In the weeks preceding Christmas I joined Sam and Athina every Tuesday at The Drunken Poet in North Melbourne for their local pub quiz. It was a good little quiz, free to enter, 6 main rounds and 2 bonus rounds. Sam and Athina had been attending the quiz night for several weeks before I joined them and they had high expectations that I could bring 'The Ignorant Fools' out of their run of bad luck that saw them consistently end in last place. This worked to an extent, we never finished in last place when I joined the team, but we were still a long way from winning. After having a short break for Christmas Sam was determined that 2013 would see a change in the fortune of 'The Ignorant Fools' but Athina, having a more competitive nature, decided she had had enough of losing and didn't want to return to The Drunken Poet. Last weekend they dropped by so that I could certify some documents for Sam and we had a quick game of Risk while they were there. It was during this game, once again exposing Athina's competitive side, that we agreed that we would return to Trivia Tuesday after all.
I don't know if was the weather, a side effects of the isoniazid or just a busy day at work, but after our promise to restart the pub quiz at the weekend I felt far too tired to go out last Tuesday. Speaking of the isoniazid though I have now made it through my first week of treatment only another 35 to go.
Barnadi and I visited the house in Bundoora for another inspection this week, we had arranged a professional building and pest inspection that morning and are pleased to note the building seems structurally sound and termite free. The only problems of any significance that were found were the window frames which we had already spotted and the guttering which is not to big a problem to fix. Despite this good news we are now in a real dilemma as to what to do next, as the act of buying a house seems to be one big game. At first we were ready to put an offer in then and there, but the agents desire to get us to put our maximum in from the off, and no guarantee the vendor would even accept it gave us pause for thought. There is a lot of interest in the house, with at least 10 other groups passing through while we were there, and if we offer the maximum we can afford straight away, we have no room to maneuver if someone else decides they can offer more. There is also the risk that an early high offer may increase the vendors expectations of what they can get for the property. This leaves us with the option of waiting for the auction (even though we will not be in the country at the time) and getting Rae and Stuart to bid on our behalf. I really really love this house and I hate this uncertainty that comes from constantly having to second guess the actions of the vendor, agent and other potential buyers.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
The One
We started today with four more houses to look at, two in Bundoora and two in Reservoir. We left early and so we did a drive by of all the properties before we inspected any. During the drive by we instantly were able to remove two houses from our list of potentials. One of the houses in Bundoora backed onto the Northern ring road and despite the wall of trees, the noise from the traffic was unavoidable. The other house we scrapped from our list was in the north of Reservoir and was a little too far from anywhere to be practical.
This left us with two properties to inspect, an older house in Bundoora and a new modern townhouse in Reservoir. The Bundoora house was open first and we got there a little early so had plenty of time to explore the local surroundings including a nice walk up the Darebin creek. I instantly had a good feel about the Bundoora house, it is a three bedroom brick house surrounded by a well established garden. The house is raised and has a large underfloor storage area (a good breeding space for snakes and spiders I am sure) which will be useful. There were only two negatives I could detect, a cracked window pane in the front and a mark on the wall indicative of damp in one of the bedrooms.
The second house in Reservoir was really a unit, but on land divided in such a way that it escapes the restrictions imposed by a body cooperate. The location was good being near the station and Edwardes street, but as with all these modern builds the living area is far too small to be practical, and despite Barnadi's enthusiasm for a modern clean lifestyle I can't help feeling they are soulless.
We decided the Bundoora house would defiantly suit our lifestyle better, but we are at a distinct disadvantage as we will be away when the auction is on. Our plan is to put an offer in before we go away. If an offer is not accepted then we will nominate our friends Rae and Stuart to go to the auction by proxy. We are feeling quite positive however as we have just had a mortgage pre-approval amount increased, so we have more flexibility than before. Either way before we make any kind of offer we need to get a building inspector to have a look at the place and insure it is still structurally sound.
Feeling quite excited after our mornings exploits we drove up to visit Rae and Stuart for lunch and share with them our plans. The weather today was much cooler than it had been and so Rae and Stuart had managed to go back to their home in St Andrews an area that has seen more than its fair share of tragedy from bush fires. They have not had rain out there in over two months and the usual lush green landscape has turned to a burnt yellow, the dried out brittle grass crunching underfoot. Bush fires have been raging all across the south and east of Australia as they do every summer, perhaps the most worrying though are those that have been deliberately started by arsonists who seem to get some sort of twisted kick out of causing such massive devastation, the term 'firebug' does nothing to express the pure evil of these individuals.
