Life, please... no more

[crazykat]

Just wanted to let you know I have read, here if you need anything *hugs*

[Kahlia1981]

Kat: A big thank you and some *huggles* for you.

There's been some big stuff going down with a neighbour of ours over the last couple of weeks. Her eldest son, a 13 year old, was offered a special program for this semester of school which seemed, to us at least, to be offering the schools a way to get their most disobedient students of their hands by removing them from the rolls, whilst giving the students four half days of doing absolutely nothing but fun things at the governments expense. Anyway, the mother and father decided that due to the kids behaviour he would be better off with his father, therefore in another town. When he was told he ran away - on a Sunday night.

Now this kid is not one who likes to sleep rough. He definitely likes the finer things in life. A day after the kid runs off the mother makes a missing persons report and is hoping like hell that the kid is at a friends place - the names and numbers of which she supplies to the police. But it gets a bit ... more interesting. There's an old family friend who the mother told to f*** off some time ago because of certain things he was doing. The mother goes into this place that sells ... all sorts of stuff ... but it also does piercings, because she knew that her son went in there quite often and when she tells them that she is his mother they tell him that this family friend has been acting as his guardian so that he could get his eyebrow and tongue pierced! Two piercings that he told her, and other people that he got at a skate park - I and my housemate were dubious about the tongue piercing.

She passed that on to the police and they started raiding his house. On the second raid they found the kid in his cupboard. That was last night. Last night the kid admitted that this family friend had also committed SA apparantly - we had his mother over here crying like nothing on earth both yesterday and late this afternoon.

She raised a question "how can anyone do this to a child?" and it's one I've asked myself time and time again over the years. I don't know, but I really hope that I don't dream of my experiences tonight.

I feel for her, I really do. I don't know how I would cope as a parent - first going through a missing child, then finding out all the rest. I don't even know how I would have coped if I had been my parents, but they don't know and may never know my full story. I offered her the numbers of some phone counselling services, but she declined.

I don't know, I just don't know.

[crazykat]

It's hard when stuff like this happens because it does tend to bring up your own stuff, all I can suggest is be gentle on yourself. Take care
Kat xxx

[Kahlia1981]

I don't know if I mentioned it, but our landlord told us earlier this week she was selling, and then her real estate agents underling organised an Open House for tomorrow between 11:00 and 12:00. Yay.

As a result we've been cleaning like mad for most of the day. We started at either 08:30 or 09:00 and basically went straight through until midday with only a couple of little "rest" stops to get away from the fumes and so forth from the chemicals. Not that we are using "hard" chemicals - just the normal bathroom/kitchen type cleaners, but because we are trying to be exceptionally thorough we are taking our time with everything.

At midday we started arranging things for lunch, so I took a "white M&M" (Xanax) and had to wait 30 minutes for that to kick in before I could venture down to the nearest grocery store to get some stuff for us. When I got back I made lunch - which we've now finished - and we're having an energy drink to try and pep us up to get as much done as we possibly can to keep us only having to do the littlest bits tomorrow.

We took a look at www.realestate.com.au to see what price the landlord was asking for the property ... from our estimation - and given the sale of a previous unit in our block of units - it isn't going to happen. She most definitely is dreaming. There is just so much wrong with our unit - not to mention that there were several details in the write-up that were wrong (like the ending date (month) of our lease). It is going to be interesting ...

We eventually took six hours to complete the cleaning, leaving ourselves only to mop the appropriate floors and vacuum the others in the morning. I have to tell you though it has been a mammoth effort and we are both going to be tired teddy-bears tonight.

The real estate agent who is selling the place is supposed to be coming over prior to the Open House and taking some photos and so forth. We've decided that we aren't going to be here for the Open House - we're going to nick off down to the Souvlaki Hut near us for a coffee or two - but we're making our computer desks out-of-bounds. Some of the software on there is worth ... more money than it is worth thinking about.

Tomorrow night I'm going to dinner with my family at a restaurant at the local Casino to celebrate my brothers birthday which was on Friday. It's going to make for a fun day because I'm going to have to extremely carefully ration out my "white M&M's" so that I don't a) have too many, and b) crash out on the table. Hopefully I'll do okay. . .

I do have to say though that last night was really strange. I kept waking up. At one point it was because of a coughing fit. But the other times ... there didn't seem to be a reason. I'd just wake up and be lying there for a bit. I wasn't overly anxious, or in pain, or anything else that I could work out. It was a really strange night.

