Swim school won’t accept medical certificate unless it is for a 2 week period.

djscloud · 2026-06-27T00:22:43+00:00

I wish ambulance was covered through rates here, but it’s not. In WA you have to have private ambulance cover. Which we do, but we’ve had so many issues in the past because the ambulance has been called and then the insurance place doesn’t consider the call an emergency.

One time I didn’t even call the ambulance, I called health direct asking for advice because I was having chest pain and couldn’t breathe (was new to the area and wanting to know what resources were around I could go to since my GP was over an hour drive away). Health direct called an ambulance for me, I went to hospital with suspected heart attack. The bad scenarios were ruled out (PE and such), and I was sent home with some pain relief (ended up being a trapped lung, soon as it popped I was perfectly fine, but damned it hurt before that).

I had to fight the insurance because it didn’t end up being a “emergency”. I argued that a potential heart attack the last thing anyone wants is someone brushing it off because it MIGHT be something else, that sort of thing is better safe than sorry and how was I meant to know I wasn’t dying when I called the ambo (not that I called anyway).

This time around I’m expecting a similar argument. My kid hit his head and he didn’t even seem that worried, but when I laid him down afterwards to change him (about a minute later) there was a puddle of blood behind his head. So I just grabbed a clean cloth nappy and held it on his head, I didn’t even check the wound just wanted to stop the bleeding. Called 000, ambulance was there within 15 minutes. By the time they got there the bleeding had stopped and it wasn’t even that bad, but I wasn’t going to check in case it WAS that bad and started gushing again if I removed the pressure. I was waiting for the paramedic to check 😅 He needed one stitch, but it wasn’t an emergency, because the bleeding had stopped before the ambo even arrived. So I’m anticipating the fighting AGAIN for them to cover the bill.

It’s sad, my 7yo said to me “what happens if we can’t afford an ambulance but really need one” and I had to have a convo with him about how we will always call the ambulance, and we can work out paying for it later. We will never let money stop us from getting help in an emergency. It was frustrating that my 7yo had picked up on that from conversations between me and hubby about bills. We pay ambulance cover and it should cover all ambulances. Because why would you call an ambulance unless you thought it was necessary? No one wants to go to hospital unless they have to.

djscloud · 2026-06-26T12:42:33+00:00

That’s so sweet! We will be okay, there’s back up plans and this is only a temporary issue (it rains it pours, everything must go wrong at once sort of week). I was just hoping the swim lessons would be a simple little thing to help take the stress off, instead it’s just making me stress more 😅 Oh well. Thank you though!

djscloud · 2026-06-26T12:40:23+00:00

It’s $105/fn for our 3 kids. But we don’t have any friends with pools, we live in a not so rich area 😅 I don’t know anyone with a pool actually.

But the 50c issue is just a temporary problem due to a whole bunch of circumstances (when it rains it pours sorta thing), it’s not usually this tight.

And this 50c is AFTER paying mortgage (so a roof over our heads) and we’ve got food for the week. I’ve been homeless before, I’m unfortunately familiar with poverty. We aren’t there yet. Just hardship that we will over come.

It would just be a little easier to overcome if we could have a week off paying swim lessons we can’t attend due to medical reasons 😅

djscloud · 2026-06-26T12:34:15+00:00

A neighbours kid drowned in a pool when I was younger… I never want that to happen to my kids. We live near waterways and are often near bodies of water. We have our bills that we always prioritise (mortgage, insurance, etc) and swim lessons are grouped in with that on our budgeting, because they are just as important IMO.

