Koh's blog - "Not the Nine O'Clock News"

[Karol1]

I was introduced to program 10 years ago was successful until I fell pregnant then struggled to get back on plan after my 2nd child. Some familiar names still around.

[Kohinoor]

For those who knew me and cared when things weren't going so well, I just wanted to do a bit of an update.

In one of my last updates, I mentioned the Sporting Club that I had hoped might be the silver lining for me. Turned out it wasn't - I suspect now that they "took me on" just for a week until someone else came back from sickness or whatever, as I was out of work again within two weeks !!

So "Boo!" to that one. Lots of other things happened - we took on domestic cleaning as we still couldn't get a pension (all because of the properties we had bought while investing... we were "asset rich and cash poor").

In early 2014 my Mum had a fall - she broke her leg, went into surgery, and appeared to be on the mend 3 weeks later, when she must have just "had enough" and she passed away peacefully. She had made 94, so had done pretty good, and had got to spend the last 5 years of her life nearby to my sister in Chch, so I am sure that helped her to be happy while in a rest home. She was an astonishing woman, one that I was (and still am) proud to call "My Mum". Vale Muriel

As 2013 and 2014 went on, Mrs Koh became steadily more and more weak. She was losing weight over those two years, but steadfastly refused to go to a Doctor, instead sticking to her favourite "alternate adviser". Despite my best efforts to discuss her health logically, she clung to her beliefs stubbornly, and steadily went downhill. Late in 2014, one of our sons managed to convince her that she really should "get a second opinion". Just after Xmas she relented and visited a local doctor. His actions (after a quick xray) were swift. He said to me "Will you drive her straight to hospital, or should I call an ambulance?" He had diagnosed Pneumonia - and that is not an illness to muck around with. At the Emergency section of the Hospital, we were attended to within 10 minutes - the "Triage" aspect told me "This certainly was serious" - usually, any trips to Emergency would see us there for an hour or more before being handled.

She was hospitalised for about 5 days - in that time, the antibiotics had her taste buds affected majorly. Even her cups of tea tasted "terrible" apparently. But there were a couple of huge silver linings - one was that, while she was hospitalised, she couldn't smoke, so I didn't either (I had been on Champix to get myself off them anyway - and it had been helping me to cut way back...) On coming out, she stayed off them until the first night when she woke to say "I'm dying for a ciggie". My sleepy answer was "They're on the fridge!" She didn't get one that night, nor the next night, the night after......

We had stumbled on "a way that worked for us". Cigarettes were always "there and available" for either of us if we wanted them. We hadn't "thrown them in the bin" and then grieved for what we didn't have any more....

It worked!!

That newly opened pack of ciggies remained on the fridge until we threw them out some 18 months later - they were looking pretty awful by then !!

The other good thing was that Mrs Koh regained her weight quite quickly. She reached her full fighting weight of 55Kg within about 3 months and has stayed there (plus or minus about 3Kg) from then until now. Her health is fully restored once more - that took a whole heap of concern off the table !!

What else? Well, we now only have one investment property left (the Holiday House in Springbrook). The rest were sold to "keep us going". We should be able to get something of a pension soon, but I am not holding my breath..... The paperwork needed to get a pension going would kill a small forest to make paper !! Especially if one owns a few properties..... but that is less of a problem now for us.


So yeah, for a while there, things were pretty full-on, and not in a good way. But we appear to be through most of that now. Keep your fingers crossed for us,

Koh

[Soon2BSlim]

Oh Koh, thank you for sharing your heart here. I'm so sorry to read about the horrid time you have had. I had no idea what you were suffering through but I am so glad there have been some improvements in your situation. I hope that despite your feelings about the outcome of your pension application, there will only be good news from here onwards.

You will be in my prayers and my fingers are crossed for you and Mrs Koh.

Sending you both much love and wishing you everything that is good.

Louise

[jessy]

Dear Koh

Big hug mate , this country's government has a lot to answer for. The people that worked their hearts out for so many hard working years have been left behind in all the red tape and the pensioners have been totally ripped off.