Anyway I'd better stop before this long whiny post turns into a saga that never ends.

[Kahlia1981]

Kat: By the way, thank you. That really did help. And thank you so much for taking the time to reply. *cuddles*

[crazykat]

Well done on getting the cleaning done. Also I hope you have a good night out with your family *hugs*

[Kahlia1981]

Thanks Kat. *big hugs* I really do appreciate it.

With everything that's going on I've still managed to forget something. On Friday (13/08) I received an email from someone at the School of CSIT at RMIT with some extremely useful advice. He advised me to withdraw from the subject I was currently enrolled in because the usual rules most likely would not apply in my situation as I have already completed the first year of an IT degree. He said that students were liable (through OUA) for late fees for withdrawal and enrolment for subjects they later got credit for so advised me to pick a free elective and to withdraw from the subject I was enrolled in.

The system at OUA is different to what I am used to and you have to place a Withdrawal Request on an online form and state why you wish to withdraw, but that was done, and another subject was chosen and I'm now enrolled into that.

I then sent him an email outlining all my IT related studies ... He won't get that until Monday but it was a damn long email. It should make it easier for everything to get done ... along the lines of Credit Transfer anyway. *sigh*

[Kahlia1981]

The open house was not quite the "success" they were expecting. They only got one person through during the hour and it was someone who is living in our block of flats. Personally, neither me nor my housemate would be upset if he bought the unit because it would be a seamless takeover and he understands how things are.

Now I'm just ... trying to stay in control and calm ... because everything about today just made me as anxious as heck. But I guess at least we were prepared and our six hours of cleaning were not totally in vain. Lol.

[crazykat]

*Hugs* Thinking of you

[Kahlia1981]

Kat: *big cuddles* Thank you so very much.

I went out to dinner last night with my family to celebrate my big brothers' (8 years older than me) birthday. One thing that was very weird was that his new girlfriend was there with her two kids, but his two kids from his failed marriage were noticable by their abscence. My sister, brothe-in-law and their daughter (my youngest niece) were there, as of course were I and my parents. It made for a nice table of 10.

We went to Aqua, the restaurant at the Casino, which basically puts on a Smorgasboard that also includes desserts, soft drinks and coffee's et cetera. It's quite a large restaurant and by the end of the meal - well if i'm being completely honest by about half way through the meal - I was starting to freak out. Just a case of too many people, too much noise and way too much movement. I ended up having to take another "white M&M" and "get the hell out of there" up to the lobby where it was a sh!tload quieter.

I didn't take my smokes with me last night which meant that I went from about 16:45 until 20:30 without smoking - something I normally can't manage unless I'm asleep. That might have added to the anxiety but to be honest, I definitely wasn't craving a cigarette. Just freaking over noise, people and movement.

Anyway I got home and I'd managed to keep my cool for the majority of the evening which I think is a major bonus. And it only took me two "white M&Ms" to do it.

[crazykat]

I think you should be proud of yourself for getting through that, well done :)

[Kahlia1981]

Kat: *cuddles* Thank you very much. I definitely am proud of myself for making it through.

[Kahlia1981]

Well my Withdrawal from the one subject where I am likely to be given credit/RPL has been approved and put into effect. Now I'm just sitting here waiting for my Confirmation of Enrolment documentation from OUA so that I can take that in to Centrelink along with a "lovely" filled in Pensioner Education Supplement claim form but I don't know how long it will take to come through. I really hope it doesn't take too long. I don't have too much time up my sleeve with regards to Centrelink - not that I'm going to qualify for PES until I reach second year anyway.

I'm also waiting on my official academic history from my previous university and for the Diploma co-ordinator at Brisbane North TAFE to finish with my work for my final assessment and grade my final unit there. After that, or even while I'm waiting, I'm hoping to hear from the OUA program co-ordinator at RMIT about my credit transfer options so that I know whether to get academic history records from TAFE or not. At some point I also need to complete the documentation to Register for the degree and transfer my Credit and so forth. I'm not sure if my computer is currently able to print on the networked printer. Sometimes it shows up, and then at other times it doesn't, which can be a pain.