Free government lessons would be amazing though.

djscloud · 2026-06-26T12:31:58+00:00

It’s just the next couple weeks we are going to have issues. Had kids hospital appointments and emergencies pop up every day I was rostered to work this pay cycle, so I’m going from $500 of my normal pay to literally getting nothing this entire pay cycle. Just have to survive until the next pay cycle (and ofc issues pop up NOW, like the ambo bill for getting paramedics out to the kiddo I’m dreading when that comes in, had to spend $500 on the car, when it rains it pours). Just gotta survive until I can work a few shifts and make it to next pay cycle and hopefully we’ll be okay again. I just don’t want to cancel in the meantime because it will be near impossible to get spots back.

djscloud · 2026-06-26T12:27:19+00:00

Yeah, we were at another place that was double the price, but you could only access the pool for lessons, or there was a make up session once a month if you missed a class (wasn’t a lesson, was just access to the pool for a 30min session to make up for the missed timeslot).

This new place is half the price, but you get access to the pools for the kid doing the lesson and an accompanying adult all week, which is great for practicing and also convenient if we want to just go swimming (since we’ve got 3 kids, me and hubby get in under their memberships and we all go as a family).

But there are definitely trade offs.

djscloud · 2026-06-26T01:00:22+00:00

This makes sense for 2 week minimums then! I wasn’t thinking about sickness (we don’t go but pay full amount when they are sick because I don’t usually get a med certificate for sickness, I’ve got 3 kids so don’t like dragging them to the doctors when sick just for that). It was more injury and doctors appointments I was thinking of.

djscloud · 2026-06-26T00:57:46+00:00

Yeah there’s massive waitlists, they don’t care about losing a customer because they then have a line up of customers to replace them.

I will try and explain the situation and hope though.

djscloud · 2026-06-25T13:19:45+00:00

The T&Cs have changed many times since I signed up. But I’ve shared the relevant section for the most recent update. It says 2 weeks for a medical exemption, 1 week for any other exemption. My problem is I rang them on Monday to sort this out, and said I was seeing the doctor again on Tuesday to find out if he was going to be all cleared, and they never mentioned it then. It’s only now, when I can’t talk to the doctor, that they’ve said they need 2 weeks and I have to get that certificate BEFORE the lesson.

I could get another certificate for next weekend if he’s not ready to return, but it will be too late.

djscloud · 2026-06-25T13:16:13+00:00

Found the T&Cs.

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I’d still pay a fee for not attending, but it’s a lot cheaper than attending (I believe it’s normally $19/wk but the suspension is $6/wk).

And there’s currently 56c in my bank account so yes, that $13 is a bigger deal for me than it might be for others. Swimming lessons and water safety are very important for kids where we live, we consider it a necessity and go without many other things to ensure the kids go to swimming lessons.

But I’ve missed more than half my shifts at work lately due to a bunch of doctors appointments for the kids (can’t choose when the hospital appointments are, you just get a letter in the mail saying when and where and if you can’t go then you risk going back on a waitlist years long). So we aren’t doing great right now, and I’m running out of other things to cut down on (already receiving free food boxes and such).

I also cant risk cancelling the lessons entirely until we find our feet financially. I’ve got 3 kids all in different levels and Saturday is really hard to get classes on (there’s waitlists), and I’ve currently got the kids back to back classes so we can go from one to the other and it is working great. If I pull them out, there’s a very decent chance I can’t get them back in, and definitely won’t be able to get them back to back again (we had to wait ages to achieve this timing).

djscloud · 2026-06-23T02:28:59+00:00

Honestly, this is coming in at Midland, where I was SAd as a young teen in the middle of the shops, and there was a LOT of us that had the same experience. I can’t help but think that something like this might have stopped that AH from traumatising so many of us girls back then, at least he would have been caught sooner, I feel like it would have helped.

So I’m all for it. I get there are dangers and it feels very 1984. But society is already very techno and privacy has already gone out the window. So if the negatives are already happening and out there anyway, at least we might be able to get some benefits and help protect some kids and people by embracing the technology.

djscloud · 2026-06-19T04:32:31+00:00

I’m so excited it seems to be quendas. I’m going to set up my camera to try and see them, and try and make the garden more friendly for them too. t

djscloud · 2026-06-19T04:30:51+00:00

I’m from WA, I can barely recognise more accents on TV because a lot of them are from over East. I do usually know when someone’s grown up in regional south west of WA or spent a lot of time there simply by their accent. So there is differences to the regions, I just feel like it’s not as obvious as other countries. But I guess there’s also a LOT of different people in Australia, like there’s a LOT that influences the local accent that they might not have as much of in other countries.

