The Foxy Foundation

For those of you who have read my previous posts regarding The Foxy Foundation and the story of  Anthony and Sally Fox, I am very happy to give you all an update and encourage you to get behind them to help not only them, but through their Foundation, others who might find themselves confounded by the system.

A refresher for you all, my original post An Australian Family Needs Our Help was very wide spread and I had a lot of help from other bloggers who also spread the word.

Again, they jumped on board when I wrote an update so people would not simply forget the Fox Family plight, that was this one Fox Family Follow Up and now, I would like to bring you all up to date even more, with this link The Foxy Foundation Facebook Page.

Fox Family Follow Up

Thank you to everyone who read my post from the 2nd April 2013 about the Fox Family, and to those who shared it on Facebook and Twitter  An Australian Family Needs Our Help.

The problem is, as is usually the case with these things, the hype has worn off.

Anthony Fox still has no answers and has today found himself having to write to Tony Piccolo MP (@tonyforlight) to request he keep the public promise he made on radio and TV to Anthony about making available to the Fox Family, the funds that will be necessary for them to move forward with their lives. News story here

For those of you out there who are activists, get writing, tweeting, phoning, supporting in anyway you feel you can.

Contact Details: Electorate Office: 148 Murray Street, Gawler SA 5118.

Telephone: 8522 2878 Fax: 8523 1392 E-Mail: light@parliament.sa.gov.au

For the rest of you who would like to get behind the Fox Family and let them know we are on their side, please see the Facebook page, The Foxy Foundation (link below).

Here is the excerpt from the Facebook page and the link to that page also: https://www.facebook.com/thefoxyfoundation?ref=ts&fref=ts
Today Anthony has written to Mr Piccolo pleading for confirmation of his commitment on radio and TV this week:

 To Mr Piccolo,
I am writing this e-mail to you to follow up on your promise to re-unite me with my family in a few days. To date... we have not received any formalisation of your promise. As I prepare myself to return to Hampstead tonight (I am on weekend leave and say goodbye to my kids for another week). I shake my head in disbelief. “Why is this happening to me? What did I do wrong?”
When I look at this situation and the supporting policies that create these situations. It is difficult not to burst into tears. When I look back to when my stroke occurred and my transfer to Hampstead was delayed due to a lack of beds I wonder if my recovery could have been further progressed if I had been immediately transferred to Hampstead when I was ready, not when a bed was free. Would I be walking today (or will I ever walk) and how this delay has impacted me? Would I be walking by now? I guess I will never know. I also wonder if there is another person waiting to be admitted to Hampstead into the bed I currently take up. And what impact these crazy policies and funding miss matches will have on both of our lives.
Before this stroke I was a hardworking , fit and healthy family man who took great pride in seeing his children’s accomplishments and being there to support them as a good dad does. I am still a good dad and husband but these delay’s may forever impact my family’s life as I am not around like I should be. 6 months away from them is enough. We need to move on with lives, and I need to move on with my recovery and the next step begins with you coming through with your promise to get me home as soon as possible. Over the weekend, I also became aware of a link between us as you are an ex ATO man like myself.
Cheers,
Anthony Fox

My Happy Ending will be the Fox Family gets their Happy Ending.

Online Community - 3rd Day of Gratitude

To begin this post, I just want to reiterate "Grateful in April" is not my idea!

There is a website (Link Here) and an excerpt of that site below:

Grateful in April has been created by m.a.d.woman founder Melina Schamroth to encourage people to feel great about themselves no matter what circumstances they are facing. A social entrepreneur, speaker and author, Melina is known for innovative and creative ways of encouraging, inspiring and enabling people to make a positive difference to their community, environment and people in need.

I first stumbled upon the site last year, at a time in my life when I really needed something positive to hold on to each day, nothing in my own life seemed to be providing me with that.

Once I thought about the concept of gratitude, I started with the small stuff. Yes, it was difficult to simply be grateful for being alive, when some days I would have happily not woken up. It was hard to be grateful for the food on the table when I really had no energy to prepare or cook it. But that is the point, the little stuff, I had to see how lucky I was, REALLY was, to even have food to prepare, to have a bed to sleep in (or even expire in).

And THAT, is the benefit of gratitude. One baby step after another and it grows, so does something inside of you. In the end, I started this blog.  And as they say, the rest is history!

Although I still have days when I scream at the top of my lungs wonder "Why me?", I truly do try to look for just one thing each day, that I am grateful for and some days that is simply, I had the energy to get out of bed.

I do at times get side tracked and can go for days or even weeks at a time forgetting to focus on my gratitude, and that is why I decided to get back on the wagon and commit to the whole of April, and what better way to be accountable than to put it out there on my blog?

Just so you know, these posts are not sponsored or paid in anyway.  The only benefits I receive are the personal benefits I feel for my gratitude. So I suggest you try it too.