Anyway, my first study period is SP3 which begins on August 30. Only 11 days away now which is kind of cool. My textbook for the subject - which is actually one of my Management subjects for my Minor - is coming from the UK so probably won't get here before I start, but that isn't necessarily too much of a concern because this study period I am only attempting one subject. And I saved myself about $50.00 by buying it from my favourite bookstore instead of the one OUA suggested. As a poor student/pensioner I really need to try to keep my money in my bank so that was really great.

On non-academic matters:

Today I got a letter from the Pain Management clinic telling me that I have an appointment with an Occupational Therapist on September 2nd at 11:00. To which I could only reply "woot" </sarcasm> *sigh* I'm not particularly fondly disposed to OTs ... and not just because I did 2.5 years of study towards becoming one. It's just that the majority of them that I have come into contact with in practice seem to have either a "holier than thou" or a "god" complex. Neither of which feels great from my perspective. And they hate it when I correct them - especially on ergonomics! I know OTs do have a vital and valid role to play, but there are times when they are not necessary or their approach needs to be tailored more for the client and what the client already knows and is able to understand.

I realised that I have a sh!tload of books on order or on their way from my favourite online bookstore. Some are for me for coffee table type books or general reading, others for my parents for christmas and one is my textbook for my subject this study period. Overall the list looks something like this:

1. Where's Bin Laden: CIA Undercover Edition
2. I Shall Wear Midnight - Terry Pratchett(awaiting publication - 16 days)
3. Foundation and Empire - Isaac Asimov
4. Smoke and Mirrors - Neil Gaiman
5. Management 5 - Stephen Robbins

I think I like my online bookstore .... <3

I'm also getting excited about my countdown until I reach my 2 years SI free! It's roughly 7 days and 20 hours .... So excited I can hardly hold it in. That makes for a real Woot!!

[Kahlia1981]

Well today we had a trade guy come to have a look at our oven. The last few times we've cooked in it we've noticed that it hasn't seemed to be heating or maintaining the heat properly and guessed that it was something to do with the thermostat. So we made the call to the landlord and, voila, enter the trade guy. He turned the oven on to pre-heat at the top temperature (250C) and then asked us to give him the User Manual. He read that and proceeded to try and tell us that we were cooking everything wrong. We informed him it didn't matter how the book told us to cook things because if it had been working the way we did it before, and it wasn't working the same way now there was a problem. After a grumble he reluctantly agreed ...

Anyway to cut a long story short, when the oven signalled that it was "at heat" he took a look at it. He literally opened the door, put his hand inside and said "well it's hot". Like no ***** sherlock. But when he pulled the temperature down the oven's thermostat clicked over at about 140C. What has actually been happening is that the device that tells the thermostat that it's temperature is too high has gone psycho and won't let the oven heat past 140C for some reason and so needs to be replaced.

The trade guy had to check whether certain parts were installed on our oven, basically a tip bar, so that he would be able to work on it and he had to call a spare parts guy to find out what the part was for this particular oven and to order it when he had found out what it was. Then he told us that it would be 5 to 10 business days for him to get the part if the part was in Australia. We couldn't believe it. We can get items delivered from all around the world in less time! Anyway the part has been ordered and we can at least use the stove in the meantime.

My housemate and I made an investment into a purchase of a modem/router that provides a massive amount of configuration options. It was officially ordered yesterday and arrived today. My housemate was so excited that he spent quite a while setting it up for the ISP we are currently with (we switch to a new ISP on approximately August 27) and he changed a few other settings. One setting has caused me headaches all day unfortunately. He set the firewall and it caused me to be unable to use my Gmail account through Outlook 2010. When he got home from TAFE this afternoon he made a few changes for me and now my email is working again (thank goodness) but it was definitely a bit irritating for a while there.

We contacted the landlord about our friendly neighbours in Unit 8 who have a car with a sports exhaust and like to race in and out of the driveway at all hours of the day and night. The car is so noisy that you can't hold a conversation on the inside of your unit when he/they are driving past and you can actually hear them from about two suburbs away. The landlord advised us to contact the real estate agent who holds the Body Corporate for the unit block so my housemate did. The chick really didn't want to talk to him and kept telling him to talk to his real estate agent. When he finally got her to understand that we don't have an agent, we just have our landlord and she directed him to them she asked him to email her, so he did. Our neighbour in unit 7 also made a complaint to his agent. I doubt anything will get done however.

