G'day fellow PAers,
I'm back on the forum after a break and I thought I might write about how 2017 has been treating me so far...
(Forgive my bad spelling, grammar, jumbled thoughts and ravings. At the end of this post, if you get that far, you will understand why I'm a bit stoopid)
After the absolutely dismal year that was 2016 I thought things could not get any worse. How wrong I was.
In November last year I had a slight change of fortune. I landed a great job and began working full time again after spending over a 18 months unemployed. The first 12 months of that I refused to go on the dole and the pittance you recieve was not worth the hastle anyway as I discovered later. Suffice to say, our meagre nest egg of savings was reduced to zero. I was gifted a new SDC from my generous parents. I would have rather spent the money on necessities like mortgage payments but my father was certain the SDC would have me pulling out a fortune in nuggets in no time. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Who knows, maybe, if I could have actually got out for a swing but we were down to one car and the missus needed it.
You can imagine my frustration at having a SDC sitting idle at home frittering away the warranty with no way to get out to the goldfields and no friends to prospect with (I'm a weird beard so it's understandable that no one wants to play with me, even too weird for the nutters on this forum lol). Anyway we eventually got the car running again but by then I was working full time and had no time to prospect!
Late in 2016 our lemon of a car was in a minor bingle after a run in with a kangaroo. Our lovely mates at the insurance company wrote off the car and payed us out an abysmal amount after we had spent almost a year and over $5000 on repairs (we were done over by a string of mechanics). The car was finally running again and it only had minor damage to the panels but it was cheaper for the insurance company to pay out (done over again).
Back to one car, no time, no money for the necessary gold maps, books etc. and the few times I managed a couple of hours out with the SDC was a waste of time due to my lack of experience, knowledge and blind luck.
I got onto G0lddigg@. I had some success with the pans at Sailors Creek and I scraped together the finances to buy a river sluice and highbanker as I had won second prize in the PA photo competition and needed gear in order to use the dream mat I'd won. I managed to use the river sluice once but as I have no time I only managed about 0.1 grams. I have used the highbanker on some paydirt from Ballarat Gold but results again were about 0.2g from a trailer of dirt. I can't use the highbanker out in the field as I can't afford to buy a power source to run the pump.
Again I say, imagine my frustration: top quality river sluice and highbanker sitting idle, no money, no car, no prospecting buddies, no time, no experience, no knowledge of areas and now there's no water...
So I was chatting to G0lddigg@ about spots to try and he offers to point me in the right direction but I will need a 4wd to access them. Cool! I think to myself. I need a 4wd. I start looking. Even though finances are woeful I have a full time job and we have never missed a mortgage payment. The bank will help us out with a loan. WRONG! Apparently that all counts for naught and because we are so poor we also get to pay a higher interest rate than those with higher incomes (done over yet again!).
Skip to mid February 2017. We go for a weekend to visit a friend in Adelaide for her birthday. On the way back, just out of Tailem Bend, the engine on our remaining car makes a funny noise and I pull over. The brand new radiator has blown. I know straight away that the engine is cactus. RACV called, towed to TB, mechanic swears it's just the radiator and we will be on the road the next day. I know this is total BS but we are at the mercy of RACV and the mechanic. One night in TB, new radiator installed at a cost to us of $360 that we don't have to spare. OH! BIG SURPRISE! Wasn't the radiator! Engine blown as I predicted in the first place (done over AGAIN!!!). We spend ten hours driving through the night in a tow truck heading to our mechanic in Daylesford. Mechanic in Daylesford quotes about $4000 for new engine but is honest enough to say he is reluctant to do it as there may be more underlying problems. Both cars were VY Commodores and this one only has barely done 100 000 k's! Mechanic says we can get $100 from the wreckers for the car even with a brand new radiator installed. PLUS, rego is due at the end of the month AND it cost me two days of wages to get back home.
Skip to last Sunday. After working like a trojan for twenty days straight for very little reward I decide to have a day prospecting and try a new spot around Hepburn to relax and unwind. We were very lucky that the inlaws are off for a few months skiing in Switzerland so we have a borrowed car for a short time. I grab the pans and find a stagnant pool of water to pan in. OH! Hello Mr. Brown Snake! Time to move on. I try another creek and find some pools of water about 500m from where I parked. By now it's about 4pm and I have a few tiny flakes for the day. I start scratching out a small pool of water and classifying material. First bucket done. I move downstream a bit and pan off. Couple of little chunkies. Hmmm, looks promising...