Take it easy and all the best

[manilamommy]

Dear Koh,
I never realized you actually had a diary!
I have often wondered why you disappeared for a while. Heartbreaking to hear of your family's tough times.
Will be praying for much more better days for you and your loved ones.
Cheers, MM

[Kohinoor]

Gee - it's about time for another update !! Slack puppy !!
Well things seem to be finally settling down for us. We got an age pension just a few weeks ago. The path to getting one though is still REALLY bumpy - but I guess we were lucky - I just read some pensioners had to wait 9 months from the time of their first application. We got ours within 6 months - but only because we called on "our local MP". What a top move that turned out to be.
As a typical "fix-it" male, I was taking the fight up with Centrelink on a regular basis. Each time I went there, I would be seated in front of a different adviser. And, each time I went there, I would find out they were telling me something different to the one before.
I worked out that very few advisers know a damn thing about their job. And, as one who is DEPENDING on their guidance, it turned into a fiasco. My wife used to NOT ask how it went after each visit there. (Smart girl!)
I was like a Basset Hound with a sore head - and she tells me it wasn't pretty. But she got an idea and called our local MP - and guess what?


That was THE ANSWER !! Within about two weeks of informing them of our plight, we were all lined up ready for take-off on the PENSION flight.

It concerns me that there may be MANY others in a similar fractious situation. We are dependent on "knowledgeable advice" when facing a situation we have no knowledge of ourselves - and thus, we are quite vulnerable. NOT a good place to be in for those who are older and less able to help themselves as well as they did in younger years.
Anyway, we now have our pension (or a part of one) and that gives us other benefits (health card discounts on meds, rates relief are two that I know of). It also means there is a regular input to our bank now, so things can be set up to Direct Debit on a regular basis (very hard to do when any income is not regular, and not guaranteed at all).

So, at last, the Sun is shining a wee bit and we are eating regularly now.
Keep well all,

Hugs,
Koh

[Kohinoor]

Time for another "bump" by adding a bit more to this blog.
Things have settled pretty well since starting to receive the Age Pension. I was able to apply for it since 2011, but at that stage I had work. Then it stopped the next year, and I looked at making application for an Age pension. I needed to fell a small forest to make enough paper to answer all of the questions and/or fill in all the forms required. After 5 or 6 abortive visits to Centrelink back in 2013, I gave up and we lived by selling an investment property now and then.

That all came to an end in 2018 and we needed to get some Income from somewhere. Of course, without the investment properties, the amount of paperwork needed was far less - and anyway, Centrelink had introduced a computer program to record all the details. That was a nightmare in itself - not sure if you all know, but one of the paths I trod was as a proof-reader, so my knowledge of English is pretty good. That computer program and its questions had me giving incorrect answers, simply because the English used in it was ambiguous. As well as that, when I questioned different people in Centrelink regarding those questions, I got different answers.

No wonder it took around 15 separate visits, AND the intervention of our local Federal MP before things got settled. But here we are now - bills are being paid and income is settled, so I can now safely utilise automatic payments once more. It is SO nice to be able to do that.

And Newyou? Well, I've been pretty much fulltime on here since I haven't had to worry about where every dollar was coming from. I have given up mowing lawns and cleaning extra houses just to eat. Life is much better now, and far less stressful. Thanks for all your good wishes through the years - especially these latter ones.

Hugs,
Koh

[Kohinoor]

Oh, wow !! We are now ending 2022 (October right now) and it's been YEARS since I did anything with this blog. We had two awful years with Covid19 - right now it has become "part of the furniture" - a bit like the common cold (except the common cold doesn't seem to kill so many people.

