I’ve spoken briefly about my health and the health system, but I haven’t spoken about being made redundant by AUT.
Redundancy is a shitty process, but AUT still managed to make it about as bad as it could possibly have been. Not just for me but for all of those made redundant. Hundreds of us. I would certainly cherish the email from the Vice Chancellor acknowledging my seventeen years’ service, the hundreds of hours extra work putting everything online during Covid and caring for domestic students at home and those in rarified time zones from all around the world. I would also value the ‘thank you for your service’ email from my Dean and the one from my head of school except I heard nothing from any of them, not an email, a text, or even a phone call. I fib though, I did hear from Emeritus Professor Pare Keiha QSO, my dean, who emailed me, and I quote ‘there was a time when we valued teachers, but we don’t now, get over it.’
Yes, there was history. I know stuff and he’s aware I know stuff but knowing and telling are two different things … maybe when I write my book.
Until then, I’ll retain my personal integrity and say nothing.
One of the negative spin-offs of redundancy was that I lost access to the excellent AUT Medical Centre, the staff of which had looked after me through thick and thin for each of my seventeen years. The counsellors had been brilliant with my students (and Andrea with me), the nurses were magic, and my doctors, Dr Mila Hill and latterly Dr Valentina Kirova-Veljanovska, uniformly and consistently magnificent.
So, it was back trying to find a new GP. Not that easy at the best of times but, for an ageing transgender woman with unique needs, nigh on impossible, so I used my inimitable skills in self-delusion and pretended I didn’t need anything or anyone and did nothing.
Then my prescription ran out and I was forced to go looking.
I wanted a woman doctor who would be OK with someone like me (not all are) but most medical centres don’t work like that anymore, you make an appointment, and you take who you get. After a good search I found a centre that was overtly inclusive with doctors happy to work with the rainbow and I scrolled through the team CVs. It turned out that I knew one of the staff which was a nice connection. I spoke with him (he’s lovely) and after some chats I was accepted as a patient and had my first appointment. My new doctor is fantastic – she’s fierce (just like Mila and Valentina were) and I get the finger-wagging when I need it. She’s fabulous.
So, I’m set.
At one point a couple of months ago, I was experiencing quite severe pain in my abdomen and in my shoulder. Contrary to Cushla’s sage advice, I consulted Dr Google and discovered that I had every illness known to mankind and a few others as well. I was reminded that I have a large number of internal organs that can get very sick and cause serious issues for people who spend too much time on the internet because the internet itself is a transmissible disease, is highly infectious, contagious, and especially so at three in the morning which is when the internet infects all my organs and when I access the internet for medical advice.
Internet cancer had infected my liver, my spleen, my pancreas, my stomach, and all my abdominal bits and I needed to have this confirmed by my real doctor tout de suite before I sat down to make my will.
I made an appointment with my doctor who took me seriously and was able to book me in for scans at no cost. Normally they cosy galzillions so I was more that grateful, This is important for me as I have only my superannuation to live on.
I had the scans done around midday Thursday and, while taking Finn to the airport to travel to Australia for archery coaching early the next afternoon, I had three missed calls from my doctor. Naturally, I panicked. I waited until he was on the plane before I called the centre at around 3 pm on the Friday to get the bad news.
Having scans and x-rays and all the paraphernalia that goes with being elderly is quite normal, even for me for whom ‘normal’ is not a normal word.
What isn’t normal, however, is to have a scan and within 18 hours to hear from your doctor. It implies that the reason the results need to be transmitted to you, the scanee, so quickly is that they contain terrible news.
Some people might panic in a situation like that, and I am certainly one of them. When I spoke to the nurse, she said an appointment had been made for me for Monday morning at 9 am and she would give me no further information.
Nothing.
Not a jot.
(Sometimes you just hate people behaving professionally, don’t you?)
Well, I do.
Now while I love the medical centre and my doctor, the idea that I could have an appointment within 24 hours of the scans being returned did not fill my heart with glee as it clearly meant not all was well.
In my brain it meant the end was not just nigh but incredibly, imminently, ominously looming.
So, over the weekend with no evidence whatsoever, I became completely convinced that I had all of the illnesses I’d already imagined and heaps of others as well, undiagnosed, unnamed, unspecified, unidentified and undiscovered, even on the internet. Not only did I have them, but they were all terminal, and I was clearly on the way out.
Cushla just shook her head and made dinner.
Finn fletched his arrows.
After two days of thinking I may not even survive until my appointment, the appointment came, and my doctor told me in her unique Spanish way, that the scans were all clear.
Except for one, that is, which had a mark on it, which wasn’t necessarily anything to worry about, but naturally, since that time, I have worried about it pretty relentlessly. She, without any sense of the comic potential of the situation, said the scans had been difficult to get because I’m so fat and I had too much gas.
I refute this. Absolutely. Wholly, entirely, and utterly.
Especially the gas bit.
Cushla managed an eyeroll, and Finn just smirked.
After all, my farts are legendary. Just ask the cat.
Dr Maria explained that, just to clear the air, I would need a CT scan (I’ve had those before) to make sure that everything to do with the pancreas was kapai.
She said she’s organise it, and she did.
I’ve had the CT scan now, six days ago, and we should know the result in a couple of days, that’ll confirm, once and for all, whether there’s anything to be concerned about.
Without intending to, I’ve somehow managed to turn a potential personal tragedy with the associated whānau dramas into a comedy and ultimately into a farce – as would seem to be my way. The good news is that it would appear that my bits are mostly working well but we’ll see.
It’s been a good process. I’ve never spent much time contemplating my mortality, this set of challenges has given me more than enough time to reflect on the future however long that may be.
And I’ll find out maybe as early as tomorrow.
UPDATE: I didn’t. Its seven days later and I’ve still heard nothing.
One thing for sure, Henry David Thoreau was right, ‘live your life, do your work, then take your hat.’
Hat on, ready to go!
dykiegirl 