Today, I have had a good day, I caught up with a few friends and had a nice lunch with good company (Hi Pat *waves*), but the best part of today and the thing I feel most grateful for, is my online community.

You see yesterday, I posted my 2nd Gratitude post, but I also posted this one.  It is about a family in South Australia who are in need of some support, and in the hope of getting that support have written an open letter asking for it.  I basically copied that letter on my blog and distributed it via Facebook and Twitter and there has been such a heartfelt swell of support by people who also have helped to get the Fox family's story out that I cannot be more thankful. It lifts your spirit when a community comes together, particularly for such a good reason. Thank you to all those who have helped.

Source



So while we live in a time of perceived overuse and abuse of social media I am grateful for the community I have found and to them I am thankful for their support of fellow Australians.

Today, I am grateful for the support of strangers my online community!

My Happy Ending will be to actually meet some of my online community IRL over time.

Source

An Australian Family needs our help!

This is a post on behalf of an Australian family that need some help!

The reason every person in Australia should be concerned about this story is not just because these are fellow Australians, but it is a story that could happen to any of us!

I do not mean so much the injury (although that is a possibility too), I am specifically referring to the situation this family now finds themselves in relating to support.

I have had a situation in the past which I described in this post where but for a minimal amount of support I could have got back on my feet, but because I could not get a minimal amount of support, I was pushed into a full paid welfare situation, from which I am still trying to escape.

The Fox Family, who live in South Australia, are now finding themselves in a similar ironic situation.  They want to be as independent as possible, but the system does not allow for that!

No, they need to become fully dependant on a welfare payment rather than receiving some support to assist Sally to return to work!

The welfare/support systems in this country have to change ... Be a part of the change!

If you have ANY connections in your network of friends, colleagues, associates etc whom you think may be able to assist these people to get a HAND UP,  please forward it on!

My Happy Ending: 1st Anthony and Sally will receive a payment package that will actually assist them to move forward. 2nd The whole system will get a revamp!

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Mahatma Gandhi

The section below was copied and pasted directly from the Facebook post with Sally's permission to post it here on my blog and to share it with as many people as possible.

The Fox Family

Anthony came home this weekend with one thing on his mind - to write "his story". With only spelling errors corrected, here it is. Today this has been forward...ed to Today Tonight, A Current Affair, 4 MPs, Adelaide Now and Duncan Basheer Hannon. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been around assisting and supporting us on this journey, we still have a long road ahead.

"My name is Anthony Fox. I am 37 yrs old and happily married to Sally, with two young children Tyson 5 and Madison 7.
On 21 September 2012, I suffered a major stroke and was hospitalised in the Royal Adelaide. The stroke was caused by a torn artery in my neck which released a blood clot to my brain. On the night of my stroke I attended a physiotherapy appointment where my neck was vigorously manipulated, and probably did the damage to my neck. During the week prior to the stroke I presented myself to my local GP with dizziness and fatigue and a headache that had been present for two weeks. My GP recommended that I take some nurofen (anti-inflammatory/pain killers and recommended that I go to the physio for my neck pain.
I was in the RAH for 2 months. Due to the enormity of the stroke and my young age several pieces of my skull and some of my brain were removed on more than one occasion (craniotectomy) to save my life. There was insufficient room in my skull for my swollen brain. To complicate the situation I also contracted a dangerous Golden Staph infection in my head and blood at the RAH, necessitating another emergency operation. The stroke has affected the left side of my body, rendering me unable to walk, leaving me in a wheelchair and for my left arm to not to function at all. The left side of both my eyes has also been affected and my peripheral vision. My thinking skills have also been affected.
From the RAH I was admitted to the Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre, where I have been a patient for four months and am currently hospitalised. I have reached a point in my rehabilitation where I should be discharged to home and continue my rehabilitation as an out- patient. I still need help to shower, toilet and most other ADLs.
We have been advised there is no funding for a carer even for 16 hrs per week to allow me to go home, and for my wife to be finally able to return to work. If I choose to leave Hampstead without the approved carers hours I will be removed from the system and will no longer be eligible to receive carer support. The government health care system will “happily” pay for me to remain in hospital and take up a bed in the over-crowded hospital system, at more cost to the taxpayer.
The decision not to fund the carer hours has devastated me and my family, and will further delay my recovery. It is blatantly obvious to me that the system is broken. It does not make sense for the health system to continue to pay for my hospitalisation, and not to fund a mere 16 hours of carer support to get me home and speed up my rehabilitation, and allow me and my family to get on with our lives. Prior to the stroke I was a fit healthy and happy man employed at the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in Adelaide for 13 years.
I implore that the decision to refuse the funding for a carer to be overturned which will allow me to return home at the end of March 2013. My family and I are struggling with me being hospitalised and I need to go home. Every day away from my family is like a dagger in my heart. I need to go home so we can be a family again. My kids need their dad at home and my wife needs her husband.
I am writing this in the hope that someone out there will hear my story and make something good happen for me.
Thank you."