2008 Christmas Adventures

Like always, our 2008 Christmas was a veritable smorgasboard of family gatherings. In Sydney, Wollongong, Campbelltown and Canberra we stuffed ourselves with Christmas food and had a great time catching up with family and friends.

In the spirit of the season I have summed up our visit to the tune of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'....feel free to sing-a-long........

On the first day of Christmas my Family gave to me a random Christmas party.

On the second day of Christmas my Family gave to me, two shots of coffee and a random Christmas party.

On the third day of Christmas my Family gave to me, three hundred dollars, two shots of coffee and a random Christmas party

On the fourth day of Christmas my Family gave to me, four bath products, three hundred dollars, two shots of coffee and a random Christmas party

On the fifth day of Christmas my Family gave to me, a giant Christmas Ham, four bath products, three hundred dollars, two shots of coffee and a random Christmas party

On the sixth day of Christmas my Family gave to me, six cupcake holders, a giant Christmas Ham, four bath products, three hundred dollars, two shots of coffee and a random Christmas party

On the seventh day of Christmas my Family gave to me, seven DVDs, six cupcake holders, a giant Christmas Ham, four bath products, three hundred dollars, two shots of coffee and a random Christmas party

On the eighth day of Christmas my Family gave to me, eight “dad jokes”, seven DVDs, six cupcake holders, a giant Christmas Ham, four bath products, three hundred dollars, two shots of coffee and a random Christmas party

On the ninth day of Christmas my Family gave to me, nine games of Smart Arse, eight “dad jokes”, seven DVDs, six cupcake holders, a giant Christmas Ham, four bath products, three hundred dollars, two shots of coffee and a random Christmas party

On the tenth day of Christmas my Family gave to me, ten days of eating, nine games of Smart Arse, eight “dad jokes”, seven DVDs, six cupcake holders, a giant Christmas Ham, four bath products, three hundred dollars, two shots of coffee and a random Christmas party

On the eleventh day of Christmas my Family gave to me, eleven tiger prawns, ten days of eating, nine games of Smart Arse, eight “dad jokes”, seven DVDs, six cupcake holders, a giant Christmas Ham, four bath products, three hundred dollars, two shots of coffee and a random Christmas party

On the twelfth day of Christmas my Family gave to me, twelve boxes of chocolate, eleven tiger prawns, ten days of eating, nine games of Smart Arse, eight “dad jokes”, seven DVDs, six cupcake holders, a giant Christmas Ham, four bath products, three hundred dollars, two shots of coffee and a random Christmas party!

Merry Christmas from Hol n Al

A belated post of our 2008 Cheesy Christmas Letter

At first glance, it would appear that 2008 has been a fairly uneventful year for Holnal. We didn’t move to a remote place or go on overseas adventures. We led, what we would call, a fairly normal existence in 2008. However, on second glance it is clear – we can never call our lives ‘normal’.

In 2008 we completed and graduated from study:
Both Allan and Holly graduated from long periods of study in 2008. Holly finished up her Bachelor of Arts (English) in 2007 and graduated from the University of New England in April. Dad and Allan were on-hand to witness this auspicious occasion and revel in the strange temperatures of Armidale in autumn. Allan completed all of his ATPL (Airline Transport Pilots License) exams in 2008, after several years of self-paced study. This was the final piece of the puzzle in his aviation qualification, making him eligible to apply for positions with airlines.

Both of us can safely say that we won’t be undertaking any further study in the immediate future!

In 2008 we changed jobs:
At the end of 2007 Holly was saved from ‘the chop’ in the Rio takeover of Alcan by the offer of a fly-in-fly-out contract to Gove. The role was the same one she had previously undertaken in Gove, so there were no problems stepping back into the fray! After almost 6 months of spending one week in Brisbane, one week in Gove, the novelty was beginning to wear off. In July, Holly left Rio Tinto Alcan for the bright lights of the Gold industry taking up a position as Internal Communications Manager for LGL (Lihir Gold Limited). This was a tough decision as it meant leaving Gove (again!) but was made easier by the fact that LGL was offering a permanent position, something Rio was not prepared to do. Now after almost 6 months in the job Holly has been to the Papua New Guinean operations 4 times and been underground at the Ballarat operation.

