the fifo wife

I’m not sure how it happened but the few things post is on a  Tuesday…and it feels so wrong I am sorry…Monday came and went just like the weekend and already we are one quarter through the RNR swing. Life is going to fast. Way to fast.

So the weekend.

I did my first speaking event on Sunday and I’m so glad I did. I was nervous beyond words and rather than vomit I sweated. My fear of groups is extreme. I’m good with just a few but place me in front of more than just a few and well I am the queen of swoon and not in the romantic sense. I was prepared for vomit not for the potential sweat athon {is that a  word}. I made it through despite sitting there going oh my god I am sweating so much do I stink can they smell me? the stupidity of it all but typically by the end over I was over the moon because not only had I got through it I conquered a fear and I literally made new friends {well I hope I did} all without vomiting sweat excluded.

And I must say the tips that everyone offered worked a treat so much so I think I will write a how to..anyway I have missed you its only now that I sit and write that I have missed you and its only been a day…so these are the things running through my head..and I must say I am heavy hearted for the unknowing that many defence families are facing today..my heart and thoughts are with you…

So the few things.

1. I asked for some love today on facebook..in the form of what you makes you smile and I got it and I cried..in the doctors surgery I cried and laughed the ugly cry..I am grateful for you.

2. Listening to my husband lose his crap with the kids brings me such joy…on the inside..on the outside I am saying you must listen to your father.

3. I have lost two kilos..I have to tell someone because my husband hasn’t noticed yet..

4. It’s almost summer but I’m determined not to show my legs until the wobble is gone…its getting beyond crazy especially in this tropical heat but I will persevere.. that or the fake tan may make a never made before appearance.

5. Real girls wear high heels mum..I stopped myself from slapping my B2 ..so I answered with real girls wear what ever the hell they want. I am looking out who has taught him that rubbish..

6. Seems my sweaty face is a fashion trend..first time I have ever been ahead of my time here.

7. I have new celebrity crush…let me introduce you to him..here.

8. How to stop the bullies in school? Perhaps? here.

9. What giving birth around the world looks like here.

10. I can’t play this song loud enough here.

Have a great week my lovelies

xxDeb

This past month I was the one who left the house for work. I was a FIFO wife of the working kind and to be honest whilst I have left my children before it was the first time I wasn’t breaking my neck to get out of the door to leave my life behind for just a few days rest. This was the first time where leaving my children wasn’t mixed with overwhelming joy because I was going able to pee and sleep alone for more than 24 hours. So this time knowing I was going to work was met with a little hmmm. It was work and no I wasn’t particularly stoked about it. It was what it was- work. And whilst it was only ten days it was ten days of work. The plane flight was a plane flight to work the hotel was accommodation and the people not my friends but strangers who dressed far nicer than I.

In fact the morning I left whilst I wasn’t the third wheel I felt removed somehow. I helped the boys get ready for school but it was Nana {who had travelled down to care whilst I was away} who was the parent this morning. My boys like a knowing switch instinctively called for her when they needed their shoes or help find their readers because well mummy was going to work this day.

And like they instinctively made the switch to calling for Nana instead of I it was me who also instinctively made a switch to create a distance. I was there but separate and without meaning too I sat back and allowed Nana to take the reins. It was a strange feeling this letting go and allowing my mother to take charge but I noticed that it was something that my husband did each time he flies back to work. It’s never bothered me but had felt it and I had always wondered why. He never became the third wheel or an obvious separate parent entity it just sort of happened that way. I often wondered was it hurt regret what?

Then I realised that this distance it made the good bye easier not just for me but them. It formalised going back to work because let’s face it we all have to work.

It was then after hearing Nana scream one last time that the bell was about to go {in typical parent style} I walked my boys to the school crossing. They hugged and kissed me goodbye and ran off blindly across the crossing. I turned to walk back to the house when they screamed in unison{ just like they do their father when he heads back to work} from across the road see you when you get home from work mum we love you. And I have to say the great sense of pride I felt for my boys is what kept the tears at bay because I was going to work and they understood everyone must make a dollar and that me going ‘away’ was no different to anyone else’s mum or dad going to work.

Do you notice that distance when going to work ? Am I a little bit right?

xD

{image source from here with thanks}

If you had asked me six months ago did I suffer from Anxiety I would have said no but truth is I think I might have suffered from it since I was a little girl. I just didn’t know exactly what it was.

