Life has been a bit of a struggle for some members of the Frost household this year but we have finally seen a change in fortunes.
Amy has been unemployed for 9 months and has struggled to find a job, lots of job applications, dropping of resumes, but very little response, it really is discouraging for the unemployed. However we tried to put plans in place to keep her busy and she commenced a Certificate 3 Animal Services course at CIT at the beginning of the year on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There was a lot of background work with her anxiety to get her there but once there it has gone really well and she has been enjoying the course and the study. She has also been doing some volunteer work with ACT Wildlife.
Amy is keen to get a job working with animals and her goal is to do the Vet Nurse course for which you need a placement- bit like an apprenticeship. She started dropping off resumes ( with mum in the car for moral support) at pet shops and vets and a few times took Lyra ( her Eclectus parrot) on her shoulder- a talking point and another source of moral support!
A few weeks back we - with out Lyra on her shoulder she dropped her resume into a animal hospital on a Wednesday, on the Friday they rang to say they were looking for a part time receptionist and would she like to come in for an interview on Monday. You can guess what the answer was, so after a nervous weekend and Monday morning Amy went in and had her interview and was offered a three day paid trial and training, by Friday they had offered her a permanent job and she is one very happy girl with very relieved parents! She has three afternoons a week at the animal hospital and two days at CIT so her days are full but not to full and she is settling in and really enjoying her work. It is in area that she wants to be and they are aware she is keen to continue to do the vet nurse course next year so there is some possibilities there if all goes well. It has given her hope and opportunity which is great for anyone, but especially so for anyone who suffers from anxiety!
Over the last three or 4 years Bill has been having some ongoing issues with eczema and it looked like things were getting under control, however in the last 7 months things have escalated to the point where it probably came to a head when Bill and I went to visit his mum in Adelaide in June. He woke up three days in row with dry, flaky, dead skin over nearly 100 percent of his body. He was cold, itchy, all things that have been going on for quite a while but not to this extent. When we got back I started going to doctors appointments with him, after a visit to his bulk billing GP, I insisted we go see one of the GP's the rest of the family sees and we finally started getting somewhere. With a referral for a dermatologist, the search began to find someone you could get into see relatively quickly- not 3 months! We took a trip to Sydney- only had to wait two weeks and saw someone that has started Bill on a course of treatment and in just over a week things have improved dramatically- still a way to go but looks like Bill is returning to the land of the living again it has really had a dramatic impact on his functioning over the last 6 months. He has gone from riding to work and walking the dogs, to literally just getting up and possibly getting to work. He has missed more work in the last two months that he has the whole of our married life! Again a big relief for us all!
Silly me- in the midst of this all I decided to go and see someone else about my tiredness and poor sleep. I have tried acupuncture, Chinese Medicine and it helped a bit but not a great deal. Easy to see that stress might play a big role in all of this. Anyhow I decided to go see a herbalist that a friend I work with has been seeing for quite a while and has helped her. This herbalist can also test your system to work out which foods you are sensitive or intolerant too so I was also interested in that. It was an interesting visit, most informative and she was able to come up with things that really reflected the situation my body was in to convince me it wasn't too wacky and worth giving a try for three months or so to see if it helped. So I am now wheat free, sugar free and dairy free. I am 10 days into it, it has not been as hard as thought it would be -so I will see how things progress. Interestingly I have lost just over a kilo in a week with out trying and just being more careful about what I eat and cutting out a lot of snacking! I will see how it all goes, I am not going to be obsessive and hopefully at some point will introduce the occasional chocolate treat back into my life!