I go back to my pool and continue scratching up gravel with my hands. I feel a scratch on the back of my wrist and look down but see nothing unusual so I assume it was a sharp stick and use my gumboot to kick up the water. That's when I see a large black snake writhing around in the water like crazy and look down to see two spots of blood on my wrist. Hmmm, not good. I see the snake writhing around in the water but i don't see any red on it's belly. First thought is to tuff it out and continue prospecting but I decide to take off my t shirt and wrap it around my forearm and very quietly, calmly and slowly walk about 400m back to my car. As I get nearer to the car I start to feel a little woozy and my vision goes a bit weird. I just make it back to te car but I am having trouble finding the keys in my pocket and getting the car open to grab my phone. I call my wife and ask her if we have ambulance cover (if not i was not going to call one and have thousands more to pay out. I would have just gone native and layed down on the ground and gone to the dreaming place and recovered eventually or not).
Anyway, I call the ambulance but I am having a very hard time giving them directions as I can't think straight anymore. We eventually work it out and I just have to wait for them to come. Of course, there was a mad rush on ambos that day and time so I have to wait for one from Castlemaine. I don't know this at the time though so I stay on the line until, yep, you guess it, my phone runs out of battery. I don't feel any panic or stress at all as I am so over this year that I no longer care if I make it or not. I am feeling pretty crummy by now as you would expect and about 40 minutes after making the call the ambulance arrives. They bandage my arm and I hop up onto the stretcher and get loaded in for the 40 minute drive to Ballarat Base Hospital. My spirits are good and I am joking with the paramedics on the way there even though I am starting to feel very poorly. Of course I can't help but notice that the female paramedic is smokin' hot and I enjoy the view through my blurry vision. On the way I am connected to a drip of saline solution and am given oxygen. I start to feel nausious and as soon as I tell them I begin to throw up stomach acid and bile as I have not eaten anything since Saturday night, which is normal for me. The ambulance doesn't seem to be in any great hurry because we are stopping at all of the lights in Ballarat. When we get to the hospital the place is full of ambulances from all over the area. I picked a good time obviously.
I finally get inside the hospital and the emergency department is full of people on stretchers crammed in the hallways. I am left to my own devices while paperwork is done and they try to find a spot for me to be seen to. At this stage I don't have much idea of time but I am waiting for a while and trhow up again. Then I am asked to give a urine sample but there is nowhere private to do it so I have to get myself out of the stretcher and take a pee in front of everyone then climb back on. Eventually I am given a space and the doctor comes to check me out. There are people everywhere getting really excited about something they haven't seen before. Everyone wants to take pictures and get in on the action but I am less than enthused by it all. Of course no one knows what to do so there's more waiting...
[had to take a break of writing this tale of woe for a minute as I saw my wife running back from the paddock for her phone because the horse just ripped a tooth out when chewing the gate AND the tow truck driver knocked on the door at the same time to return our buggered car. Why not? Emergency vet bill thrown into the mix. HUZZAH!]
...while they try to get advice. Meanwhile, I can feel the stomach acid burning my mouth and eating away at the enamel on my teeth just to spice things up a bit. I ask but am refused water because I might throw up again even though I had to wrestle a dry anti nausia tablet down my throat. The metallic taste in my mouth that started in the ambulance is now more like a burning metal taste now. They keep testing me for signs of paralysys because 'apparently' (lol) that is not good for you and is irreversible. I am starting to go blind by this stage and my wife turns up around this time thanks to a kind work colleague that gives her a lift from Kyneton. I give her a grin and a thumbs up and lament the fact that I am not important enough to warrant the really expensive machine that goes 'ping'. I make plenty of wisecracks and dad jokes but it seem to be a tough room...
The urine sample result confirms that I was bitten by a tiger snake so at least they know what antivenom to give me now and my pupils are now fully dilated with no response to light. They hear back from the snake bite experts by this stage and get ready to administer the antivenom by getting the crash cart ready and a couple of ampules of adrenaline in case I check out from the antivenom. It goes in my pincushion veins slowly drips in while they monitor me for adverse reactions. I must have taken a turn for the worse from the venom by now as they decide to push the antivenom through as fast as they can.