After dropping Barnadi off at work I then decided it was time to start running again, we weren't in a fit state to do the Melbourne half marathon last year despite our best intentions but we are much more settled now. Barnadi has already started running again so I needed to catch up. I managed a nice 5.93km run taking me along the Merri creek, I was quite proud of this as it has been nearly a year since I last went for a run. My legs were more than a little wobbly when I got home though.
I started my course of isoniazid last night, my liver function tests all came back normal and so there was nothing to hold me back. I'm pretty certain I can cope with 9 months of not drinking, it is after all nothing more than a pregnant woman has to go through and I don't even have to put up with having a baby at the end of it so there's a bonus.
This left us with two properties to inspect, an older house in Bundoora and a new modern townhouse in Reservoir. The Bundoora house was open first and we got there a little early so had plenty of time to explore the local surroundings including a nice walk up the Darebin creek. I instantly had a good feel about the Bundoora house, it is a three bedroom brick house surrounded by a well established garden. The house is raised and has a large underfloor storage area (a good breeding space for snakes and spiders I am sure) which will be useful. There were only two negatives I could detect, a cracked window pane in the front and a mark on the wall indicative of damp in one of the bedrooms.
The second house in Reservoir was really a unit, but on land divided in such a way that it escapes the restrictions imposed by a body cooperate. The location was good being near the station and Edwardes street, but as with all these modern builds the living area is far too small to be practical, and despite Barnadi's enthusiasm for a modern clean lifestyle I can't help feeling they are soulless.
We decided the Bundoora house would defiantly suit our lifestyle better, but we are at a distinct disadvantage as we will be away when the auction is on. Our plan is to put an offer in before we go away. If an offer is not accepted then we will nominate our friends Rae and Stuart to go to the auction by proxy. We are feeling quite positive however as we have just had a mortgage pre-approval amount increased, so we have more flexibility than before. Either way before we make any kind of offer we need to get a building inspector to have a look at the place and insure it is still structurally sound.
Feeling quite excited after our mornings exploits we drove up to visit Rae and Stuart for lunch and share with them our plans. The weather today was much cooler than it had been and so Rae and Stuart had managed to go back to their home in St Andrews an area that has seen more than its fair share of tragedy from bush fires. They have not had rain out there in over two months and the usual lush green landscape has turned to a burnt yellow, the dried out brittle grass crunching underfoot. Bush fires have been raging all across the south and east of Australia as they do every summer, perhaps the most worrying though are those that have been deliberately started by arsonists who seem to get some sort of twisted kick out of causing such massive devastation, the term 'firebug' does nothing to express the pure evil of these individuals.
After dropping Barnadi off at work I then decided it was time to start running again, we weren't in a fit state to do the Melbourne half marathon last year despite our best intentions but we are much more settled now. Barnadi has already started running again so I needed to catch up. I managed a nice 5.93km run taking me along the Merri creek, I was quite proud of this as it has been nearly a year since I last went for a run. My legs were more than a little wobbly when I got home though.
I started my course of isoniazid last night, my liver function tests all came back normal and so there was nothing to hold me back. I'm pretty certain I can cope with 9 months of not drinking, it is after all nothing more than a pregnant woman has to go through and I don't even have to put up with having a baby at the end of it so there's a bonus.
Monday, January 7, 2013
To Be Confirmed (TBC)
I had my appointment with the infectious diseases doctor in the staff clinic at the Alfred hospital today. So it is now pretty certain that I have Latent TB and after spending the last couple of weeks weighing up the pros and cons of treatment I have made my decision.
Someone with latent TB has a 5-10% chance of developing active TB, also if in later life you become immunosuppressed (i.e. go on chemotherapy) the risk of developing active TB increases dramatically. So the treatment is 9 months with a drug called isoniazid, which gives you approximatly a 90% chance of complete eradication of the mycobacterium. It does not give you any grantee however that you wont pick up the mycobacterium again later in life, and as you already have antibodies from the first exposure, it would be impossible to tell if this happened unless you later went on to develop full blown TB.
Isoniazid is an antibacterial that works directly on the mycobacteriums ability to build a cell wall, it therefore can kill all actively dividing mycobacterium and inhibits the growth of resting bacteria. Unfortunately it has the potential to cause less desirable effects as do all medicines. The most important potential side effect of isoniazid is liver toxicity, 10-20% of people treated with isoniazid will see some rise in liver transaminases within the first few months of treatment but this usually resolves on continued treatment with the drug, it is the more series drug induced hepatitis that is more of a worry, the risk is age related and the older you are when you start treatment the higher your risk. The second big potential adverse effect from isoniazid is peripheral neuropathy, but the risk of this is dramatically reduced by taking it with Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine). Other adverse effects include drowsiness, loss of concentration, changes in vision and acne like skin reactions, to name a few.