Allan also changed jobs – in a way – progressing from flying the Navajo and Chieftains to the King Air. Although with the same company, the King Air is a turbo prop, pressurised cabin, aircraft, one more notch up the ladder towards a 747! He has about 75 hours in the new plane already and continues to fly the Navajo’s when required. Now that the study is out of the way and his experience is growing it was time to take the leap of faith (literally) and put in applications at the major airlines. Applications for Qantas, Virgin Blue and Jetstar have been submitted but no response as yet. With the ‘financial crisis’ looming its not looking good but we know that God can work a miracle in any situation.

In 2008 we moved house:
For those of you that visited our little flat in Milton, you will recollect with fondness the roaring of B-Doubles past our door, the trains and the noise from Suncorp Stadium. Despite these memories we decided to move to somewhere larger and closer to the airport at the end of our lease in March. The rental market being what it is we got knocked back for several places before finally finding a nice (aka small), tidy (aka nothing’s falling apart) and well-positioned (aka train line is practically over the back fence) house in the suburb of Nundah. Its only 10 minutes from the airport and close to the shops and public transport – what more could we need! Unfortunately about 3 weeks after we moved in, our industrious landlord decided to remove the four very large trees in our substantial backyard turning it into a suburban wasteland. Since then we have spent our weekends ‘planting things’ in an effort to make the house look less dodgy.

Hotel De Rooy is in full swing with a number of visitors this year including Al’s brother, Al’s aunt and uncle from Bundaberg, Holly’s Dad and his partner and most recently Holly sister Astrid, her husband Chris and the ‘baby bump’.

In September, our new house was the subject of a robbery. The story of the events has now been dubbed ‘The Dumbest Criminal in the World’, due to the fact that the two young offenders were not only caught by Allan in broad daylight walking down our street with all our stuff, but also the fact that one of them left a whopping big hand print on our dining room table after climbing in the window. The print was so good, that the police forensics team didn’t have to dust any other surfaces. Thankfully we got all our possessions back and nothing was damaged.

In 2008 we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary:
Yes, its been four years. This year we celebrated with a fantastic meal at Bretts Wharf (thank you to Jacqueline our waitress!). We talked about the last 12 months of marriage and what we thought the next year held for us. Like some people make new year’s resolutions, we made some resolutions about our marriage and what the future held for us.

So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year - May all your 2009 dreams come true!

I was blind but now I see

Here is the blog about my laser eye surgery experience. It comes in three parts: The Day Before, The Day Of and The Day After. Enjoy!

The Day Before
When my alarm went off this morning I was awake immediately. There was no ‘snoozing’ the alarm, or rolling over and snuggling next to Allan, denying the reality that I had to get out of bed and go to work. No, today I was up (and atom) faster than you could say “Laser Eye Surgery”.

Today was the beginning of the rest of my life.

This afternoon I would head to the Australian Eye Institute in North Sydney to undergo an assessment before having my vision corrected by Laser Eye Surgery on Friday. I have experienced severe myopia (short-sightedness) and astigmatism (I have no idea what this is?) for 21 years of my life. After indulging in some ‘groovy’ 80’s style glasses as a youngster I moved onto contact lenses before my eyes were physically ready just for the convenience of being glasses-free. Well, not just for the convenience, but also to avoid the stigma that came with wearing glasses as a child. Branded either a nerd or four-eyes, I was teased like any other child that suffers from bad eyesight. But enough of the sob story, today all that changes.

There are a few things that I am going to do once I am glasses free…..I am going to buy a decent pair of sunglasses, I’ve never had a really good pair that weren’t prescription. I’m headed to Wet’n’Wild to go on all the waterslides. I have always avoided waterslides because either I have to go on without glasses and can’t see where the hell I am going, or I go with contact lenses and hope to God I don’t loose one in the pool at the end. More water sports – I’m going to go snorkelling, I might actually be able to see the fish properly now! AND finally, I’m going back to ballet. I haven’t been for the last few months as I get too frustrated trying to dance in my glasses.

My assessment with Dr Bittener went well. No surprises there. They told me that my eyesight, particularly in my left eye, was considered high myopia (well, duh) and that I may expect to have a longer healing process and the possibility of regression (eye sight getting bad again) in that eye. I am believing in faith that this won’t happen and I will have quick recovery and no regression will occur.

The Day Of
And so it’s Friday morning. I barely slept last night – I kept dreaming about the surgery and getting butterflies in my stomach. I’m going to have breakfast with Mo-pants this morning before heading over the North Sydney. I am booked in at 11:30am and all up I could be there for around two hours. The procedure only takes about 7-10 minutes per eye. The laser correction may only be 30 seconds of that time. It’s hard to think that it takes only 20 minutes to fix what for 21 years of my life I have been struggling with. Like so many others who have had the surgery, I am beginning to think “Why didn’t I do this earlier!”

