Health Care

In general, neither Ben and I have much experience for doctors, and therefore lack much of an understanding about how the system (or the insurance) works. Having been students for the better part of our adult lives (and foregoing all medical attention when we weren’t students), the bulk of our medical experience has been with the infamous school health centres, where they take your temperature, give you a pregnancy test (gender doesn’t matter), and send you on your way. Therefore, it’s hard for us to draw too many comparisons between the health care systems there and here. Australia has publicly funded universal health care, so it is MUCH more affordable (although since health care costs are higher in the US than any other nation, I guess that doesn't say much). Australia also ranks higher than the US on WHO's health system ranking. However, after some recent experience with the health care system here, we aren’t that impressed.

As a requirement for her new job, Kerry had to get a “general workplace medical” – which is apparently quite common here. Maybe that’s common in the US, too, but since I’ve never had a real job there, I wouldn’t know. I showed up for the appointment, and the nurse’s checklist didn’t match the Zoo’s faxed checklist, so she spent half an hour saying “What should we do – I don’t know – let’s do a urine test, that’s pretty common. Sure, we’ll do a colour vision test, too.” Once she was happy with the number of boxes she checked (regardless of which list they were on) she passed me on to the doctor, where I stood on one foot, touched my toes, and received her seal of approval. But the other major requirement for the job is to get a TB test – simple, right? No. Only government-operated chest clinics are allowed to give the skin prick test, and there are only 5 or so in Sydney. Furthermore, the clinics are only open for ~2 hours a day. Consequently, there is a 4-8 week waiting list at most clinics – for a skin prick test! So maybe it’s more affordable, but it doesn’t seem to be more efficient!

Ben actually had a medical issue that needed attention, and the jury is still out as to whether the Purdue Health Centre or the Macquarie Health Centre was less helpful. Some of you may remember when Ben got an intestinal parasite in the summer of 2007 (when Kerry abandoned him to do lynx stuff), and the potentially-comedic-if-he-weren’t-dying situation that it led to. [For those of you who missed out, after 3 weeks during which his GI tract refused to tolerate any outside substances (food, water, etc.) he took himself to the health centre, where, once the doctor finally looked at him, they realized it must be something serious and took every action to help him. They pumped him full of fluids to get him rehydrated, and then did all kinds of tests, including an x-ray. Some spot showed up in the x-ray, which led to this awkward conversation in which the nurse asked Ben if he had any piercings that he neglected to remove, or if he had forgotten about being shot and maybe there was shrapnel in his abdomen (since things like that are so forgettable). In their over-zealous quest to fix him, they latched onto this spot, even though it was unlikely to be related to the problem, and they sent him to the hospital (in an ambulance) where he could get a CT scan that may help reveal what the spot was. Once the scan was finished at 4:45, he was informed that the radiologist was gone for the day and the scan wouldn’t be read until tomorrow, so he was free to leave. Remember, thanks to the ambulance, the car was ~4 miles away. The nurse kindly pointed Ben to the wrong bus stop, and as Ben sat there watching his bus drive right by, he decided just to walk back to campus. On a hot summer day. Sweating out the many dollars worth of fluids he had just received. A few days (and a few thousand dollars) later the doctor decided maybe it was giardia (although that was the one thing they didn’t test for, so there was no way of knowing for sure), and gave Ben an anti-protozoan which seemed to do the trick.]

So now, a similar parasite seems to be back, wrecking havoc on Ben’s body (but at least Kerry was around this time to help). Rather than waiting 3 weeks, we decided to visit the doctor sooner, and luckily, he got right in. They didn’t take his temp (even though he’d been feverish), they didn’t listen to his suggestion that it may be a protozoan – they just gave him the standard issue antibiotic and some anti-nausea pills. So again, Oz wins the cost contest hands-down, but we're not convinced the quality of the care was any better. Oh, the joys!

Fruit of the day: Rambutan

Rambutans are another fruit in that longan/lychee group. They're another step bigger and another step sweeter - quite delicious in our opinion! Plus, their skin is so cool!

