22 February 2011

At 12:51pm local, a 6.3m magnitude earthquake hit my home town. It was centred 6.7km SE of the CBD, at a depth of 5km.

Peak ground acceleration exceeded 1.8g (1.8x the acceleration of gravity). It was like being on a trampoline. /1 The initial tremor only lasted 10 seconds but the vibrations continued for much longer. 185 people died in this event (or as a consequence of) and around 2,000 were injured.

80% of the water and sewerage system was severely damaged. /2

It’s 7am on Wednesday 22 February. Today marks 12 years since a devastating earthquake in my city took the lives of 185 people and changed our landscape forever. Lest we forget.

At 12:51pm I will be taking some time of quiet reflection.

I lost a friendship yesterday. Quite suddenly and unexpectedly. I may have already tweeted about this? My brain is not working today.

But yeah, I am sad over this loss. Even though we had differing opinions on some things, I considered him and his wife to be very good mates /1 Hopeful that maybe if I just send out good vibes to the universe that we may get a chance at some stage to clear up our communication issue that lead to this. I suggested we take the conversation offline. Hoping one day he will take me up on that. /2 END.

Mon 20 Feb 2023

@drayeshaverrall @nzlabour @minhealthnz @msdgovtnz

Please release the official statistics and count of the number of people in NZ affected by #LongCovid

I will tweet this every business day from now until you respond.

Thank you 🙏 Clearly this tweet has had the desired effect. For now, I will wait for the 20 working days to pass.

If I have not had a satisfactory reply by COB Monday 20 March, I will take this further.

Yesterday I foolishly fell down the rabbit hole of reading the reactions to Jacinda Ardern’s resignation. BIG MISTAKE that I’m going to try and not repeat.

If anyone should be angry at the current Govt, it should be people like me - a frontline healthcare worker who… /1 …did as I was requested (trusted the science blindly, had my 3 x Pfizer jabs, wore a mask religiously, continued working through the lockdowns, debates/politics) AND then ended up getting Covid-19 and now #LongCovid. I am unable to work, have sold my home to try and… /2

I’ve spent years of my life helping (or at least trying to help) people in my country, NZ 🇳🇿, as a frontline health worker.

Like many in the health sector, I put others 1st. Working continuously in 2020-2022. No lockdowns for us!

In June of 2022, I got Covid-19…/1 …and while I cannot be sure who I got it from (like it matters), it was likely a patient or colleague who gave me the gift that just keeps on giving.

Now I’m in month 7 of #LongCovid & my life has changed in ways I could never have imagined. /2

Like many people across the globe, I sat down with my popcorn last night and watched both the US and UK interviews of Prince Harry, to promote his upcoming memoir #Spare

I have pre ordered the book on Amazon Kindle. I’ll read it then I’m calling it a day. Here’s a thread 🧵 1 - Disclaimer = I’m not a royalist. When Princess Diana died, I had just turned 17. Like millions of others, I saw her as “The People’s Princess”. Any ‘magic’ I’d associated with the RF died along with her. I also find the circumstances of her death suspicious.

There are a lot of people on Twitter who are vocal about not believing in #LongCovid

It got me thinking about what other “invisible illnesses” exist out there so here’s a thread 🧵 1 - Allergies (especially food allergies). “Are you really allergic or do you just not like carrots/nuts etc”