Neglected Blog...

Poor old Blog, you are sadly neglected.
I have nothing cheery to write about, so decided to just leave well alone.

BTW when did they change this format for writing a post? It seems disconcerting, somehow. (Yes, yes, I am a fussbudget, who has discovered rather late in life, I hate change! Unless I am warned, or previously notified of said changes)

However, I have been moved to have a rant!!

I go to a local pool, a warm gentle exercise pool, open to the public.
Like myself, a lot of elderly, arthritic, or just plain aching people use this pool on a daily basis.

I have found it beneficial to both my body and my state of mind. The calm and the heat lend a very healing quality to both body and mind. Like minded souls can interact, or just remain private, which is my preferance.

My rant concerns the Yummy Mummies who have decided of late, that a good way to get out, is to take their screaming wriggling shouting splashing little offspring to the pool.

The Yummy Mummy brigade arrive, bearing wriggling, squealing, sceaming and often, bawling, toddlers and babies. The YMs proceed to shed their outer clothing, thereby exposing their newest full back tattoo, or the their shoulder tatts, or worse yet, their hideous bum-crack tattoos.
Why? Why?

Then the cacophanous noise level swells out of all proportion to the space in which the pool is located. It reaches deafening levels as piercing shrieks rend the air.
Meanwhile, Mummy looks on in dotage, as the shrieker splashes desperately, or leaps crashingly, from the side of the pool, despite signs declaring this is a Gentle Exercise Pool. There is to be no Splashing. no Jumping from the sides of the pool.

It seems evident that:  a) the YMs are unable to read.
                          or,:  b) these rules do not apply to them.

Curmudgeonly grouch that I am, I complained one day, and recieved my money back. Small consolation, as it still continues, and even though I know we need to share, in this world, I dont see why we need to share when there is and are, facilities for all other people.

There is a perfectly good heated pool, just for the children and parents or teachers.
There is another perfectly good heated pool where the older 'challenged' with their odd splashing, rough behaviour, and uncontrolled movements,  can be taken for exercise and water therapy.

I have specifically asked on occasion, if the disabled children/adults are in the pool, before I enter and pay my money. I am quite happy to not attend when the pool is required for the disabled or the 'challenged' or even the YM brigade.

I am not alone in this resentment, and have had several dark and muttered conversations with others, who like me, are aged and grumpy, and are seeking a solace from either mental, or physical pain.

I guess I just need to toughen up, and choose odd hours, when presumably, these people who are not in need of gentle exercise, are not in the  pool.
I also realise I may incur the ire of a parent of a disabled child or challenged child.

All I ask, is peace and space and quiet.

************

For any of you who are wondering about my son.
Unfortunately his leg has been amputated and the final diagnosis was Sarcoma of the foot.
It has had a devastating effect on my son, and he is struggling to come to terms with his loss and grief.

He is no longer in the City Hospital, but has been transferred to a Hospital in our region. It seems the Hospital system, and it's supposed Suppot systems, are all broke, and broken. We fight to get any information - including prognosis, plan of recovery, support, medical information. NO assistance from the Cancer Council, apart from one phone call. This gained at the instigation of a friend, who suffered cancer herself, and knows the devastation and grief it all causes the whole family.

My son feels he is in 'The Badlands', and I am inclined to agree. Yesterday it took me almost an hour on the phone to elicit the name of the Specialist, under which my son has been transferred,  where he is currently situated.
This person had told my son that he has been given the second worst type of amputation wound, for fitting a prosthesis.
What kind of madness would possess someone in the medical profession to say such a thing to a very distressed vulnerable and fragile person??
This is partly the reason I wished to speak to this person. This Specialist I was told, was 'not at the Hospital today'.

I feel as if I am going completely insane. Perhaps it explains my despair about the pool.
I have to keep trying to laugh at idiocy, at incompetence, at damned indifference to the human side of cancer, and amputation.
What purpose is served sending an amputee, to speak to my son, who advises all medications they are giving are wicked and e,vil and have unspeakable side effects?

No wonder I feel as if I need to go and throttle something, or kick something... or just get blind drunk.

Rant over.