CISAB Christmas Party

This actually took place the night before we left on our trip, but since it's Christmas related, figured I could post it now.
Every year, CISAB (Ben's department) throws these great Christmas parties. They are catered (with excellent food!), alcohol is provided, there's ice cream for dessert, and there's an organized Kris Kringle gift-swap ($5 limit). I think everyone's brain was a little fried - I'd be surprised if anyone was that drunk - but the $5 Kris Kringle gifts and the plastic toys in the Christmas crackers proved to be an endless source of amusement for us. Most of it revolved around decorating each other's heads. All in all, it was a really fun night and a great way to relax together.

Christmas Day with the Harveys

Our wonderful neighbors, despite have a total of 15 siblings, happened to be celebrating Christmas at home by themselves this year. So they adopted us, and - although the original plan was just to go over for a light lunch - we pretty much spent the whole day there - it was great! It was a beautiful sunny day, but not too hot, so we hung out on their back porch and ate and laughed - just what you should be doing on Christmas.

We started with a big pancake breakfast at 11:00 - they made pancakes, we made pancakes - there were pancakes everywhere! We brought some fruit confits made from native Australian fruits, of which they had never heard. We also brought some "brandy custard," which we discovered next to the egg nog and decided we should try (it tastes pretty much like vanilla pudding, in my opinion). After Round 1 of stuffing our faces, we took a break for naps/walks/etc.

Then Round 2 began at 5:00. They had prawns and oysters for appetizers, and we brought 2 bottles of wine that we got on our trip, so we had a little wine tasting.

Playing in the club house between stuffing our faces

Ann decided we'd be her guinea pigs for dinner, so she made snapper 3 different ways: thai-style, panfried with mango chutney, and lettuce-wrapped on the grill. They all tasted wonderful - we couldn't decide what our favourite was. Rob said his brother declared him a "lousy poof" for having a fancy, Sydney-style seafood dinner rather than the traditional meat and potatoes. But we enjoyed it! And Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Christmas crackers - these wonderful 'exploding' tubes filled with a plastic toy, a paper crown, and a joke.



There was also an enthusiastic family sing-along when Slim Dusty's music started playing - Ben and I even knew one of the songs! In this pic, the song is about a mighty footy (rugby) player, so they're all flexing their muscles accordingly. Eliza, being her father's daughter, was certainly the most enthusiastic about this footy star.

We ended the night with some of Ann's terrific homemade pavlova and a game of Scrabble. However, with 3 math/engineering brains and 1 tired brain, there weren't that many impressive words on the board - we thought we were doing good when we got 4 letter words, and eventually started allowing 2 letter words and letter-swapping.

Happy Christmas, from the land down under!!

Most people here say "Happy" rather than "Merry," so:
Happy Christmas to you, from the Fansons on the bottom of the world!! We miss all of you lots, and hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year.

(... and here's what we look like from our point of view, rather than a Northern hemisphere point of view)

Ani says "Merry Christmas, OK?!? Now let me eat my rawhide!!"

We're dreaming of a purple Christmas

Remember the jacaranda trees? Remember how many millions of purple flowers there were on each tree? Now all those purple flowers are making their way to the ground, and they look really cool (except on the sidewalks where they get trampled and turn brown). Underneath each tree looks like a little purple-snow globe scene. Who needs snow for Christmas!?! Instead of reindeer and snow, we have kangaroos and jacaranda flowers!! And I hear snow is harder to shovel. (...sorry, I know I shouldn't rub it in...)

Christmas Trip to Victoria

We're home!!! We had an awesome trip down to Victoria and have mixed feelings about being home, but since we're back in touch with cyberspace the blog is now active again. Being a little intimidated about recapping 10 eventful days and uncertain if our blog can handle all the photos, I've decided it's time to introduce a new tool: Picasa. So you can get a verbal recap of the trip (with a few pics) here, and you can get a visual recap on Picasa (just click "Picasa" and you should get there).