I just heard on the radio that, over the whole two years of Covid lockdowns etc, Queensland had just 8 deaths from Covid. This was accomplished by lockdowns and border closures - these in turn led to many (un-numbered) business collapses and suicides. Also, after Govts relaxed all their Covid rules around Dec 2021, some bright spark counted up the estimated number of "lives saved during Covid" in Australia (4000) and the total "cost to the country" of all the lockdowns etc, and determined that it cost approx $300million per person saved. Was that a good result? Probably was for those 4000. And today, it seems we lose "8 people per day to Covid in Qld" but nothing is said. Sounds a bit like influenza, which could take out a few thousand each year. Covid seems to be emulating that right now, but with Govts no longer locking everyone down any more.

Out of interest I Googled the "value of a human life" in Australia. Yes, our Govts do pluck a figure out of the air, probably to avoid such decisions made above that cost us so much for so little return. The Govt figure for each life is $5million. Thus, at $300m, the cost was "a little high" and, with cooler heads, we might have done things differently.

Granted, when this all started, the whole world was caught off-guard, so our leaders had to make decisions on the fly and earlier severe lock-downs were likely just a knee-jerk reaction. But over time, one would think we could have learned from the earlier days and made more sensible choices within a few months eh?

As one senator put it, "Those of us from the bush realise that our country can't afford to have the very best hospitals in every small town. We accept that, and the Flying Doctor thus helps us to get good treatment in major centres when needed.

The "cost of Covid" figure above tells me that our leaders spent too much money (or COST our country too much by shutting down businesses) for the number of lives saved. Hopefully the next time a pandemic hits, we can be more circumspect. In hindsight, one person (name unknown) maintains we should have 1. NOT shut down schools, 2. NOT raced to get everyone vaccinated, 3. Protected our seniors (with lockdowns, vaxxes, or whatever - within reason) and the rest, just "get on with it". Shutting down our economy in such a huge way did very few people many favours.

Personally, we had an old friend in a Rest Home. From March of 2021, we were NOT ALLOWED to visit her, and neither were other friends of hers from within the SAME REST HOME - say wha???? Older folk need company more than younger ones. We lost our friend (she was 95?) during Covid, but not "of Covid". As it happened, she fell and went to hospital on one day - because the Hospital was "state-run", there were fewer restrictions and we did get to spend 30 mins with her one last time. Once back at the Rest Home, it was "Sorry, NO". Poor Betty. She died alone - her family were in Cairns and flew down now and then, but couldn't do it weekly - meanwhile, as we weren't family, we weren't allowed to visit. We whinged loudly to our local Fed MP hoping they could garner support for a change in Canberra, but nothing came of that.

Meanwhile, what of us? Well, we keep putting one foot after the other. Life is getting tough in late 2022 - the world seems to have gone mad with unseen forces pushing us into places most don't want to go. I fear the future may be nothing like the life we once knew. Let's pray I am wrong. Meanwhile, best of luck to us all,

Koh

[Donzie]

Hi Koh,

It has been a crazy two years and clearly mistakes have been made by governments.

I thought when a disaster strikes like a global pandemic governments would have a plan and that plan would be part of broader global plan. But what really happens is everything turns into a complete shamozzle.

Kind of makes me scratch my head when conspiracists tell you about how the ‘elites’ within governments and other world powers designed and orchestrated everything and COVID 19 isn’t real. Hmmm, yeah, I don’t think so.

Anyway, personally I think it is still too early to process the data and draw a conclusion on what resulted, might have resulted and didn’t result from the last two years. I think that still may be a decade or two away as we are very much still in it. Newspapers have just latched onto now the economic fallout caused by the pandemic. Got to spread doom and gloom to sell news.

What I do know is this. The world is changing at such a rapid rate. A mere 5 years ago now feels like 20 years ago in terms of technology. It’s an incredible time to be alive. Will there be a big global recession? maybe. Will that mean years and years of suffering like the 1930s? Hell no! Everything moves too fast now.

Will we look back in 20 years from now and say the pandemic brought forward an inevitable reset. Probably.

I lost my own father to pneumonia during the strictest of pandemic restrictions and I recently lost another family member to COVID-19 she was only 68 years old with years of life ahead of her. So, I don’t know what to think.

I guess I just have the attitude everything will turn out alright in the end, if it’s not alright, it’s not the end.

Donzie. X