One other piece of news for today is that I finally received my copy of Where's Bin Laden? I was expecting it to a) be a bit bigger than it was and b) to come with Australia Posts delivery bus not with the regular post. But it did come with Australia Posts normal delivery motorbike and the really funny/weird thing was that we had the normal delivery for our side of the street and then the postie was riding down the other side of the street, and I have to admit I was starting to feel a bit despondent about ever receiving this book, and then when the postie would have been almost all the way up the other end of the street we hear the sound of him coming all the way back and dropping something extra off in our letterbox. I went to have a look and made a comment to my housemate because there was something big in there so he went down to have a look and my book was delivered in the mail but he'd had to come back with it!!

It's caused me some amusement already, not to mention I've already found Bin Laden at least once lol. Sometimes small things can really help turn your day around.

[Kahlia1981]

I think that all I can say right now is ... IS IT OVER YET?!?!?!

Well today I had a lovely meeting with my psychiatrist. It wasn't until pretty late this afternoon so I had lots of time to get nervous about it ...

But before I get started on that perhaps I should start with the wonderful sight that greated my eyes when I went (slightly bleary eyed) into the bathroom at 05:30 this morning. I woke up and my mobile was telling me that I had a message so I just switched it so that it wouldn't keep telling me and made my way into the bathroom to find my towel collapsed on the floor. A little further investigation showed the the hook had become detached from the wall. We're going to have to get another hook and try to get it attached before this sunday when we have another open house ...

Oh, I almost forgot. Yesterday I put on a load of washing and did something I haven't even attempted to do except once - and that time ended in a major disaster, not to mention the loss of about a litre of laundry detergent and a two hour clean up operation ... That's right, I managed to pour out the laundry liquid myself without spilling any. Woot!! And when it was washed I even managed to hang it downstairs - although to be honest that part took me two hours to manage to get past the security door.

Sometimes agoraphobia is a real b!tch.

Anyway back to today. The session with the psychiatrist was really good. He set my mind at ease about somethings. He's also lifted one of my meds so that now I only get half of the script at the time and the rest sits at the pharmacy until I'm ready for it.

I'd better go. A friend of ours is struggling and we've invited her over, but that means moving some furniture downstairs because she is in a wheelchair and there's no way we could get her up here. It's always so nice to spend time with her though. She seriously is one in a million!!

[88shelz]

im glad it went well with the psychiatrist today
have a good day with your friend

[Kahlia1981]

Michelle: Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to stop by and leave me some words, especially your kind words. It means a lot to me. Thanks very much. @->--

We had a lot of fun with our friend last night. She was here until around about 23:00. She probably would have stayed later but my housemate was nearly collapsing in tiredness on the table we had taken downstairs, and I needed his help to be able to get everything back up again. Because we don't have any power or lights in our garage - which is where we had to sit - our neighbour had lent us a light and an extension cord to a powerpoint in his garage so long as we returned everything. So it all worked out fine. We helped our friend into and out of the taxi's and got a bit of a crash course in how to work her wheelchair!!! She's actually getting a new wheelchair, but I think she has to get the money first.

Anyway, while we were having a nice chat, she got a phonecall to say that a good friend of hers' partner had had a baby! They'd been transfered to a hospital in a bigger city because the baby was a month premmie but had to be induced because the mother's blood pressure was going sky-rocketing. However now they have a healthy mother and child, and our friend has been asked to be a godmother so she is really, really happy.

Because of the late hour of going to sleep last night, my housemate really struggled with sleep all day. Me, personally, for some reason woke up at 03:30 and, apart from a full bladder, can't put my finger on why. I couldn't go back to sleep, so the bladder was not the issue, and I just layed in bed until approximately 06:00 when I couldn't take it any more. I went and annoyed my housemate at ... I think it was about 07:30 or something, because we had to vote today (blech) and it's usually less of a hassle in the mornings, especially since this is the first time we are voting in our current residence and we weren't 100% sure which campus of the school it would be at.

Voting wasn't too bad, except there was quite a big line-up and I get bored easily. lol. I "did my civic duty" but I couldn't help but notice that you could quite easily see from each polling booth what the people on either side of you in their polling booths were doing - pretty much to the extent of who they were voting for. Ah, well. Job done, now it's down to the counters ... who destroy every ballot paper after they've counted it - ever heard of recounts people???