So far so good. Not dead yet. I'm still conscious and more happy snaps are taken (I am still able to take note of the hot doctor and nurses around me). Lots of questions are asked about my symptoms and I try to answer as best as I can as it may help someone in the future. I ask again for water and they tell me I am going up to Intensive Care and I will be fed and watered up there. LIES! ALL LIES!
I am taken up the elevator and can't help myself from humming 'The Girl from Ipenema' as there is no elevator music provided. For some reason no one but me finds it funny. Go figure...
I am hooked up to all kinds of wires and tubes and spend the next few hours asking for water as I only have stomach acid in my mouth for hours now and get the same response of I'll go check with a doctor. No one will make any decision without an O.K. from someone higher up the chain, not even the one at the top of the chain. I send my wife home as she has to go back to pick up the borrowed car before someone trashes it. I can now sort of see blurry shapes if i close one eye and squint but it hurts a bit. I don't mind as I am still checking out the parade of hot nurses and doctors doing their rounds. Eventually some water comes in but it has the most aweful taste and texture you could imagine. I try my best to swallow it down to alleviate the acid burn in my mouth. No food of any kind is forthcoming so I have to hold out until the morning.
I have a sleepless night hooked up to all sorts of gadgets and drips with the one highlight of having four bags of potassium dripping into my arm that apparently "may sting a little" lol. It did but I could block it out well enough until the hourly blood pressure monitor cut off circulation in my arm, causing pressure to build up and the burning in my veins went through the roof. Also, my bitten arm began to start hurting like you wouldn't believe and I refused to take any pain relief because I could block it out easy enough with my mind while awake but when I drifted off for a short time it would catch me off guard and hurt like hell until I could get it back under control. I figured that since this was my first snake bite, I would go the whole hog and ride out the experience and see just how painful it really was. I didn't want to miss anything lol.
The following afternoon I was allowed to go to a ward and get most of the wires off of me which was a relief. I found out that another patient in Intensive Care had been bitten by a march fly. What a wimp! :lol: Get bitten by something deadly next time loser ]
The ward I was in had a couple of old dudes in it that were suffering from incontinence and I was being badgered to use the loo so my kidney and bowel function could be monitored but when I finally dragged myself out of bed to go to the loo there was faeces all over the toilet seat, bowl, basin, floor, door...EVERYWHERE! Therefore I just used the bottle to pee and waited 24 hours until the toilet was finally cleaned. Even when I was able to get up and have a shower there was faeces left in the shower. That night I could barely see but I managed to watch the prospecting shows on TV. I shouldn't have bothered as they were lame and there are more ads than content these days (I had not realised this as I have refused to watch 'programs' on TV for years). At least I could block out the idiot next to me that had his TV up really loud and was watching those mind blowingly stupid reality TV shows and guffawing like an imbecile...YE GODS! SAVE US FROM MORONS!!!
The food looked pretty good but I could not taste anything and there was no salt or sugar on anything or so I thought...After two luxurious nights I was allowed to go home and I stopped off at some horrid fast food place for something to eat (forgive me, I was desperate or I would never set foot in one of those fake food abominations). That's when the penny dropped. I HAVE NO TASTE BUDS LEFT!!!!
I have tried all sorts of foods and flavours and the only taste buds I have left are the bitter buds on the sides of the tongue. Everything tastes like nothing, cardboard, burning metal, bitter or a horrendous combination of all. Worse still, I can't drink alcohol due to the horrid taste! That has really torn it. All I want is a quiet drink by myself in my shed.
I was warned that the antivenom and initial envenomation may cause a lingering malaise, muscle weakness etc. etc. etc. but this is ridiculous. I feel like a complete moron and a weakling and it is depressing the hell out of me. I told my wife that I can't understand how the average person would want to live. Of course she didn't take too kindly to that statement as she is not so intelligent or strong herself with her dyslexia and degenerative joints but at least she has enough nous to know it and she gives it a red hot go getting everything done even with her pain and disabilities. She never gives up or uses her shortcomings as an excuse to be a lazy slob. She always tries her best. I may have been a little insensitive with that remark but she is the only person I have to talk to. The only problem in being stupid and weak is for those that have lost some of their mental and/or physical function. I'm sure being born that way is great and a paradise of blissful ignorance is their compensation. I have no such luck. I didn't even gain any super powers out of all this. Just dead taste buds, an addled brain and weakness. Oh and an interesting story to tell people.Whoopty Do.