I remember as a girl getting these dreams they occurred almost always after my parents had fought which at the time was a lot because life was creating continuous hiccups that their marriage had trouble jumping. These dreams whilst hard to describe where claustrophobic and would leave me tired and confused come morning but it never made sense to tell anyone. Everybody dreams right? Yet there were three types of dreams always the same. Trapped between cars, a twisting rope and a rock that would crush me and in these dreams it would leave me with a metallic taste in my mouth that would often wake me along with a migraine. Then as I grew the dreams went.

Then when I was 28 I had children and whilst the dreams didn’t return after my third child I become exhaustive and I turned into a parent and person that didn’t resemble myself anymore. My temper because I was tired and hormonal because of sleep deprivation was volatile and if I’m honest which is what I am I came close more than once to hurting my children accidentally on purpose and whilst it was never physical the venom I would spit sure made up for it. Throw in my new hormonal cycle after my three children and for one week out of four I was and can be potentially a monster. And whilst I was only this person for six months it is something I am ashamed of and thank god every day that my children don’t remember me as that person.

And whilst I know that I am not that person now and never will be again and haven’t been since becoming well it was after a very personal issue 12 months ago that produced the fear again I may be again be as the tired set in. This fear that I may turn into that person again consumed me. I was scared of myself.  So the dreams returned along with a energy or constant ache in my chest it was energy of sorts that would contradictory leave me paralysed somehow. It was like excess energy but I couldn’t actually describe the feeling. I could function I wasn’t depressed {well at least I didn’t think I was} and I could get things done but it was harder some days. I couldn’t concentrate on just one thing. I was going around in circles and I didn’t know exactly what to do about it because I couldn’t really work out what was going on. And as a result I was not happy I was constantly nervous of my own self.

When I thought of anxiety I always assumed it was hyper ventilating, clawing for breath, being scared or crying and I was none of these things. I did however know I was scared of being that person again the one that frightened myself and my children and this fear would pop in to my head randomly or when someone felt it was their place to tell me their opinion on my life but crazily enough I only paired the fear and energy together recently when I felt this ‘energy’ one afternoon when I suffered a massive day of doubt over the blog, my writing and my place in the world. My questioning whether I was valid scared me more than anything and so this day I sat at my desk unable to write foggy trying to work out what the hell was going on with me.

And so I read researched what it could be this energy in my chest that left me energized chaotic and going round in circles. Anxiety is what I thought but followed it up with my GP as me and doctor Google don’t always agree on a diagnoses.

For once however Google was right. Anxiety is what she said. I laughed no I said. Yes she replied looking at me a little amused at my attitude. I want you to take these for stabilising your moods before your period she said that will stem your fear of your temper pre menstruation its not like you have the ability to walk out and leave the kids with your husband she said. So I now take 10mg of Lovan before my period is due to control the moods that my hormones create. These moods are what set the fear into my heart. And the excess energy Deb run it off she finished with dance it off. It’s your brain creating cortisol which in turn creates energy do something with it otherwise it will play havoc with your heart and your brain.

Anxiety its symptoms and extremities can be vast. Everybody is different and nobody is immune. It can come and go and it can strike when you least expect it. It can also be managed with different approaches and I like to think conquered. And so I run. Not well infact I run in the dark but the fear has gone along with the excess energy yet in its place is a different type of energy. Its happiness instead of fear.Because each time a bout surfaces for me I fight it. It will not beat me. It took a good 12 months from me and it will not happen again.

Have you any tips for beating a bout of anxiety?

xx Deb

Is it just me or am I the only one who marvels at how one can be in one place one day and across the seas home again next?

Yeah perhaps its just me..so I am home. This is home. Just before I met my husband I was in the midst of planning a move to Auckland. I was 23 years old. I didn’t have a job but I had family there and if I’m honest the relationship between my parents and I had shifted slightly south. At that time and I’m sure many can relate I’m not sure they agreed with some of my life choices but those life choices in hindsight have made me who I am; well that’s the excuse I am giving myself for those life choices that caused so much heart ache at the time. So when I was planning my big move my parents and I were not as close as we were now for one reason or another and I was searching for a sense of family and New Zealand offered that to me. I had cousins, aunts and uncles and when I went and visited which was often I felt adored and part of something. It felt like home.

I had been flying to New Zealand for almost every major holiday as a child and started the journey on my own as soon as it was legal for me to travel unaccompanied. Both my parents worked one worked FIFO or DIDO and well rather than be alone my parents sent me back to what they still called home. It was  a double bonus of baby sitting and getting that sense of family and where I came from. My mum and dad however no longer call it home, Australia is home. As do I but I do but I wish that my boys could meet my family and know them a little as I do see where their grandparents grew up to give them an understanding of them.

