The Barefoot Healer

flying above the QLD desert After a bare week or so at home, I'm back in the Outback again, this time purely because I need the money. Ongoing renovations in the hope of making my house into something i can either sell or rent out is proving to be more than my basic nurses salary can cover...but this time I am struggling to dig out my happy sense of adventure. There is a deep loneliness in traveling and working as a single woman..esp one in her mid 40's. Wherever you go you are surrounded by married couples and young single people who are the same age as your kids. And it's beginning to get to me. Anyway, back to the journey itself. It all started this time with a night in a hotel in Sydney. You see the nursing agency's travel booking people had decided that a flight to Brisbane at 6 in the morning was a good idea. now add to that needing to be there an hour before take off and a 1.5 hour train journey from home to the airport, and I would have had to get up at ...

view from the skybridge above the rainforest Well, I'm back on the trail again... recently in Dorrigo, in a quiet hospital in this gentile british town up in the mountains above Coffs Harbour. The agency had organized a flight from sydney to Coffs, and then a hire car for me to drive myself from the airport up to Dorrigo... my little chariot! I felt so...special, being handed the keys to an almost brand new car. OK, so it was just a little Toyota hatchback thingy, but I've never owned a new car...and to be honest, I'm still getting used to the lifestyle that is one step above single parents pension and not quite poverty any more...so the whole traveling on planes, staying in hotels and driving new hire cars is a pretty heady experience for this middle aged lass! Anyway, I got into my sparkly white carlet (having taken a few photos so I could prove that the scratches on the door were there before I got in) and drove off into the hills. The road to Dorrigo lead...

I've been thinking about it a lot lately... partly I suppose because I'm not very... My youngest has moved out a week ago, and to my surprise, I'm not happy. For 25 years I've looked foward to having my freedom back, no more sleepless nights, endless interruptions that stop me from creating the worlds missing masterpiece, the simple joys of sitting on the toilet without being disturbed... And now I've got it. And I'm feeling a tad lost. Suddenly I am facing the fact that I can do anything I want... Only problem is, I have no idea really what I want to do! Part of this is I think simply because for the last 25 years, I HAD to do things. Get up in the middle of the night and feed the baby, feed them, cloth them, stop them from poking snakes...and then get up and go to work to pay the bills and out food on the table. Now suddenly, I don't. Going away on adventures in the outback was wonderful when I was "getting away" for a bit...but n...

My first impression was of neatness and cleanliness. It's a real contrast to the previous community I was on. The yards aren't full of garbage, and theres even the odd bit of lawn and a decorative shrub or two! The people from the community are clean too, with neat brushed hair and clean clothes. Quite a contrast to the last two communities I've been to. And you get the feeling that people here feel a sense of pride..in themselves and their home. The clinic itself is spotless too. The manager here runs the place with a velvet gloved iron fist. Strong, but very caring. She knows every community member, who's related to who and exactly what’s going on with each and every person. And the community seems to love her back too! There's a driver and a community worker, who both double as cleaners too and mop the floors daily, and a young white receptionist who's pretty makeup and elaborative hairclips brighten the place up no end. The community worker is a...

Well, so far it's just been weird and unpredictable. Which I guess is how adventures are supposed to be. After the fiasco with NT health and the 3 changes to where I was actually going, I finally boarded a plane that they had leased just to fly me up to Lake Nash. I felt really special! Normally you see they only do things like that for doctors...but it seems there simply was no other way to get me there... So instead of the usual large airport with all the security I am used to, I got a taxi to a private hangar with a miniature waiting room and free tea and coffee instead of expensive shops. I was introduced personally to “my” pilot, a sweet young dark haired lad, who looked barely old enough to hold a licence. We clambered aboard the tiny little plane, with just a bit more room than your average landcruiser, and he began to go through the checklist, double checking everything with procedure book and fiddling with his instruments. When he got the green light over ...

Well, after a short stint back in suburbia during which my beautiful daughter gave birth to another delightful member of the Jones mob, I've run away to the outback again. This time to Lake Nash, which is North East of Alice, sort of. It took Central Australian Health 3 goes to decide where to actually send me. First I signed a contract to go to Lake Nash...then they rang me to ask if Id be willing to go to Hermansburg instead...then when I got to Alice on sunday I got another phone call late in the afternoon asking me to go to yet another place further away... Hermansburg had mobile access and a museum Id always wanted to go to so I said Id prefer to go to Hermansburg..soooo....I spent monday sitting in the RAHC office twiddling my thumbs and exchanging gossip with the delightful staff there waiting for the head honcho to come out of a meeting and share their decision as to where they actually wanted me. And it turned out to be here...which incidentally was the place they...

Full moon...last night I had a lovely campfire set up outside the unit so I could sit and contemplate the amazing huge full moon rising overhead...but of course, I was on call...and as soon as I had lit the fire, people turned up wanting to see me: "Sista! Hot baby!"..and indeed it was...poor little mite, a 2 year old with a fever over 39 C...and a nasty history of chronic lung infections, failure to thrive, low iron... I gave her a shot of antibiotics, some panadol, and went back to my fire...and prayed I had done the right thing in sending her home....evacuations at night are a nightmare....a one hour drive over the WA border to the night airstrip for starters.... Seems my thoughts were heard, cos she made it through the night and came back this morning still breathing. But I decided to no take any more chances, so I've been sitting in the clinic all morning waiting to hear from the Royal Flying Doctor service what time the plane will get to the local airstrip here (...