All I want to do is get out into a creek and find some gold. My wife wouldn't even stop off at Daylesford on the way back from hospital to collect some paydirt. She collected my gear from the creek I got bitten in while I was in hospital as she knew I would be straight down there first chance I got to get it myself regardless of how sick I was. As soon as I got home I grabbed my unprocessed dirt from Sunday and panned it off. All I got was one tiny speck but it was chunky so I am keen to get back down there ASAP for another look. She won't give me the keys to the car and flat out refuses to drop me off somewhere for the day to do some panning even though I am sitting at home unable to work. I might as well go back to work as sitting here idle is driving me insane! I'm stuck here panning old tailings I have left lying around for gemstones but it's not good enough. I need to see some colour! I really am still very crook but I've got the fever bad. It's not like I even have found anything significant to make it all worthwhile but I don't care. This degenerate world has nothing for me. There is nothing left sacred for me in the world of man. Give me a creekbed and a pan and a pool of water. That's all I want, especially now as I can't even find joy in good food and quality alcoholic beverages. Imagine my frustration at smelling food and tasting nothing but bitterness and burning metal. Maybe I need to find a way to kill my olfactory sense too. I really did love fine wine, single malt and absinthe. I have no reason or desire to eat or drink anything. Even a cool draught of water is ruined. If I do not get my taste buds back soon I will go out looking for my old mate the black tiger snake or maybe a friendly brown. Somethings gotta give but I know things will only get worse. The good times are being crushed under the weight of the bad. We are all getting done over more and more every day and no one notices or cares. Soon I won't either.
After everything that's been happening lately along with the fact that since I have been employed full time we have less money than ever AND no time for prospecting I think I made the wrong choice. I should have stayed down the creek.
I hope all of you out there are having a better time of it than me. Stay safe and find all the gold you can carry.
I'm back on the forum after a break and I thought I might write about how 2017 has been treating me so far...
(Forgive my bad spelling, grammar, jumbled thoughts and ravings. At the end of this post, if you get that far, you will understand why I'm a bit stoopid)
After the absolutely dismal year that was 2016 I thought things could not get any worse. How wrong I was.
In November last year I had a slight change of fortune. I landed a great job and began working full time again after spending over a 18 months unemployed. The first 12 months of that I refused to go on the dole and the pittance you recieve was not worth the hastle anyway as I discovered later. Suffice to say, our meagre nest egg of savings was reduced to zero. I was gifted a new SDC from my generous parents. I would have rather spent the money on necessities like mortgage payments but my father was certain the SDC would have me pulling out a fortune in nuggets in no time. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Who knows, maybe, if I could have actually got out for a swing but we were down to one car and the missus needed it.
You can imagine my frustration at having a SDC sitting idle at home frittering away the warranty with no way to get out to the goldfields and no friends to prospect with (I'm a weird beard so it's understandable that no one wants to play with me, even too weird for the nutters on this forum lol). Anyway we eventually got the car running again but by then I was working full time and had no time to prospect!
Late in 2016 our lemon of a car was in a minor bingle after a run in with a kangaroo. Our lovely mates at the insurance company wrote off the car and payed us out an abysmal amount after we had spent almost a year and over $5000 on repairs (we were done over by a string of mechanics). The car was finally running again and it only had minor damage to the panels but it was cheaper for the insurance company to pay out (done over again).
Back to one car, no time, no money for the necessary gold maps, books etc. and the few times I managed a couple of hours out with the SDC was a waste of time due to my lack of experience, knowledge and blind luck.
I got onto G0lddigg@. I had some success with the pans at Sailors Creek and I scraped together the finances to buy a river sluice and highbanker as I had won second prize in the PA photo competition and needed gear in order to use the dream mat I'd won. I managed to use the river sluice once but as I have no time I only managed about 0.1 grams. I have used the highbanker on some paydirt from Ballarat Gold but results again were about 0.2g from a trailer of dirt. I can't use the highbanker out in the field as I can't afford to buy a power source to run the pump.