And so it was with great delight that my Uncle was able to give me the family tree on my mothers fathers side. Turns out that my great great great great grandfather who was a British writer and documenter of the Maori people who went onto marry a Maori Princess and well we are direct descendents which accounts for my mothers interesting nose. And so with books papers all tracing our lineage almost back as far as 11oo AD so it was one of those ‘where do you come from scenario’s’ around my Aunts kitchen table last Tuesday night. Knowing this is kind of amazing if you ask me my family was part of the first documented cases of mixed race marriages. That and there was relief that there was more than basket weaving going on in my family tree which is the case of my father’s family.

So there is a lot going on in my head this Monday the second week of Spring..

1.  The last flight home was as painful as my 42nd week of pregnancy it felt like it would never end.

2. I watched a mother feed her three-year old child snakes, gummy bears and coke as they waited in the departure lounge for their flight. I have never prayed so hard not to sit next to child and rather a bloke who has eaten his fair share of tuna than I did on that flight.

3. My neighbour’s dog has just joined me in bed and I do believe she found the chicken I buried two weeks ago.

4. Summer is finally on its way. In the words of my B3 thank goodness for that.

5. He fancy you is what the hostee said to me when a fellow let me go first with a wink. I looked at her…its disappointing that good manners have become so far removed that the slightest bit of courtesy is mistaken for flirting.

6. Jack the ripper has been found after one hundred years here.

7. Scarlett Johansson has had a baby girl here.

8. I am doing my first public speaking thing..I accepted because I am trying to break through my almost crippling fear of groups but also because I wanted to share what I have learnt. It’s the Cairns Writers Festival the program is here.

9. The other side of those really cute baby photo’s..one for the 21st birthday here.

10. For the latest spring fashion here.

xx Deb

{image source with thanks to here}

If you have a child you can relate if you are FIFO you can relate some more so let me tell you about six year old Bayley and his family.

On Easter Monday 2014 their lives took a dramatic turn their 6 yr old son Bayley was diagnosed with suspected Leukaemia. This meant that they had to get to Brisbane ASAP to get an official diagnosis and start treatment. This was a bit of a logistical nightmare as they live on the Atherton Tablelands in regional FNQ, however after several ambulance rides, an RFDS ride and 23 hrs in emergency departments they arrived to the Oncology ward at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Brisbane.

On Tuesday the 22nd April their worst fears were confirmed and Bayley was diagnosed with T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL). They were informed that they would be in Brisbane at least 6 months for intensive treatment followed by a further 3 years of maintenance treatment that could be done at home with frequent visits to Brisbane.

Bayley is one of three boys and has twin brothers who are four years old. And so the difficult decision was made that they would stay at home in FNQ while Bayley is receiving treatment in Brisbane all the while splitting the family at either end of the state. As well this; their father continues work as a FIFO worker in Papua New Guinea. Jamie works a 16/12 roster as a Fixed Plant Maintenance Coordinator on a joint venture with Newcrest & Harmony Gold on the Hidden Valley Project and so Jamie’s mother in-law is doing a type of FIFO 19/11 traveling from North West New South Wales to Brisbane (driving), then fly’s to Cairns to care for the twin boys on the Atherton Tablelands while Jamie is at work in PNG.

Jamie and his family are in the very position that I fear as do many of us because as a FIFO family he must work and he must work outside of the home. Like many of us to take extended leave means he may lose his position and then what of his family. Relocation to Brisbane is not an option and nor would it be for I as keeping the normality for his twins is also paramount and so what does one do? You do your best and so every 16 days Jamie travels to Brisbane to spend four days with Bayley and his beloved wife Teresa and then back home to the twins who initially hadn’t seen their brother for nine weeks. It has since been decided that there will now be monthly visit however these are not government funded and so if you would like to make a donation towards the reuniting of a family please consider making a donation.

A trust account has been sent up for Bayley courtesy of the Malanda Lions Club.

Donations are greatly appreciated and will be used so the family can be reunited on a more regular basis whilst Bayley receives treatment.

Bank Account details for donations

Acc Name: Lions Club Malanda
BSB: 633 000
Acc No: 152 068 383
Details: Bayley McKinnon

A Face book page has been set up for Team Bayley here.

Please email me at debbie@thefifowife.com.au if you are able to make a donation so I am able to send a personal thank you.

x Deb