Melissa DARNLEY (compiler): Yesterday Today and Tomorrow: Personal accounts of people living with kidney failure Reviewed by Anna Bennett. Published by Kidney Health Australia. (Convert Australian dollars to your currency.)
In this blog I have written of the positive challenge involved in changing careers as a result of health issues.
This is by no means an easy thing, but it is a positive thing. And it can be done. I did it from the age of 45. Thérèse Rein's dad did it as a paraplegic in an era before accessibility and equal opportunity were widely understood.
Its a great thing. And it has its bonuses - such as the college excursions (field trips) that I have been fortunate to organise.
Unfortunately its got its down sides too - such as being buried in end-of-term marking and assessments, such as I am at the moment.
This has swamped me to such an extent that I have been unable to come up with a post this week. So I have to ask my readers to indulge me and forgive me as I pass on a meaningful post this week.
In the meantime, here are some irrelevant but personally-favoured YouTube posts to waste your time and bandwidth.
The 7.30 Report on ABC [Australia] last Wednesday night featured an interview with Thérèse Rein, wife of the Prime Minister of Australia, the Rt Hon Kevin Rudd MP. The interview was conducted by Kerry O'Brien.
Whilst not specifically about transplantation, nor the illnesses associated with this, Ms Rein nonetheless did have some very interesting and worthwhile things to say about identifying one's health strengths and then running with those - rather than being fixated with the negatives.
Ms Rein grew up with a father who did not let his paraplegia get in the way of developing an aeronautical engineering career. She later built up an international business specialising in job placement of disabled people.
Ms Rein's words about taking stock of one's limitations and then running to one's strengths are very worthwhile.
When confronted with a chronic illness - such as are often associated with organ transplantation - one can sometimes forget that one still has many strengths and skills that one can develop and utilise.
[...] something that I actually heard [...] what
Paralympians do - and my dad was a Paralympian. What Paralympians do is
they don't focus on what doesn't work, they focus on making what does
work, work to the max. And that's what my dad did. And I think I've
learnt a little bit about how to do that from him.
Indeed, I try to get this across to my students at TAFE; although not in the context of chronic illness, some experience other feelings of negativity after arriving in a new country or being out of the workplace for many years or just not being confident enough.
My message is to certainly learn what you can in your classes - but to also take stock of your existing skills and strengths and to use those as well.
So cheers to Therese Rein - I shall play the first part of this interview in my classes in the future.
As I've intimated in earlier posts, sometimes having to change careers for health reasons can bring unexpected bonuses.
In previous posts I have written about the fun of student excursions. (And lest the teachers out there laugh hollowly, let me explain that I am an adult educator; this makes all the difference in student conduct when we're out.)
These field trips have or are about to take me (oh - and my students) to:
2 of the "big 4" accounting firms in Sydney - Deloitte and KPMG
Another bonus comes when a student seeks help in a topic which happens to really grab your inrerest. One such student came to me recently seeking ways to locate video material on Sir Charles (Charlie) Chaplin (1889 - 1977).
Without taking over from the student, I suggested several ways that the student might locate such material. I then ran off and looked up YouTube myself.
Today it is appropriate to honour a truly great figure in transplant history - my wife Pauline.
An important way of getting through a major obstacle in life is to get your loved ones onside - partner, family, friends, workmates. Pauline is an outstanding example of this, going way beyond the call of duty.
(And she had no prior warning of this trribute, by the way.)
Recently I completed my formal re-training by graduating from the University of Wollongong with a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) teaching qualification.
This is the formal end of a pathway I started on in 2003 when I first enrolled in the University's M.Ed. program in adult education & training.
But its a pathway that I would have found impossible to reach without the support and love of my wife Pauline.
And indeed, this support goes back further to the period 1998 to 2002, with the days of home haemo-dialysis.
I was fortunate to be able to do this at home. But again, this would have been plainly impossible without Pauline's support.
In those years, Pauline deliberately slowed her career right down simply so she could be a support.
Most dialysis nights, I got home from work to find that she had mostly or entirely completed the set-up. And then she would strip the machine if I had to race to work next morning.
And this from a lady who was previously barely able to tolerate the sight of a paper cut.
Then there were the interminable hours sitting about clinics when we were on holidays.