Again I say, imagine my frustration: top quality river sluice and highbanker sitting idle, no money, no car, no prospecting buddies, no time, no experience, no knowledge of areas and now there's no water...
So I was chatting to G0lddigg@ about spots to try and he offers to point me in the right direction but I will need a 4wd to access them. Cool! I think to myself. I need a 4wd. I start looking. Even though finances are woeful I have a full time job and we have never missed a mortgage payment. The bank will help us out with a loan. WRONG! Apparently that all counts for naught and because we are so poor we also get to pay a higher interest rate than those with higher incomes (done over yet again!).
Skip to mid February 2017. We go for a weekend to visit a friend in Adelaide for her birthday. On the way back, just out of Tailem Bend, the engine on our remaining car makes a funny noise and I pull over. The brand new radiator has blown. I know straight away that the engine is cactus. RACV called, towed to TB, mechanic swears it's just the radiator and we will be on the road the next day. I know this is total BS but we are at the mercy of RACV and the mechanic. One night in TB, new radiator installed at a cost to us of $360 that we don't have to spare. OH! BIG SURPRISE! Wasn't the radiator! Engine blown as I predicted in the first place (done over AGAIN!!!). We spend ten hours driving through the night in a tow truck heading to our mechanic in Daylesford. Mechanic in Daylesford quotes about $4000 for new engine but is honest enough to say he is reluctant to do it as there may be more underlying problems. Both cars were VY Commodores and this one only has barely done 100 000 k's! Mechanic says we can get $100 from the wreckers for the car even with a brand new radiator installed. PLUS, rego is due at the end of the month AND it cost me two days of wages to get back home.
Skip to last Sunday. After working like a trojan for twenty days straight for very little reward I decide to have a day prospecting and try a new spot around Hepburn to relax and unwind. We were very lucky that the inlaws are off for a few months skiing in Switzerland so we have a borrowed car for a short time. I grab the pans and find a stagnant pool of water to pan in. OH! Hello Mr. Brown Snake! Time to move on. I try another creek and find some pools of water about 500m from where I parked. By now it's about 4pm and I have a few tiny flakes for the day. I start scratching out a small pool of water and classifying material. First bucket done. I move downstream a bit and pan off. Couple of little chunkies. Hmmm, looks promising...
I go back to my pool and continue scratching up gravel with my hands. I feel a scratch on the back of my wrist and look down but see nothing unusual so I assume it was a sharp stick and use my gumboot to kick up the water. That's when I see a large black snake writhing around in the water like crazy and look down to see two spots of blood on my wrist. Hmmm, not good. I see the snake writhing around in the water but i don't see any red on it's belly. First thought is to tuff it out and continue prospecting but I decide to take off my t shirt and wrap it around my forearm and very quietly, calmly and slowly walk about 400m back to my car. As I get nearer to the car I start to feel a little woozy and my vision goes a bit weird. I just make it back to te car but I am having trouble finding the keys in my pocket and getting the car open to grab my phone. I call my wife and ask her if we have ambulance cover (if not i was not going to call one and have thousands more to pay out. I would have just gone native and layed down on the ground and gone to the dreaming place and recovered eventually or not).
Anyway, I call the ambulance but I am having a very hard time giving them directions as I can't think straight anymore. We eventually work it out and I just have to wait for them to come. Of course, there was a mad rush on ambos that day and time so I have to wait for one from Castlemaine. I don't know this at the time though so I stay on the line until, yep, you guess it, my phone runs out of battery. I don't feel any panic or stress at all as I am so over this year that I no longer care if I make it or not. I am feeling pretty crummy by now as you would expect and about 40 minutes after making the call the ambulance arrives. They bandage my arm and I hop up onto the stretcher and get loaded in for the 40 minute drive to Ballarat Base Hospital. My spirits are good and I am joking with the paramedics on the way there even though I am starting to feel very poorly. Of course I can't help but notice that the female paramedic is smokin' hot and I enjoy the view through my blurry vision. On the way I am connected to a drip of saline solution and am given oxygen. I start to feel nausious and as soon as I tell them I begin to throw up stomach acid and bile as I have not eaten anything since Saturday night, which is normal for me. The ambulance doesn't seem to be in any great hurry because we are stopping at all of the lights in Ballarat. When we get to the hospital the place is full of ambulances from all over the area. I picked a good time obviously.