We basically just worked our way along the coast, heading south then west, until finally we needed to head home. Here's a map of the route we took, more or less, with the little letter-bubbles indicating our campsites:

View Larger Map

We camped the whole time, which worked out really well with Ani - and we only had to pay one night! And it's just so nice having the kookaburras serenade you in the evening, watching the moon rise, knowing kangaroos are hopping around you. Since this was our Christmas trip, we decided it was only appropriate to have some Christmas decorations.

The weather was not quite what we were expecting. We had this vision of a warm, sunny, coastal trip - tank tops and shorts - never using the tent's rainfly. We shouldn't have been so naive - someone who lived in Melbourne for 10 years and Sydney for 5 told us that Melbourne is grey-er and rainy-er and just not nearly as sunny as Sydney. And indeed, we had various degrees of rain and wind for several days. We saw a weather report in a local newspaper that said "some showers then rain," followed by "rain then showers." And it never got very warm until we got away from the coast the last 2 days. So we ended up getting sun on our faces and our feet (walking barefoot on the beach), but everywhere else is still pretty white. Luckily, most of the rain was intermittent, the clouds made for nice sunsets, and the wind created some great waves, so the weather didn't interfere too much.

The wildlife was great. We saw a few black wallabies (one of the many kangaroo-like creatures, aka macropods, here), echidnas (the only egg-laying mammal other than platypuses), little (or fairy) penguins, emus, AND we saw our first koala!!! So I feel much more at ease with the title of our blog, now. Ani likes the kangaroos and seagulls the best - they're the most fun to chase.

We also saw some beautiful scenery. The Great Ocean Road drive (a stretch of coast west of Melbourne) has recently been voted the #1 thing to do in Victoria, and it was definitely stunning. But there were lots of pretty coastline views, plus waterfalls and rocky outcroppings and rolling hills - lots of great scenery.

And, since everyone needs to eat, we decided to incorporate as much local food as possible. Therefore, we stopped at dairies/cheese factories, fisherman co-ops, fruit stands, mustard makers, and wineries. We missed out on the olive groves and the pick-your-own blueberry farm, which was a bummer - just need to go back! We also enjoyed our fair share of coffee on the trip, flat whites to be specific, but I'll explain more about coffee in another blog entry. But it was a great way to warm up or get out of the rain or eavesdrop on local gossip in cozy little cafes.

The one most unexpected and disappointing adventure of the trip revolved around the camera. As you may have noticed, my prose is not exactly something to brag about, so I really depend on my camera for helping share our experiences with y'all (and to help us remember stuff, as our memories aren't what they used to be, for which we blame grad school). So, Day 4, after the pelican feeding, the camera battery died. No worries - we have the car converter-thing to charge the battery. But it doesn't want to work. So the next morning, we hit a mall, buy a plug adapter, and hang out in a cafe for 2 hours so we can charge the battery in an outlet there. Great! Then, no more than 1.5 hours later, the camera manages to fall out of Kerry's pocket on the beach. Again, it's all good - it's an empty beach and we can follow our footsteps back to the camera. To celebrate finding the camera, we take a happy photo of us - and when we turned the camera off, there was a painful grinding sound and the lens jammed. The camera - our wonderful new, blue camera, should still be under warrantee, but we need a camera NOW. So we head to the nearest little coastal town and buy a mini screwdriver kit, find another cafe to settle in, and begin the operation. But it doesn't work. The Olympus is beyond hope, I start to get the shakes from shutterbug withdrawl, and some of the prettiest coastline is yet to come - so we go in search of a disposable camera. We find one for AU$20 at the Post Office - yes, they sell everything. But right as we pay for it, we notice they also have digital cameras (including a respectable Canon) for AU$120, which is only like US$80, or something. So, we ended up with a new digital camera and proceeded to take 276 photos on it - way more than the 24 shot disposable. And the blue Olympus is at the doctor, now, hopefully getting fixed. The Olympus people here were wonderful. Keep your fingers crossed that the warrantee will cover it and that it's fixable, because even though we got a new camera, I still miss my blue Olympus!