Despite all of this I have decided to go ahead with the treatment. Before I can start they have to do a test of my baseline liver function so that any changes in liver function can be measured and assessed. I think I am more worried about the liver function test (LFT) than I am about the prospect of 9 months treatment with isoniazid, after all I do enjoy a nice glass of wine, or pint of beer, or gin every now and again. With Christmas and new year in the not to distant past I would not be surprised if I had a raised GGT! Because I have to what for the results from my LFTs I wont pick up my script until next week, that means one more week in which I am allowed to drink alcohol before 9 months of abstinence.
Yesterday we had the depressing job of taking down all our Christmas decorations, and so our first Christmas in Australia is over, although one final little Christmas present to ourselves arrived in the post today. A photobook containing a collection of some of our best photos from 2012 which I created online after getting a special offer from groupon. A lot of the photo's in the book, you will find in this blog. I really do think photobooks are the best way of getting digital photos developed and have a much better professional finish than old fashioned albums.
Someone with latent TB has a 5-10% chance of developing active TB, also if in later life you become immunosuppressed (i.e. go on chemotherapy) the risk of developing active TB increases dramatically. So the treatment is 9 months with a drug called isoniazid, which gives you approximatly a 90% chance of complete eradication of the mycobacterium. It does not give you any grantee however that you wont pick up the mycobacterium again later in life, and as you already have antibodies from the first exposure, it would be impossible to tell if this happened unless you later went on to develop full blown TB.
Isoniazid is an antibacterial that works directly on the mycobacteriums ability to build a cell wall, it therefore can kill all actively dividing mycobacterium and inhibits the growth of resting bacteria. Unfortunately it has the potential to cause less desirable effects as do all medicines. The most important potential side effect of isoniazid is liver toxicity, 10-20% of people treated with isoniazid will see some rise in liver transaminases within the first few months of treatment but this usually resolves on continued treatment with the drug, it is the more series drug induced hepatitis that is more of a worry, the risk is age related and the older you are when you start treatment the higher your risk. The second big potential adverse effect from isoniazid is peripheral neuropathy, but the risk of this is dramatically reduced by taking it with Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine). Other adverse effects include drowsiness, loss of concentration, changes in vision and acne like skin reactions, to name a few.
Despite all of this I have decided to go ahead with the treatment. Before I can start they have to do a test of my baseline liver function so that any changes in liver function can be measured and assessed. I think I am more worried about the liver function test (LFT) than I am about the prospect of 9 months treatment with isoniazid, after all I do enjoy a nice glass of wine, or pint of beer, or gin every now and again. With Christmas and new year in the not to distant past I would not be surprised if I had a raised GGT! Because I have to what for the results from my LFTs I wont pick up my script until next week, that means one more week in which I am allowed to drink alcohol before 9 months of abstinence.
Yesterday we had the depressing job of taking down all our Christmas decorations, and so our first Christmas in Australia is over, although one final little Christmas present to ourselves arrived in the post today. A photobook containing a collection of some of our best photos from 2012 which I created online after getting a special offer from groupon. A lot of the photo's in the book, you will find in this blog. I really do think photobooks are the best way of getting digital photos developed and have a much better professional finish than old fashioned albums.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Happy New Year
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| Scratched car |
On new years eve Barnadi was working at the restaurant, so despite a last minute invitation to join some of the pharmacists from work at a party in the docklands, a prime fireworks viewing spot, I went instead to Bundoora to join Barnadi. The last of the customers had cleared out by about 11 o'clock and so we headed over to Bundoora park and the highest point within Melbourne to watch the fireworks over the CBD. We were not alone and the atmosphere was very festive so I do not regret my decision to forgo seeing the fireworks from within the city (even if the photo's didn't come out so well).
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| Barnadi enjoying the fireworks |
In a start to the new year we took a drive up to Barnadi's friend Doug in Mangalore (a small rural village just north of Seymour). The last time we met Doug and his wife was in 2005, so a visit was well overdue. The hot dry weather of the past couple of weeks has seen a dramatic change to the landscape, with all the greens disappearing into a burnt yellow. The fire risk has also changed and warning signs on the way out to Mangalore revealed a yellow status, the highest fire risk level since we moved here. On arrival we had lunch outside on the BBQ, but had to move inside when we got to hot. Needless to say with 7 years to catch up on conversation continued to flow for many hours before it was time to head back down the Hume freeway and home.
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| Doug's bus in Mangalore |
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