Ronovan Writes Sijo Wednesday Poetry Challenge #23. Use ADVICE as your inspiration this week.

I have listened dutifully to your advice.
I’ve been the waxing moon to your glowing sun, you’ve stolen my energy and fun .
Stop now is my advice step away I have had enough.

Part of Ronovanwrite’s Weekly Sijo Challenge.

Thank you for the Bloggers Recognition award

Many years ago I decided to stop accepting awards and made my blog an award free zone. That is not to say I do appreciate these awards because I do and I always acknowledge them and thank the blogger who nominated me and if I know I also mention the blogger from whom the award originated.

Well this one The Blogger Recognition Award has plopped into my email box four times this week and so as it is mainly about passing tips on to new bloggers I have decided to accept.

First of all let’s say thank you to Jim Webster and Roberta Eaton and Sue Vincent and also Mary Smith for nominating me. All of them eminent bloggers and I am sure you have come across their blogs and their books and really enjoyed them.

Now here are the rules

1. Thank the blogger(s) who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.

2. Write a post to show your award.

3. Give a brief story of how your blog started.

4. Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.

5. Select up to fifteen bloggers you want to give this award to.

6. Comment (or pingback) on each blog to let them know that you’ve nominated them and provide a link to the post you’ve created.

I started blogging over seven years ago while I was recovering from a serious accident. I was in hospital over a month and had three operations. When I finally left hospital I had to learn to walk again and cope with a changed life. I found this very hard at first, my friends circle grew smaller but as I have since realised those who remained are the good ones. I had to retire something I was not in anyway prepared for. Anyway it’s been a long process. At first I was very depressed, I felt limited and trapped and actually very angry. After nearly three years I was referred to a pain clinic where I met an excellent pain phycologist who after talking with me for a couple of sessions suggested I write my pain and frustration out. Two of my sons suggested I start a blog. With their help I did. At first my blog was a miserable and dark place to begin with.

I feel I have grown since those dark days, I have learned a lot from the many beautiful people on wordpress. I can honestly say blogging saved my life ..thank you everyone you have all helped me.

Advice

My first piece of advice is take time to find your niche you may try a few different styles before you are happy with your blog. Try not to talk too much about your private life unless that is what your blog is about. It can get nasty and cause rows if you are washing your laundry in public.

My second piece of advice is always read and comment on others blogs. Do have conversations with other bloggers it feels so good to give and receive support from other bloggers. Always be kind remember you may need support one day. I have made so many real friends on wordpress and this will be true of all blogging platforms.

Now I have to nominate some bloggers.

Sadje

positivesideofthecoin

LindaGHill

Geoff Lepard

Mum C writes

Savoring sixty and beyond

purplerays

Rantings of a third kind

JusJoJan 2019 Daily Prompt – Jan. 8th Self.

Our prompt for JusJoJan 2019, January 8th is brought to you by Ritu! Click here to find her last post and say hi while you’re there! Ritu’s word for our prompt today is “self.” Use it anywhere in your post or make it the theme of your post. Have fun!

This took me an age to work out but after a while it came to me in the form of my present self giving my younger self some advice I would of appreciated or maybe not , who knows.

Anyway it’s an Etheree and I have tried to use the word self at least once in each line.

Self

Self worth

Not selfish

Know yourself well

My dear younger self

Do not sell yourself light

As I sold myself well short

No we cannot change ourselves yet

I as your older self will tell you

Know yourself, your self worth, be always kind.

One-Liner Wednesday. Advice.

Now I don’t want to tell you what to do but! If I were you I’d do……

Someone very close to me!

Here is our New Badge from Cheryl

#1linerWeds badge by Cheryl, at dreamingreality

Pingback to Linda

One Liner Wednesday:Adams Advice

One for all of us bloggers/ writers.

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt

#1linerWeds.

Rules and Pingback here

If We Were Having Coffee – August 16/2015: Guest Post

The New Patient

Welcome to Willow’s weekly coffee and tea garden. My name is Paul; I’ll be your barista today. I’m happy to see you have come for a cuppa and a chat. Please come into the garden and make yourself comfortable. Willow fluffed the cushions on the chairs and set the tables in the garden so we can have a cuppa and chat as we soak up the sun and enjoy the beautiful plants. As usual, I’d be pleased to bring a pot of whatever beverage you prefer – we have a wide range of teas and coffees to satisfy our world-wide readership. Also available is a large selection of spirits for addition to your cuppa or in its place. We can relax amongst the flowers while we discuss the affairs of the week both personal and/or worldwide. How has your week been?

