a walkthrough the carpentary workshop and the brickies area to see what we noticed and it is amazing what you see when you are looking for things.  In fact there was one breach of the Act where there was a ladder to an area with no guard rails (it was over the height that required this to happen).  Our lecturer had a word to the lecturer there and although they were aware of the hazard and were taking steps to rectify it, they did not realise that they could be closed down as it was right then.  There were several other issues that we noted and past on, the main one being the amount of young lads working without their safety glasses on - something that can fail them the course here. We also went through the process of an accident investigation - lucky I watch so much CSI heh, heh, as I was right about what happened, just had to work out how many steps it took , who to talk to and what to look for to prove what happened.  The purpose of an OSH rep investigating an incident/accident is not to apportion blame etc but to look at what needs to be put into place to minimise or remove the causes that led to the incident occuring again.   Today is the difference between hazards and risks, how to work out the difference and how to use the correct procedures to promote worksafe practices.  I can see I am going to have to ask a few questions when I get back to work and look at some of our workplace practises that need to be put in place to make us compliant with the Act. 

Since my return in between these courses I have been doing a lot of night shifts so keeping fairly inhospitable hours again.  I did manage to get round to Bronwyn and Gerards one night last week and was invited to stay for dinner which was nice.  I had called in for a coffee and was going to leave my car going for 15 mins after having it go flat when I went to Weight Watchers necessitating a call out to RAC (AA in NZ) to get me jump started.  The bloke who turned up said he couldnt tell me whether it was the battery or not and to call into his work the next day.  I had been out to training and managed to start the car both times that day but I had turned the air con off in the car as I wondered whether that made any difference as I had it on full blast when it wouldn't start the night before.  Nope, the battery was dead as dead on testing so $170 later (that is with a discount for belonging to the RAC) I was on my way and havn't missed a beat since.