Thanks to Sydney traffic (and a yummy breakfast at Cinque in Newtown) I was running about 10 minutes late for my appointment. After handing over the $2500, they gave me valium to calm me down. For most people it’s because they’re nervous, for me it was because I was hyperactive with excitement. About 5 minutes later I was taken into the surgical suite. I put on a hair net and shoe covers and was told to wait. After what seemed an eternity, the Doctor’s assistant came out and placed anaesthetic eye drops in my eyes….yay no needles.


From there I was escorted into the operating suite. I lay down on the bed and Dr Bittener began the procedure on my right eye. He explained each step before he did it. First he put a patch over my left eye and then clear tape over my right eye. After cutting an incision in the tape he placed a clamp over my eye that forced my eyelids open. From there he tested my eye to ensure that the anaesthetic had worked. Then came the worst part - he placed a surgical instrument down on my eye to make the incision in the corneal flap. This was the most painful part of the whole procedure and it was more uncomfortable than painful. From there he lifted the corneal flap back to expose the cornea. I could actually see him do this which was really bizarre. Then it was time for the actual laser correction. It lasted all of about a minute and Dr Bittner gave me updates the whole way through, like ‘we’re 1/3 of the way now etc.

Once finished he re-laid the corneal flap in placed and put water in my eye to help seal it back into place. He then waited for two minutes before going to the left eye. The left eye was much more painful than the right and as such I have a small amount of haemorrhaging on my eye ball. Once the left eye was complete he asked me to sit up and read the clock on the wall. I told him it was 12:40pm and then started to cry because it was the first time I’d been able to read a clock that far away for as long as I could remember.


Another assistant then took me into a dark room where I relaxed for 5-10 minutes. He then explained all the do’s and don’t following my procedure including when I had to use my eyes drops and the fact that I wasn’t allowed to wear eye make-up for five days.
And that was it….in one hour my sight was restored.

Mum then took me to the hotel where I proceeded to shut all the blinds turn off all the lights and hide in the dark for the next 2-3 hours. I was actually in more pain ½ hour after the procedure than directly after it. It took a good 2-3 hours before my eyes stopped watering profusely and no longer felt like someone had thrown sand in my eyes.

At about 5pm I managed to watch some news on TV with sunglasses on and a sarong over my head. I was laughing like a little kid in the ad breaks as I could read all the text on the TV screen! Later that night Mum took me downstairs to the hotel restaurant for dinner. I look so pretentious with my dark glasses on at night, but a quick explanation to the waitress set things right.


The Day After
7:30am the day after and I was back at the surgery for my post-op check up. Dr Binetter was extremely pleased with my right eye – it had progressed better than expected. My left eye was doing well, not as fast a recovery time but that is due to the fact that it had a higher prescription in the first place. All in all I was a model patient.

Mum and I then went back to the hotel for a lazy morning with coffee and the Saturday Herald (ah, I love the SMH). Before we left North Sydney for the southern suburbs I made Mum drive back down to McMahon’s point where I had taken a photo the day before. I wanted an ‘after’ shot.

By the end of the ‘Day After’ I was getting a little tired and light was still sensitive, but I was so excited still. I was getting ready for bed at Ast & Chris’ and after getting into bed I go back up and went into the bathroom preparing to take my contact lenses out. Once I got into the bathroom I realised ‘Hang on! I don’t have contacts in, I can just see!’ It still hadn’t sunk in that I didn’t have to wear glasses any more.

And…almost one week later it still hasn’t. Every night I have to remind myself as I turn off the TV and go to sleep that I don’t have to get up and take my contact lenses out. I can just see now.

I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind but now I see.

And my eyes were opened

Only two days to go until I can see again....well I can see now, but not well. At the moment, without glasses I can barely see 20cm in front of my face, let alone anything at a distance.

For 21 years of my life I have worn glasses. Some of them (looking back) were not the most attractive style in the world but let me tell you they were cool in the 80's (about as cool as hypercolour t-shirts, scrunchy socks and crimped hair!) I remember a pair that looked a bit like Harry Potter's glasses, boy was I ahead of my time. Either that or I belonged in a fantasy novel?

As of Friday afternoon, I will no longer require this fashion accessory (Praise God!) until I am old and decrepit and get 'age deterioration' in my eyesight. God willing that will be a few years yet!

So next time you see me, I will be looking at you with new eyes. I wonder if they can change the colour too while they're poking around?