Raw home video of Tianjin Explosions (two explosions)

Things here have been relatively normal this week. The newspaper headlines are about political corruption, housing figures, Islamaphobia, oil prices, all topics that are ongoing and talked to death. Oh, there was the terrible explosion and fire in Tianjin, an industrial port city close to Beijing. So far 85 have been reported dead and hundreds injured. As terrible as it was, it seems from the reports that it was a simple case of illegally storing hazardous chemicals and poor communication that combined to turn a small incident into a disaster. Firefighters reported to a small blaze in a chemical storage facility and sprayed water on chemicals that explode in the presence of water. Things got progressively worse from there. Combine that with the fact the chemicals were stored close to homes – which is illegal in China, they are required by law to be no closer than 1 kilometer to residences – and you have a disaster. Like the other concerns of the week that I listed above, it was a matter of a few individuals trying to benefit personally at the expense others, an age old human behaviour. Nothing really worth discussing there.

Would you like a refill of your cuppa? Perhaps a sweet? So, I ran into a another new dialysis patient this week – Jackie. She is about my age and her husband passed away a few years ago. Para-Transpo has put together recently for our ride back home as she lives in a residence on the way back to my place. Jackie has diabetes as well as kidney failure – not an uncommon combination. She was pretty depressed the other day when I met her and had skipped a few dialysis treatments. As much as one gets upset and sometimes can’t face dialysis (and I have done the same) there is a price to pay. Too much fluid aboard and an overburden of blood waste products as well as an electrolyte imbalance, all add up to a miserable (if not dangerous) existence. That in turn makes you more depressed and less likely to do further treatments. Anyway she was dealing with an infection as well and was on pain killers. She had asked the doctor on call to up her pain prescription (dialysis often aggravates nerve pain) and he had refused. She didn’t elaborate – there could have been very good reasons for his refusal – but she was still upset by that as well.

When I saw her Wednesday night she was particularly down and had an operation scheduled for 6:30 am, the next morning to install a fistula in her arm for dialysis. She said she was too depressed to go. I convinced her that she should go anyway, that it was her depression talking. The anger and dollars it would cost if she didn’t show up when an operating room, a surgeon, an anesthesiologist, nurses, technicians, equipment, etc were all ready and waiting would cause serious repercussions. When I told her that the system cost would likely be greater than $10,000, she was taken aback – we never see cost for health care. Besides which the doctors would be angry and take her less seriously. They are professional and her care would be fine but they would not be as attentive and special requests like getting forms signed and such would be more difficult. She agreed to go. While we were talking outside emergency, the pick-up point, a Para Transpo bus came and the driver – Guy – and I greeted each other by name. Guy said that he wasn’t here for us and went inside to find his customer. Jackie and I both had 11:30 pm pick-up times and it was early – only about 10:50 pm. A few minutes later, as we were talking another Para bus pulled up. This one was driven by Caesar – a Hawaiian from Oahu – who is very outgoing. He walked over and shook hands and told us he was supposed to pick up two others and then come back for us at 11:30. I asked if we could go with him now and save him a trip back and he was fine with that. He loaded his other two customers – one was a wheel chair – as Jackie and I climbed aboard. I greeted the other two – Norm in the wheel chair and Cynthia on foot. I’ve been in dialysis for about 9 years and I’ve known, who is a bit younger than I am, since the beginning. He has gotten progressively worse since I’ve known him going from ambulatory to a walker to a wheel chair and then with one leg amputated and then before he could learn to walk on a prosthetic, the other leg amputated. He is sad these days and doesn’t speak much. He still lives on his own in an apartment that has been modified for his wheel chair.

Jackie was quite taken aback that I knew the drivers and the other patients and she asked if I knew everyone. Ha! I told her that 9 years of dialysis does that. We dropped off Norm and Cynthia while Jackie and I talked. She lives in a privately owned assisted living residence that has 4 persons per room and provides meals. The state pays the owners $1,600 per month for each resident. This is considerably more than I get on disability to live on my own.The residence is 3 stories high and has about 75 people living there. According to her the owner drives an expensive sports car and comes to visit occasionally. I would imagine that this is a profitable enterprise for the owners. As the population ages there are more and more demand for such assisted living facilities and they are being provided by private enterprise. I guess I can’t fault them for making a profit and yet they are charging about 25% more than I get to live on my own – and the tenants live 4 to a room. Jackie got off at her residence at 11:30 – early because we had travelled with the 11 pm customers. A few minutes later I was home and making a coffee while my computer started up.