I finally get inside the hospital and the emergency department is full of people on stretchers crammed in the hallways. I am left to my own devices while paperwork is done and they try to find a spot for me to be seen to. At this stage I don't have much idea of time but I am waiting for a while and trhow up again. Then I am asked to give a urine sample but there is nowhere private to do it so I have to get myself out of the stretcher and take a pee in front of everyone then climb back on. Eventually I am given a space and the doctor comes to check me out. There are people everywhere getting really excited about something they haven't seen before. Everyone wants to take pictures and get in on the action but I am less than enthused by it all. Of course no one knows what to do so there's more waiting...
[had to take a break of writing this tale of woe for a minute as I saw my wife running back from the paddock for her phone because the horse just ripped a tooth out when chewing the gate AND the tow truck driver knocked on the door at the same time to return our buggered car. Why not? Emergency vet bill thrown into the mix. HUZZAH!]
...while they try to get advice. Meanwhile, I can feel the stomach acid burning my mouth and eating away at the enamel on my teeth just to spice things up a bit. I ask but am refused water because I might throw up again even though I had to wrestle a dry anti nausia tablet down my throat. The metallic taste in my mouth that started in the ambulance is now more like a burning metal taste now. They keep testing me for signs of paralysys because 'apparently' (lol) that is not good for you and is irreversible. I am starting to go blind by this stage and my wife turns up around this time thanks to a kind work colleague that gives her a lift from Kyneton. I give her a grin and a thumbs up and lament the fact that I am not important enough to warrant the really expensive machine that goes 'ping'. I make plenty of wisecracks and dad jokes but it seem to be a tough room...
The urine sample result confirms that I was bitten by a tiger snake so at least they know what antivenom to give me now and my pupils are now fully dilated with no response to light. They hear back from the snake bite experts by this stage and get ready to administer the antivenom by getting the crash cart ready and a couple of ampules of adrenaline in case I check out from the antivenom. It goes in my pincushion veins slowly drips in while they monitor me for adverse reactions. I must have taken a turn for the worse from the venom by now as they decide to push the antivenom through as fast as they can.
So far so good. Not dead yet. I'm still conscious and more happy snaps are taken (I am still able to take note of the hot doctor and nurses around me). Lots of questions are asked about my symptoms and I try to answer as best as I can as it may help someone in the future. I ask again for water and they tell me I am going up to Intensive Care and I will be fed and watered up there. LIES! ALL LIES!
I am taken up the elevator and can't help myself from humming 'The Girl from Ipenema' as there is no elevator music provided. For some reason no one but me finds it funny. Go figure...
I am hooked up to all kinds of wires and tubes and spend the next few hours asking for water as I only have stomach acid in my mouth for hours now and get the same response of I'll go check with a doctor. No one will make any decision without an O.K. from someone higher up the chain, not even the one at the top of the chain. I send my wife home as she has to go back to pick up the borrowed car before someone trashes it. I can now sort of see blurry shapes if i close one eye and squint but it hurts a bit. I don't mind as I am still checking out the parade of hot nurses and doctors doing their rounds. Eventually some water comes in but it has the most aweful taste and texture you could imagine. I try my best to swallow it down to alleviate the acid burn in my mouth. No food of any kind is forthcoming so I have to hold out until the morning.
I have a sleepless night hooked up to all sorts of gadgets and drips with the one highlight of having four bags of potassium dripping into my arm that apparently "may sting a little" lol. It did but I could block it out well enough until the hourly blood pressure monitor cut off circulation in my arm, causing pressure to build up and the burning in my veins went through the roof. Also, my bitten arm began to start hurting like you wouldn't believe and I refused to take any pain relief because I could block it out easy enough with my mind while awake but when I drifted off for a short time it would catch me off guard and hurt like hell until I could get it back under control. I figured that since this was my first snake bite, I would go the whole hog and ride out the experience and see just how painful it really was. I didn't want to miss anything lol.
