Six weeks ago, my Mum had a nasty fall, face first into concrete. She badly fractured her left arm, shattering the end of the bone near the elbow and has a plate and 8 or so screws and there are still little bits of bone floating around. She also had a lot of other bruising. At the hospital, she told the attending doctor that her right arm also hurt. They put it down to bruising and didn't bother with an x-ray.

A few days after the surgery, she goes to her GP to have the dressing checked and mentions the right arm is still sore. Again, he says "probably bruising and maybe jarring" and doesn't see the need for an x-ray.

A week after surgery, she has her first physiotherapy session, in which she comments that the right arm is sore, but the physiotherapist says "let's focus on the left first".

For the next 4 weeks, Mum has increasing pain in her right arm to the point that it is hurting more than the left. She sees her physio 3 times a week and each time says the right arm is sore and is there something she can do for it. He says "it might be tennis elbow, here wear this brace". Note, no real physical examination.

Around this point, I start to think Mum's physio is a bit useless and talk to my physio, who says the first thing she would do is a proper examination of the right arm and get an x-ray on the off chance that there is a fracture as you can't always feel that from the outside and if there is a fracture that changes how you manage the recovery. I relay this to Mum and suggest she go to her GP or Physio and ask to have an x-ray done of the right arm.

Mum mentions this to her GP, but he doesn't think an x-ray is necessary. Mum doesn't want to seem pushy or doubt the expertise of the doctor. Last week the physio asked Mum to do an exercise that involved using both arms and when she couldn't do it because of the pain in the right arm, he finally has a look at it. He says it is "pretty bad", but thinks it is a tendon problem (and doesn't think an x-ray is necessary) and sends her home with a tens machine, which admittedly does ease some of the pain. At subsequent sessions, he doesn't look at the right arm and just says keep using the machine.

On Monday, I took Mum for a follow up x-ray of her left arm to take to the orthopedic surgeon. She sees the surgeon on Wednesday and mentions that the right arm is still in significant pain 6 weeks on from the accident. He sends her for an x-ray.

Today, Mum goes to the hospital and has an x-ray done of the right arm and calls the surgeon's office to let them know. This afternoon the surgeon's office calls to say the x-ray shows a fracture in the right arm and could she please come in next week to discuss.

Mum rang me just then to let me know. I think she is going to give a big "I told you something was wrong!" speech to her physio tomorrow. I'm pissed at the medical profession in general. My Mum is 59, she had a fall that smacked her hard enough into concrete to shatter her left arm. One would hope an intelligent person may make the mental leap that there may be some damage to other parts of the body. And if she's reporting an increasing amount of pain in a limb that you know sustained enough force to turn it black with bruising for several days, just maybe it might be worth x-raying to check. Geez!

On the up side, I'm so glad she finally knows what is wrong with her right arm and hopefully now they can treat it. She's been in pain to the point of tears, she's been feeling guilty that she's always complaining about it,  and was seriously starting to think that perhaps she'd developed some kind of psychological pain syndrome since none of the medicos seemed to take it seriously.

Moral of the story - If you're in pain or you know something is wrong with your body, be bloody pushy about getting it properly examined and don't stop until someone actually does the damn tests and gives you an answer.
 

I was listening to Triple J on the way home and Hack was doing a piece on the town of Bundanoon, which is just up on the highlands from us, and their plan to ban bottled water. And now it looks like the NSW Premier is following suite and phasing out the use of bottled water in NSW government departments and is planning a public campaign to discourage people from using bottled water.

I really support discouraging the use of bottled water if there is an easy to access supply of tap water. Our office tea room has always had a chilled filtered water spout for filling bottles and I would certainly prefer to fill up my glass for free as often as a like during the day than have to buy bottled water. I'm not sure if a ban is the way to go, but in the case of workplaces where it is fairly easy to install chilled filtered water fountains for staff use, then I think that's actually a nice policy that sets a good example.

I support encouraging people to drink water for both hydration and as a healthier alternative to soft drinks. I certainly don't like the unsustainable aspects of bottled water production. To me, it's excessive processing, packaging, and transport to provide something that for most people they can get for a fraction of the cost from the tap, and it hasn't had to travel anywhere near as far. I don't have as much of a problem with the concept of bottled water as essentially a boutique drink (i.e. you're purchasing the unique characteristics of water from a particular place) than I have with it being used as an alternative to perfectly acceptable tap water purely because of convenience. That is more typical of the "want it now" convenience attitude that disregards unsustainable processes and production in favour of something that requires little or no effort on the part of the consumer.

I think there are three main reasons that people drink bottled water:
1. the tap water is not potable
2. the tap water is drinkable, but you prefer the taste of bottled water
3. you don't mind tap water, but when you're out, there aren't always convenient places to fill a bottle up or you don't have a bottle with you, so the only option is to buy water if you want to drink water instead of soft drink (probably because you're health conscious).

My guess is that in Australia, the biggest group would be the third lot, where the issue is more that of availability and convenience than a distinct aversion to tap water. I'm in the third group. I don't like soft drink. If we're traveling and I get thirsty, I'll buy bottled water. However, at home and work, I drink tap water. I also tend to have a bottle of tap water in the car with me. When that runs out, I buy bottled water and am often annoyed that I have to pay more for it than some sugar, colouring, and preservative loaded soft drink.