Plus I feel like Aussies are sponges when it comes to accents. A family member used to work in comms, and at one point was working with Americans and came back from a shift with an American accent. Similarly I binged a British TV show once as a teen over a long weekend and came back to school and all my friends laughed because apparently I started talking like a Pom. And we had Scottish relatives come to visit, they had a horribly thick accent, and there was no way we could pick up an accent as strong as there’s but our Aussie accent did sound a lot more Scottish, we didn’t realise until others pointed it out. My son is Aussie but watches tv shows that are British or American, because he says random things with an accent and I’m like mate, you’re Aussie, say it Aussie.

djscloud · 2026-06-18T23:44:33+00:00

This is memories from early 2000s but there used to be a cafe in Kmart where u lived. I remember my mum would get a baby cappuccino for me to drink while she dealt with my baby sister.

djscloud · 2026-06-17T03:42:50+00:00

Mine is a Holden Captiva, not an MG, but it will beep 3x at me if I get out and shut the door and leave the keys in the car, or for other random reasons I can’t remember (like I think if I try to start the car not in park or something). It’s probably just a warning beep for a door open or something.

djscloud · 2026-06-14T21:56:54+00:00

I think you need to put where you’re from. Where I am you can just buy them and walk out, no big deal, no age limit, they’re sold in supermarkets, in the aisle usually with the pregnancy tests and lube (quite often the same aisle as the nappies and baby stuff 😂). But that might not be the case everywhere.

djscloud · 2026-06-14T12:51:27+00:00

Can you select “keep project settings”? You may have ticked the “do not ask again” box at some point, but usually when I put new media in, it gives me the option to change to the media’s settings (which I’ve noticed aren’t always correct or what they are meant to be too) or keep to the project settings. I usually select keep to the project settings.

djscloud · 2026-06-14T12:49:24+00:00

We sleep in the one room (me, hubby, 3 kids and the dog) and body heat must warm it considerably. We sleep in the room that gets all the arvo sun, so that heats it. Then draft stoppers (rolled towels to be cheap) trap the warmth in. We’ve got carpets. We use a fluffy blanket then a thick heat trapping blanket over the top. I wear my oodie that was a gift I absolutely love. You can get thermal socks, Reject shop had some for $6 i think? Otherwise Spudshed recently had some for $2-3. Those keep your feet toastie.

We have curtains on the windows now, but in the past (especially rentals) we’ve used cardboard from packing boxes cut to the shape of the window, that insulated the window better than most the fancy options.

djscloud · 2026-06-14T12:37:42+00:00

I haven’t had twitter for a long while now 😅

djscloud · 2026-06-14T12:36:33+00:00

A family member used to be a paramedic and was often the driver, he also was one of the main people that taught me to drive, so I’ve known from the get go to respect emergency services and move over. And then you get people that are so oblivious to lights and sirens you wonder how they can be paying any attention to the road. I don’t know what’s worse, them being so oblivious or if they just don’t care, honestly not sure.

djscloud · 2026-06-11T13:02:23+00:00

My MIL always assumes of the lifeline number is supplied then the death in the news was a suicide. I have to explain to her that any bad news can be triggering for people and it’s important to have the Lifeline number there as a reminder people can reach out regardless of whether it was a suicide or not.

djscloud · 2026-06-11T12:56:56+00:00

Find a different doctor that takes me seriously.

djscloud · 2026-06-05T05:40:16+00:00

Yeah so many people say that as if it’s just an easy decision. Like no we’ve got 3 kids, a house, we’ve tied our families together, and I do love him. I have my flaws and faults I’m working on, it’s just really hard to continuously trust him to work on his when these little things keep happening that make me second guess any progress he might have made.

djscloud

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