I had to go and get my tricyclic but my normal pharmacy was closed so that meant a 2.5 km walk to the nearest big shopping centre. The pharmacist on duty there was a really sour, old woman. She listened to me and then goes. "Yeah. No problem. There'll be an extra charge when you pick up the second half of the script." And that was it. I just got the script ($5.40) and some other stuff I needed, including a drink at that point, and then walked back.

I have to say that my knee is sore, but perhaps I'd better explain why. Yesterday when I was at the hospital I fell over ... well technically I tripped over a chair leg ... and came down on gravel. Skin off my knee and ankle and wrists, a big cut on my knee that kept bleeding yesterday and three or so marks on my elbow. *sigh* I am so damn clumsy.

[Kahlia1981]

Well the election is over but there is no clear winner. They are saying they may not have one till next week or it may just stay a hung parliament with the independents basically ruling the roost. *sigh* What fun.

We had another open house yesterday so did some more cleaning. The fun part of that was that I didn't sleep at all the night before so I hadn't slept since 03:30 on the 21st and my brain really wasn't fully functional. But I did manage to get the bathroom looking not too bad. We had decided that we were just going to slip downstairs for the open house but the lady hosting it asked us to stay unless someone turned up so that she had someone to talk to. We did, and were glad we did because no-one turned up at all.

Mind you the three of us had some interesting conversations. It turned out she had had some shoulder issues so could really get me when I talked about my shoulder surgery, and also get my housemate when he talked about what he had to do for me over that period. We talked about matching the paint on the walls and the water stains on the roof. We talked about grocery shopping online and she even took some of my housemate's business cards. She gave me a card for my sister because my sister is/was trying to sell her house and having problems. It made for an interesting 45 minutes or so.

I am coming out in bruises from my fall on Friday and some of them are looking quite nasty. I have to say that I'm quite impressed with my mother because I sent her a text message and when she replied she had remembered that I had had a fall and even went to the extent of asking how I was doing from it!!

Oh, while I remember. I wrote a little while ago about my singing teacher withdrawing due to depression and my concern about her. I don't know if it was because of the lack of sleep or whatever but while I was going through my morning showering routine yesterday I thought of a way to approach her via text figuring that if I sent her a text she could read it but there was no immediate need to decide whether or not to respond. So I sent her a text offering her a non-judgemental ear if she ever wanted to reach out. Saying that I'd heard she was going through a tough time and telling her she was not alone and so forth. But basically leaving things in her court but trying to do so without making her feel that way? I don't know, that probably doesn't make sense. I wanted her to know that she was not alone and that she was loved and would always be loved so I tried to get that across too. Anyway, before I ramble people to death, she replied. She thanked me for the offer and for my concern.

We watched two movies yesterday. The first one, in the afternoon, was Eyeborgs. It was absolutely amazing. It's a sci-fi movie from 2009 and was quite interesting to watch. We managed to fit it in before the open house, even with two smoke breaks, and some of the eyeborgs would have taken absolutely ages to make. The second movie was Robots. My housemate told me to pick a light movie and I said Lilo & Stitch because I haven't seen it for ages but he said he'd watched it dozens of times so while he went to get dinner (KFC - it's a wonder I didn't put on a dozen kilos today) I picked out another couple of movies he could choose from so we got Robots. It was great ... *sigh*

I got in touch with Centrelink again today about what the heck they want me to put in about this course that I start next week and the lady was super helpful. For the question that for the course and the way I'm studying is ambiguous she told me to put an asterisk and a "See attached letter" sort of thing and then explain everything on a piece of paper giving as much detail to them as possible. I'll have to give the details of all the universities that I'm studying under including facilitator and provider but that shouldn't be too difficult as they are all big universities. When I asked her for a receipt number she said okay but I'll actually have to go into your file first lol. *sigh*

I really hope my confirmation of enrolment arrives soon because I only have 14 days after next Monday to supply it to Centrelink otherwise . . .

[Kahlia1981]

I got my Confirmation of enrolment in the mail today, wrote the letter for the ambiguous question and in it provided all the information I could about the universities and the course and workload and so forth. Then I took a bus trip up to Centrelink Aitkenvale and handed it in. Whew. So close to the deadline (tomorrow).

Also in the mail today I got my parent's Christmas presents!! Really excited about that to be honest. My housemate has taken them into his room so that I don't start reading them because I really do want to ... I just wish that we had gotten some bookmarks with them, we really could do with some.