And the big day when the transplant call came out of the blue. A simple country drive for a picnic suddenly became a dash to Sydney and months of disruption.
All through this, Pauline came up smiling.
And she could have avoided all this whilst we were engaged back in the early 1990s.
During this time, the magnitude of my kidney problems became apparent. I did what I believed was the honourable thing and indicated to Pauline that I would entirely understand if she wanted to withdraw from our engagement.
Her response? To tell me that I was talking nonsense, and that we need to decide on invitations by the end of the week.
From the bottom of my heart - thank you, Pauline. I love you very deeply, and your role as a Great Figure in Transplant / Non-Transplant History is highly deserved.
You know, I always assumed that certain jobs and careers were off limits to transplantees - but this story makes me think again.
A gentleman named Paul Hudson has just joined the New South Wales Police Force - six years after a kidney transplant.
There you go! I erroneously thought that being a police officer and a transplantee were mutually exclusive. And not through pessimistic reasons - just being realistic (the new kidney usually sits in a relatively exposed place in the body, unlike native kidneys).
Its always useful to be shown another way of thinking.
Media release from the New South Wales Police Force.
Today's Weekend Australian newspaper publishes an extract from Michael J Fox's book Always looking up. (See also book icon to the right of this page.)
In this extract, Mr Fox talks about walking away from his former profession of acting in response to his dealing with Parkinson's Disease.
In fairness to Mr Fox, perhaps the excerpt was not clearly contextualised properly. And I hasten to add that I have not read the whole book yet.
But in the excerpt he goes on a bit about "walking away" from his old profession of acting in a manner (in my humble opinion) of suggesting totally abandoning all that he might have elarned from that career.
...my resolution was to leave behind everything that I had resolved to achieve, acquire, and accumulate over the last twenty years. I knew I wouldn't just be leaving the show [Spin City] - I would be putting aside my life as an actor. While I always had difficulty thinking of myself as an artist, I took pride in being a craftsman. I think I understood that even though, officially, my retirement was from Spin City and not my career as a whole, I couldn't just tweak the schedule or the working conditions and expect to take on another leading role in a television series or film. That was it. I was essentially pulling the plug.
I believe that people shouldn't be thinking of terms of turning their back on their old lives when they have to abandon an old career due to medical circumstances - such as illness leading up to a transplant.
Sometimes people can hang on to their "old" lives too much - as I believe might possibly have been the case with Jonah Lomu.
But there are skills and aspects of your "old" life that you should hang on to and seek to develop in your "new" life. No sense hiding this under a bushel! (This is what I try to get across to my mature-age students making a career change.)
You have a lot of skills and aptitudes that you continue to carry about in your head - even after you've left your old career.
Jonah Lomu (born 1975) is a New Zealander who is a former member of the New Zealand national rugby team (the "All Blacks").
At his peak, he was afearsome sight. One sport writer wrote that being the target of a Jonah Lomu charge on the rugby field was like having your home refrigerator suddenly grow legs and run straight at you. Another writer, linked below, points out that his thigh circumference is the same as the size of an average man's waist.
Jonah Lomu retired from international rugby following diagnosis of nephrotic syndrome, eventually requiring a kidney transplant.
Unfortunately he harboured plans to make a comeback to international rugby after his transplant - a dangerous thing, to be sure. Transplanted kidneys, unlike native kidneys (heavily protected thanks to Mother Nature), sit in a rather unprotected area of the body - and the average international rugby match would be a ticket to danger for a transplanted kidney.
You have to make realistic choices after your ransplant. Your old career might not be appropriate any more, and you might have to re-launch and re-train for a new career.
In my case, I retrained
from a job with medium levels of exposure to children (a problem for my compromised immune system) and with inflexible 9-to-5 hours
to a job with contract hours (so I could time my days to allow for exercise and the quarterly check-ups) and with contact exclusively with adults (to reduce the risk to my immune system)
This took no small effort and expense on the part of my wife and I - but it was worth it.
Depending on where you live and on your financial circumstances, you might be eligible for financial assistance towards this re-training. You should have a chat to
Your transplant hospital's social worker
Your local and/or distance-delivery adult education provider (such as TAFE Colleges [Australia], city colleges [USA] or universities).
I also gave up cricket umpiring - again due to the risk to my immune system, this time from long blasts of Australian summer sunlight during the course of an average cricket game.