The following afternoon I was allowed to go to a ward and get most of the wires off of me which was a relief. I found out that another patient in Intensive Care had been bitten by a march fly. What a wimp! :lol: Get bitten by something deadly next time loser ]
The ward I was in had a couple of old dudes in it that were suffering from incontinence and I was being badgered to use the loo so my kidney and bowel function could be monitored but when I finally dragged myself out of bed to go to the loo there was faeces all over the toilet seat, bowl, basin, floor, door...EVERYWHERE! Therefore I just used the bottle to pee and waited 24 hours until the toilet was finally cleaned. Even when I was able to get up and have a shower there was faeces left in the shower. That night I could barely see but I managed to watch the prospecting shows on TV. I shouldn't have bothered as they were lame and there are more ads than content these days (I had not realised this as I have refused to watch 'programs' on TV for years). At least I could block out the idiot next to me that had his TV up really loud and was watching those mind blowingly stupid reality TV shows and guffawing like an imbecile...YE GODS! SAVE US FROM MORONS!!!
The food looked pretty good but I could not taste anything and there was no salt or sugar on anything or so I thought...After two luxurious nights I was allowed to go home and I stopped off at some horrid fast food place for something to eat (forgive me, I was desperate or I would never set foot in one of those fake food abominations). That's when the penny dropped. I HAVE NO TASTE BUDS LEFT!!!!
I have tried all sorts of foods and flavours and the only taste buds I have left are the bitter buds on the sides of the tongue. Everything tastes like nothing, cardboard, burning metal, bitter or a horrendous combination of all. Worse still, I can't drink alcohol due to the horrid taste! That has really torn it. All I want is a quiet drink by myself in my shed.
I was warned that the antivenom and initial envenomation may cause a lingering malaise, muscle weakness etc. etc. etc. but this is ridiculous. I feel like a complete moron and a weakling and it is depressing the hell out of me. I told my wife that I can't understand how the average person would want to live. Of course she didn't take too kindly to that statement as she is not so intelligent or strong herself with her dyslexia and degenerative joints but at least she has enough nous to know it and she gives it a red hot go getting everything done even with her pain and disabilities. She never gives up or uses her shortcomings as an excuse to be a lazy slob. She always tries her best. I may have been a little insensitive with that remark but she is the only person I have to talk to. The only problem in being stupid and weak is for those that have lost some of their mental and/or physical function. I'm sure being born that way is great and a paradise of blissful ignorance is their compensation. I have no such luck. I didn't even gain any super powers out of all this. Just dead taste buds, an addled brain and weakness. Oh and an interesting story to tell people.Whoopty Do.
All I want to do is get out into a creek and find some gold. My wife wouldn't even stop off at Daylesford on the way back from hospital to collect some paydirt. She collected my gear from the creek I got bitten in while I was in hospital as she knew I would be straight down there first chance I got to get it myself regardless of how sick I was. As soon as I got home I grabbed my unprocessed dirt from Sunday and panned it off. All I got was one tiny speck but it was chunky so I am keen to get back down there ASAP for another look. She won't give me the keys to the car and flat out refuses to drop me off somewhere for the day to do some panning even though I am sitting at home unable to work. I might as well go back to work as sitting here idle is driving me insane! I'm stuck here panning old tailings I have left lying around for gemstones but it's not good enough. I need to see some colour! I really am still very crook but I've got the fever bad. It's not like I even have found anything significant to make it all worthwhile but I don't care. This degenerate world has nothing for me. There is nothing left sacred for me in the world of man. Give me a creekbed and a pan and a pool of water. That's all I want, especially now as I can't even find joy in good food and quality alcoholic beverages. Imagine my frustration at smelling food and tasting nothing but bitterness and burning metal. Maybe I need to find a way to kill my olfactory sense too. I really did love fine wine, single malt and absinthe. I have no reason or desire to eat or drink anything. Even a cool draught of water is ruined. If I do not get my taste buds back soon I will go out looking for my old mate the black tiger snake or maybe a friendly brown. Somethings gotta give but I know things will only get worse. The good times are being crushed under the weight of the bad. We are all getting done over more and more every day and no one notices or cares. Soon I won't either.
After everything that's been happening lately along with the fact that since I have been employed full time we have less money than ever AND no time for prospecting I think I made the wrong choice. I should have stayed down the creek.
I hope all of you out there are having a better time of it than me. Stay safe and find all the gold you can carry.
