Down-at-heel among the - Page 5
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 15: Divided Nation
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Peter Meredith
PENNY, 29: I have osteoporosis and the bone density of an eighty-three-year-old. And I was told the other day I have no kidneys left.
When I was ten years old a doctor found I had Fanconi Syndrome [a kidney condition that can affect bones] and said I had brittle bones, which is why I've had lots
of breaks. I've broken this wrist four times, this twice, my ribs, my knee, my ankle, my thigh, my hip, my big toe. But that's life. Shit goes on.
I'm on peritoneal dialysis, which means I've got this tube permanently sticking out of my belly and it plugs into that machine at night and it runs for eight hours while I sleep. I work, you see, and I don't have time to do that shit at any other time of day. It's a big hassle for me to have kidney failure at the moment.
If I didn't do dialysis I would die in two days. I'd kind of welcome death, but it doesn't ever seem to want to take me, so it's not an issue for me.
I found out today I'll be able to get one of my brother's kidneys by February, which is a bit daunting. A new kidney will mean I won't be attached to that machine any more but my bones won't improve.
I have bipolar so you'll have to stop me if I go on a bit.
I had a religious upbringing in Canberra – my parents were Mormons – and I was very sheltered and very naïve. My dad left my mum when I was twelve. My mum married again when I was thirteen and they went on a honeymoon and the shit started after they came back. I remember the first time it happened. My mother's new husband ripped us all out of bed in the middle of the night. I have two stepsisters and there was my brother. My mother's husband lined us up and said that apparently we'd seen his naked bum or something, and he lectured us for hours. Then he ripped me out of the line and flogged me until I fell on the ground. Then he picked me up and shoved me back in the line and I had to wait until everyone else had their turn.
When I was fifteen I couldn't take it any more. I left school in the first week of the first term of year ten and stayed with a friend for several months and moved out when I was sixteen. I'd had sex with two people by then and when I was fifteen I fell pregnant and miscarried. I never went to the hospital and it was a pretty fuckin' horrible experience.
After that I didn't have sex with boys but I got real hardcore into the alcohol and pot. I didn't get into speed till I was seventeen or into relationships really till I was seventeen and a half. By that time I was on a disability pension for my osteo and my kidney problems.
I met Jed after my nonna set me up in a flat with a friend of mine. He was dealing speed and that's when I started getting into speed. The others would put the needles in my arm because I'd never learnt how to do that. I ended up having sex with him and after three months I fell pregnant with my son.
When I told him I was pregnant, he said I had to quit speed, alcohol and cigarettes but could smoke as much pot as I wanted. I argued with him about it and then he slapped me about the face and hit me again and again. That's when it began. He broke this wrist, my ribs, nicked my neck with a knife, gave me black eyes, pulled my hair out so I thought I was going to go bald.
I left him when my son was eighteen months old and I came up to the Highlands, stayed with a friend and then was in a refuge for about six months until my nonna organised for her church to pay for the bond on a flat. I'd go down to Canberra once a month to visit my doctor for my kidneys and on one of those visits I met up with a friend of my brother's. He promised me everything, white picket fence, everything I wanted. Being stupid and naïve and lacking in self-esteem – I'm a lot stronger and more hardcore now – I believed him. I got pregnant and when I was six months pregnant I found him shooting up in the bathroom and I told him I would leave him if he continued it. Well, he continued it and then got into the alcohol and gambling.
I have to tell you I never wanted to have two kids on my own but I promised myself I would never be with a man who was an alcoholic or a druggo ever again. He never laid a hand on me, but I left and moved in with a friend. I had my daughter when I was twenty-three.
I don't have any family up here, or friends. I had friends here once, but I got into the alcohol and the pot real bad, so when I moved into this flat two years ago I cleaned myself up. This place is subsidised by the Housing Commission but because I work – part-time as a youth worker – I'm paying $200 dollars a week rent.
I did a welfare course at TAFE part-time for two years at night and I graduated in March 2005 with six distinctions, five credits and the rest were passes. I'm so proud of myself. And I'm very fuckin' proud to be a working woman.
I'm as well off now as when I was on benefits. The only thing that's changed is that when I was on benefits I only had $50 a week for food for the three of us and now I have $100.
My daughter's six and my son's eleven. People are that snobby and stuck up themselves here that as soon as they find out I'm a single parent or that I'm the mother of my kids, my kids don't get invited to other people's houses. I write notes inviting other kids to play with my daughter but no one ever replies.
I have a ten-year plan which is now seven years gone. I want to live on a hobby farm, just half an acre, in a rundown house, with my kids and one sheep, one chook and one duck. I want my kids to have friends so that on weekends they can go over to their friends' place and can come home and tell me all the fun things they did. I want their friends to come here so that I can show them that even though I'm a single mum, I'm not that bad a person and I still have a normal life. I want my son to be happy every day at school and not be bullied. I want my daughter not to be bullied by kids who pick on other kids because they're short. I want my son to grow up into a really, really, really good man and I want him to appreciate things. I never ever want my kids to complain that they were hard done by in life. I grew up in a povo household and I never got spoiled. I never got anything and I had to work damn fuckin' hard for it. I want my kids to grow up with the same respect that I have. I want them to appreciate people from different walks of life. I don't want them to ever discriminate. I don't want them to be arseholes and I don't want them to take shit. I want them to stand up for themselves and not get walked all over like I did a lot of my life. I don't give a fuck what happens to me in my life, but I just want the best for them. And most of all I wish this stupid Southern Highlands would pull its finger out and realise that there are people here like me and that we're not bad because we don't have money and can't afford big fancy flash cars and can't afford to eat out at fancy restaurants every night. We're normal people and I'm damn sure we have bigger hearts than them, because we know what it's like to suffer.
That's what I want. ♦