I have some more thoughts about career change at this post.
Anyway, back to Jonah Lomu! Here is a selection of material on the WWW concerning this gentleman.
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EMBEDCODE:
This YouTube video by timmyc1 packages highlights of Lomu's playing style. The music is in my humble opinion a bit corny but the vision is great and the haka is of course always stirring.
Jonathan Marshall & Kristian South, Jonah walked off with my wife, S14 rookie claims. Stuff.co.nz, 17th February 2008. (I include this to make the point that after most transplants, patients can look forward to a full and normal sex life - although I am not commenting on the ethics of the alleged conduct in this article.)
One of the odd bonuses of changing careers as a result of a
transplant is that you get to do really interesting and fun things in
your new job that you would hardly get to do in your old job.
The
prospect of changing careers can seem scary, and certainly it can be
hard work. It was for me, and certainly it is for many students that I
meet in the TAFE system.
This was part of an English subject in which students read, respond to and analyse texts in print and on-line forms.
In
designing the delivery of this unit, I decided to concentrate on news
texts. To this end we visited the production offices of the Media Watch
program, where we learned of how writers and ournalists can manipulate
language and imagery to steer you towards a certain directed meaning.
We also had a general look around the ABC's radio and television studios.
We witnessed the TV news studio (which is not much bigger than a payphone booth), and - wonder of wonders - saw studio 22 set up for Play School! My life is now complete.
All in all, something that you don't get to do when running a library.
So
if the prospect of changing careers frightens you, I would ask you to
instead embrace the change! You never know what new experiences await
you.
You are welcome to visit the class blog on this event.
The picture of me as B1 and my wife Pauline as B2 was taken by our friend Valerie in the foyer of the ABC's Sydney building.
After a number of false starts over the last few years, I have finally signed up for the 2008 City2Surf footrace.
This footrace is something of a Sydney tradition. 70,000 (this year) people in assorted stages of fitness and dress (from standard athletic rig to gorilla costumes) have 2.5 hours to cover a course of 14 kilometres (about 9 miles) through downtown Sydney and the eastern suburbs.
Why have I signed up for this?
I marked my 30th birthday in 1988 by actually going in this race, finally coming in at around the 28,000th mark. (This isn't as bad as it sounds! That year about 35,000 people ran.)
My big ambition then was to run in my 40th year - 1998. But this was the year that I started dialysis, and everything else seemed too difficult.
In the last few years, I have noticed that the University of Wollongong has entered a team each year. My links with the University are very strong - current part-time student, graduate, and my wife works there too.
This is exactly the sort of annual goal that I need to keep me exercising.
But the stress of starting a new career always seemed to get in the way.
Now, 2008 marks my 50th birthday, So its now or never!
This is a little bit those dreadful walkathons that were all the rage as school fundraisers in the 1960s and 1970s. I wince as I recall the dreadful 40-kilometre one we did in 5th class (Year 5!!), or the marginally less stressful 32-kilometre one we did in the early 1970s.
The differences here are:
I seek your sponsorship for finishing, rather than on a per-kilometre rate.
You are asked to pay the sponsorship up front, rather than at the end of the event (which puts more pressure on me to finish!)
All this ecommerce stuff means I'm not knocking on neighbours' doors to seek sponsorship (and being chased by the local dogs)
You can donate from wherever you are!
I have targeted a very modest target of $100 (Australian dollars).
You can sponsor me by going to my sponsorship page. And you can sponsor me in your local currency - the wonders of e-commerce converts this for you. (A link to the Universal Currency Converter appears on the right of this page.)
So I sincerely hope that you will get on board this train.
Cheers!
Statement of disclosure: The company Everyday Hero sets up the sponsorship page in conjunction with the footrace organisers, Fairfax Media Publishing. Everyday Hero retains a proportion of sponsorship money raised. For further information, read the company's FAQ page or contact the company.
This piqued my interest because I was interested in seeing the perspectives of someone living with a chronic disease, and who decides to face a fairly major and radical surgical procedure (in his case, deep brain stimulation) to manage the situation.
And this is especially so with the fact that the brain surgery involved necessarily involves local anaesthetic. I would be somewhat concerned to say the least if someone had to drill into my head and put wires into it. (What would hold the wires down? Would they rattle in the empty space?)
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