This past week has been a little hectic for me. My allergies have been going haywire here. I’ve never had them this bad before ever! Thursday morning I woke up and my eye was itching. I rubbed it, took a shower, probably rubbed it a little more and about 20 minutes after I woke up my eye was completely red, swollen, and had the most intense burning and itching ever. It was so bad, I took 4 Benadryl and went to work since there were no available morning appointments at my doctor’s office. I was wearing sunglasses, no contacts, and it was cloudy out. Quite the combo. I got to work and the itching had decreased slightly, but it was still pretty bad. My patients couldn’t quite believe that I came into work, but it was better to focus on something else. I left after seeing my patients and went to the doctors. Of course the day I actually need to catch a bus, it arrives early and I’m not there so I have to hoof it. Made it to the appointment, and the doctor was running 30 minutes behind. This is completely unusual here. Usually they are on time and you never have to see a nurse. The general practitioner comes and gets you.
He looks and my eye and I tell him about all my allergy issues. He gives me a specific type of eye drop to get, take a steroid nasal spray and then try Zyrtec instead of Claritin or Benadryl. So I go downstairs and there is a chemist store aka pharmacy and end up spending $70 AUD on all of this. Then I have to walk home because the bus isn’t coming for another 35 minutes and in that amount of time I can make it home.
So I get home, put in the eye drops and curl up in bed and passed out for 4 hours....I think the Benadryl took over lol. When I woke up, found out we had tickets to a concert. My eye was still weepy and itchy so I put in some more eye drops. All of a sudden I looked in the mirror and my pupil was completely dilated. Light was bothering it and I had no clue what was going on. Finally looked at the box and pupil dilation is a side effect. Headed to the concert and luckily it was a smaller venue with no flashing lights, so was actually able to enjoy the evening. We saw Hat Fitz and Cara—you should definitely look them up!!
On Friday, my eyes were still itchy, but doing better. Next issue was that I have been trying to get a Tax File Number (TFN). Normally the process is super simple..fill out some forms online and they send you a number. Well not so much in my case. I applied, but when they sent my form and number to me, it was all in my maiden name. Can’t use that, so I’ve been on the phone with the Australian Taxation Office and it takes forever to get anywhere. I sent in a certified copy of my passport and was told it takes 28 days to make a change. I called again and they guy wasn’t too sure as to why this is happening so he manually tried to put in my passport number and it pulls up as my maiden name. He told me to go to the US Consulate to get this checked out because it seems to be a passport issue. So off I went to the Consulate....I knew exactly where it was at because it’s right next to our dentist office 😂. So I went and you can’t even talk to anyone because I didn’t have an appointment, but was given an email address for emergency issues. Sent the email off and a few hours later I received a call from the Consulate. #1 it was so nice that he didn’t question my name when I said it....most Aussies think I say “Ian” when I pronounce my name 🤦🏼♀️.He looked up all my information on all US databases and said that I am Ann Simsar and to call the ATO back to find out what database they are using to verify my identity.
I thanked him and called the ATO for the second time in a day. This time I had a lady, she also didn’t know what database it was. Then she read through the notes of all my calls and said that my passport wasn’t matching up with my visa. My visa they were looking at was still in my maiden name, even though I had a copy of my visa right in front of me in my married name. She literally told me, “I have no clue how you entered the country with these not matching up.” She pretty much told me to wait another 1.5 weeks to see if they can manually override the system to change my name to get this TFN.
So I’m at the point of just sitting around and waiting until these 28 days are up again. No wonder why this country can’t get anything done! And I just need this number to pay my Australian taxes and set up a retirement account that is mandatory because 9.5% of every paycheck goes into this. Sometimes this country is mind-boggling and I wonder how anything gets done.
Sorry for the rant there, it’s been an exhausting week!!