The last thing that arrived in the mail was an invoice/account from the hospital pharmacy for a discharge script from October last year that I rejected and did not take the medication for. I gave them a call and explained the situation to the girl on the phone and she said that she would have to speak to the Director. Apparently she can't just "wipe" the invoice/account because of the medications that are on it but the Director might be able to do something. She has put in her report that I rejected the script, did not sign for the medications and did not take the medications home. I really don't know what is going to come from this, but I have kept the invoice/account and noted the date that I called. *sigh* To be honest, I think it's the psych ward trying to **** me over. I think they signed for it and took the meds. It's just the kind of thing they would do.

[Kahlia1981]

Well first things first .... today I made my 2 years SI free milestone. I'm excited and buzzing and so proud of myself that it isn't funny. The last few weeks/months have been incredibly hard but I haven't given in. My mother even said "Well done".

Onto more mundane matters:

Yesterday the guy came to fix the stove. It wasn't the guy who came the first time. This one had obviously worked on this type of stove before because he knew exactly what he was doing and what he was looking for. He also knew about our ancient electrical switchboards because he knew exactly which one of the fuse-things was likely to be the stove. Anyway he was basically all work and just got straight into it. He asked me to help him at one point and then when he put everything back together again just pissed off leaving the part he'd replaced in a plastic bag on the bench.

On a side note to that the stove now works perfectly again so all is good there for the moment. It was interesting to see what the back of a stove looks like once you take the back panel off though ... a heck of a lot of insulation and a few electrical pieces. Not really something you would see all that often unless you normal decide to take your oven/stove to pieces all the time.

My housemate had his appointment up at cardiac yesterday and the time on his letter was for 09:20 so he made sure that was when he was up there. He didn't see the specialist until well after 12:00. He had to text me to ask me to cancel his appointment with our normal GP because there was no way he was going to make it so I was trying to catch the receptionist there on the phone while the stove guy was here. The stove guy thought I was trying to phone our landlord. I tell you though one thing I hate about ringing the doctors surgery is that sometimes when they put you on hold they then cut you off. It drives me absolutely nuts because you then have to ring them back ...

While I'm thinking of it ... my housemate noticed that he at his weight (he is of slim build) was at least a third of the size of every other person in the waiting area of cardiac. Nine out of ten of them had the T mark (had had bypass operations) and had been diagnosed with heart disease.
None of them other than him smoked by the way. The brochures that gave information on heart disease and how it related to smoking provided "observation evidence" from the 1980s - by the way observational evidence means that no evidence actually occurs in fact it's the equivalent to overhearing something at a bus stop or in a public restroom. From all that information I would have to say that they biggest cause of heart disease is obesity... NOT smoking.

Anyway my housemate got me to meet the bus he was on at the bus stop near us and we went into the city so that he could enrol in his course at TAFE in the city here. It took us a little while because the city looks a bit like a bomb hit it at the moment and we wanted a coffee first so we got off near the cop station and walked around to the coffee place the walked through the "bomb zone" (they are digging up the mall so cars can drive through) and then walked into TAFE to the smoking area, finished our coffees and had a smoke or two before heading up to the teacher to get the enrolment stuff. After that it was a lovely trip down to the enrolment area.

We ended up deciding to go to the nearest big shopping centre by bus so that we could drop our mobile phones off to be sent back to Samsung because they are (still) malfunctioning and then having a lovely 2.5 km walk home.

We'd been home for a while and my housemate wanted to go for a walk down to Officeworks and to be honest I can't remember exactly what happened but apparantly I'd said I was going to go and then I said no for a reason that didn't make sense or something. Anyway my housemate and I had a bit of a chat ... well he did most of the talking. I told him I was scared and I started crying. For the life of me I can't remember right now what happened after that, but I do know we were trying to come up with some sort of plan. *sigh* I just wish I knew what was going on.

I start uni on monday so I've read through the Unit Outline for the subject I'm doing the study period. I've already read my Reading for the first topic and downloaded all the readings for the second topic. I've also set up my Glossary that i'm required to keep to make things easier for me. I've also sent an email to the Disability Liason Unit explaining my situation to them so that I can work out whether I need to provide them with anything and if I do, what they need.

*sigh* It's going to be a long day.