Presland Residence

On that note, that’s about all we have room for this week, so it’s time to settle in with another cuppa and enjoy the garden. Sweets anyone? Please join me in thanking Willow for her invitation to tea. We are all honored that you dropped by today to visit. I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself and the conversation and please look around at Willow’s other posts while you’re here. Willow is over there serving her guests and chatting it up. Let’s go see how she is today. Have a great week. We look forward to seeing you back here for sweets and beverages of your choice again next week.

And of course the

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE: WEEKEND COFFEE SHARE

over at Part Time Monster and Gene’O’s

Careful what you wish for.

It is all hidden in there you know

The promise of a golden life

Teasing and hinting as the beauty grows

Would it not be better to stay here not emerge to strife.

Not yet has the harsh cruelness of this world touched you

Maybe the present safety you know is better than the what is to come

So don’t hurry out too soon nothing will be as you expect. True

The warmth is beguiling as are the silver diamonds of the moon and the golden rays of the sun.

When life comes it is glorious but short too short.

If We Were Having Coffee – June 13/2015 :Guest Post

The New Patient

Welcome to Willow’s weekly coffee and tea garden. My name is Paul, I’ll be your barista today. I’m happy to see you have come for a cuppa and a chat. Please come into the garden and make yourself comfortable. Willow has put out the cushions on the chairs and set the table under the canopy so we can have a cuppa and chat. As usual, I’d be pleased to bring a pot of whatever beverage you prefer – we have a wide range of teas and coffees to satisfy our world-wide readership. Also available is a large selection of spirits for addition to your cuppa or in its place. We can relax amongst the flowers while we discuss the affairs of the week both personal and/or worldwide. How has your week been?

Friday evening I walked into dialysis in a good mood – humming under my breath. I was early and my chair was empty, which meant I could take my time and arrange the chair and sheets and pillows to my liking while I got ready for treatment. My regular position is adjacent to the nursing station and admin area. They will often line up in-patients on stretchers or wheelchairs next to the desk and tonight was no exception. Most times the patients are either lost in their own thoughts, asleep or in pain. Tonight as I walked by the station a gentleman on a stretcher called out to me and asked if I was a dialysis patient. I answered in the affirmative and walked over to lean on the desk next to him. He asked how long I had been a patient and I told him 8 years. He told me that this was his veryfirst dialysis. He was in his late forties and had an air of authority about him. He showed me the perm catheter they had installed for dialysis – the usual starting point for new patients. I showed him the scar where my original perm cath had been installed, and then my fistula. I asked how long he would have to be on dialysis (some patients have temporary treatment during times of kidney infection or other issues) and he told me he was a permanent patient. He wanted to know about the treatment and pain control and worst side effects. I, in turn, emphasized that the dialysis personnel, nursing and admin strived to make the unit feel like a safe place for the patients and he should speak up if he had any concerns or questions or felt any pain. I could feel that he was understandably nervous and I worked to assuage his concerns. I tried hard not to lie to him and simultaneously not to alarm him. And he was asking questions about far future events – questions that made it clear to me that he didn’t quite get this yet. Dialysis treatment is not a fix for a problem that puts things back on course- dialysis is an alternative to death and so there are continual and recurring issues that pop up like dominoes falling. The train of his life had just made a turn at a switch and would never again be on the original track – as much as he could temporarily still see the original track, he would never return to it.

Would you like another cuppa while we chat? Perhaps a sweet? I hadn’t really noticed my change in attitude over the years as I slowly came to realize that what happens next isn’t really important – what happens now is the most important. Focus on now and everything else will eventually work out. When I spoke to Ken, it was like looking back in time and speaking to myself 8 years ago. It was an interesting conversation. I had always griped about the doctors and staff not being open about warning of the coming future, but now as I stood in front of this frightened man who was seeing all his life’s plans and his future change, I couldn’t help but edit my own words to remove the coming angst. There was no way that in his frame of mind he would have been able to properly process those words. I wonder, does that make me hypocritical? Here I was doing thevery same thing that I most detested in others.

The nurses came to roll Ken to his dialysis and one nurse, Tau, quipped that I should write a book. I teased her that I would be sure to include the night she hit the back of my dialysis machine with a stretcher, breaking off a water line and creating Lake H (H is the dialysis unit). She laughed so hard she turned beet red. Ken and I exchanged good-byes, leaving me thoughtful. I hope that I gave him some small amount of peace about his coming life without omitting too much or alarming him. It’s a fine balance. I learned a lot about myself in that conversation with Ken.