I think the key is providing an alternative. In cities that have perfectly drinkable tap water, providing places for people to fill up with filtered, chilled tap water, for minimal cost,  is going to be the key to getting people to switch from bottled water. I think if the choice started to become available, most people would take the cheaper option over bottled water. Once that is set up, a ban is probably not necessary as the main consumers will be those people who are purchasing the water for its taste (same as someone would buy a bottle of coke because they like the taste) and those who are purchasing it because they don't have drinkable tap water.

I can see this becoming a bit like alternatives to plastic bags. It took a bit for the idea to take off, but once the major supermarkets started supplying "green bags" for purchase at the checkout it was easier to buy reusable bags, and then it is just getting into the habit of bringing the bags to the supermarket. The plastic bags are still there, but there are places that now charge for plastic bags (e.g. ALDI) and I don't think it will be long before paying for plastic bags is required. There will always be some people who will use plastic bags, and pay for them, because of the convenience factor (and we can glare disdainfully at them as we fill up our reusable green bags).

If you could convince major outlets like supermarkets, fast food chains, and service stations to have a filtered water refill station (for a small refill fee), then I think it won't take that long for people to get into the habit of having a reusable bottle with them. And if you can purchase a reusable bottle along with the refill, then that makes it all the more easier. Once a pattern is established it is a strong incentive for cafes and other stores that would normally stock bottled water to consider a filtered water fountain. Most office-type workplaces should also be able to provide filtered water without much difficulty. I would also love to see how the Bundanoon proposal of having filtered water fountains in the main street goes as that would be great if Councils could consider free filtered water fountains. Outdoors ones are probably targets for vandals, but perhaps having them in Council facilities such as swimming pools, libraries, halls etc.. would work.

I can also see the reusable bottles being a great marketing tool and potential fashion item, as it would be easy for companies to come up with funky designs. Just look at all the "green" bags out there that are used to promote all kinds of things and also as trendy fashion statements.

I think this one has merit and it certainly has my support. I look forward to seeing how Bundanoon go with their proposal and the proposed public campaign that the Premier has suggested.

A couple of weeks ago, the CPD sends me an email from Tassie saying "What do you think about buying a block of land in Waratah? They've got a bunch of blocks that people have defaulted on that are up for auction soon, should go pretty cheap. I was thinking of building a log cabin" I say "Sure, why not?".

Well today we became the proud co-onwers of a acre block in Waratah (north-west-ish area of Tassie wilderness, about 45mins from Burnie). It has some scrub on it, but nothing that couldn't be easily cleared. There are some pics up on the CPD's flickr site here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blaeney/ (down the bottom of the page has the more panoramic views)
He's also posted a short video of a 360 panorama on YouTube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilBsCxNOgyo

The block went for $12,000 and we went halves with a friend of the CPD's from work who has been keen to get some land for a holiday home and also likes Tassie. The plan is that we'd look at building a small log cabin or similar down there, hopefully to a stage where we could rent it out as a B&B when we aren't there, but mainly it's somewhere that we can escape to when we need some R&R.

Now I can't wait to get down to Tassie and have a look for myself.

• A $900 bonus will be paid to taxpayers with taxable income up to and including $80,000.
• A $600 bonus will be paid to taxpayers with income exceeding $80,000 to $90,000.
• A $250 bonus will be paid to taxpayers with income exceeding $90,000 to and including $100,000.

The lowest cut-off is $80K. That is bloody ridiculous. A person earning $80K a year with no dependants does not any extra money. If they've gotten themselves into stupid amounts of debt then that's their own stupid fault and they can sort that out themselves. Why anyone earning over $80K is getting anything is beyond me.

I support assistance to families to help them provide for and support the education of their kids. I support helping farmer's. I don't support giving a cash hand out to working professionals with no dependants who are earning well in excess of what is a "decent" living.

This is all part of the bizarre self delusion that a lot of Australians have that we are "doing it tough", despite earning far more than the previous generation. A new plasma tv is not a necessity.  Having the latest game console or mobile phone is not a necessity. Being able to go out every weekend and blow hundreds of dollars on overpriced drinks at clubs is not a necessity.

All this handout does is perpetuate the belief that we're "doing it tough" while we're surrounded by the latest gadgets, fashions and other excesses we don't need. The cut-off should have been much lower, at least no higher than $50K. My first salary out of University was around $28K. When the CPD first started his cadetship, he was on $16K. Our incomes have of course grown, but I would strongly argue that a combined income of $80K is living quite comfortably let alone $80K each.

We don't need additional cash right now. We have good incomes and exercise good financial management so that we can afford to service our debts (mortgage and car loan) and still save for major items. Our spending habits haven't really changed much despite changes in the economy because we're not stupid with our money. When we got the mortage, we only borrowed an amount that we could still afford in the event interest rates went up to %15. We have no credit card debt, the balance is always paid in full each month. We budget and forward plan any major expenses. This is obviously something that many other Australians would do well to learn or possible should have beaten into their skulls.

There is a point to this post. As I have a rational objection to the cash bonus being paid to people who don't need it, I'm going to send mine to people who do. I haven't decided exactly where, but if our government can't be trusted to direct money to those most in need, then rational, intelligent adults of means should do what they can.