“Please allow me to introduce myself…”

About This Site and About Trenna Mahney

By Greg Mahney

A quick note before you start. If you have read the “About” page of this website you can ignore this particular post as the contents is the same as on that page. If that’s you, just scroll down.

About Trenna

You will learn a lot about Trenna as you go through the material on this website. However, if you aren’t already familiar with Trenna here is a quick primer to give you some context to what you find on the site.

Trenna Helaine Seckington was born on 11 September 1957 in Perth Western Australia.

Trenna was quickly diagnosed as having Marfan Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. Her mother and grand mother were also known to have had Marfan. As a result, Trenna’s mother passed away suddenly when Trenna was just 2 years old.

Trenna’s Dad was not well and was unable to provide full time care for Trenna and her 3 older siblings (none of who had Marfan). So the 4 children were sent to Mofflyn Homes in East Victoria Park, a suburb of Perth.

Trenna’s dad died suddenly when Trenna was 6 years old and she then became a Ward of the State.

Later, and not all at once, the 4 children went and lived at a Legacy hostel, Craig House in South Perth.

When that hostel closed Trenna was 15 years old and she was encouraged to leave school (despite being quite a bright student) to go to business college. She was rehoused at Girls Friendly Society (GFS) on Adelaide Terrace in Perth city.

A number of jobs followed, including two long stints working for the Hospital Benefit Fund (HBF) in Perth.

She married me on 23 October 1989 when she was 32. I was about the same age.

Within 3 months she had had major heart surgery to replace her aortic valve with a metal valve and her ascending aorta replaced with Dacron. All this because of the Marfan.

About a year later Trenna retired from the paid workforce and devoted a lot of effort in supporting me in my career. This also allowed Trenna to start and maintain the extensive record keeping that powers this site.

Trenna remained quite active for most of her life despite her chronic illness. There was however a gradual, and eventually noticeable decline.

In the last couple of years of her life, and all through that first year of the COVID-19 outbreak Trenna suffered from serious heart and lung failure.

She passed away in hospital (NOT COVID related) at about 5pm on Wednesday 23 December 2020.

That’s the bare bones of the story but there is lot’s more to be fleshed out. I hope you will enjoy finding more.

About TrennaMahney.com

The TrennaMahney.com website is the way I have decided to share Trenna’s own memories of her life, and my memories of Trenna. We’ll look at the way she lived her life, and the way she influenced others.

There is a LOT of source material I’ll be calling on. I am launching the site in March 2022 and it is my intention to add material at least weekly for a year or possibly two.

Trenna was very clear that she wanted her story told. She made a number of recordings with me. She also did two audio recordings with the City of South Perth oral history project in 2016.

The first of those recordings is here.

The second of those recordings is here.

She also kept daily written diaries of events, an iPad based diary, a really well organised photo collection going back to her earliest days, travel diaries, home meal menus, a recipe book, other recipes and household hints, poetry, creative writing, medical records, notes from doctor and hospital visits, and just a lot of other stuff.

My challenge is to present it in an interesting way on this website, and throughout the journey I will welcome your comments and feedback, particularly on what you would like to see or how I could do things better.

Please share the information with others.

I am sure that occasionally there will be some sad moments reflected in the things that are published here, but overall I hope to maintain an upbeat and positive tone to the website.

There were a few reasons she wanted her stories told. She thought that family and friends would be interested. But also, people with parallel experiences – those with Marfan Syndrome, visually impaired or otherwise disabled people, people who have a chronic illness, people who lived in institutional care when they were young, or maybe people who grew up in Perth in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Also, people, like Trenna, who are interested in people.

She also hoped that the way she was able to overcome adversity would be inspirational, or at least supportive of those whose life is less than ideal. Maybe some of the ways she overcame hurdles will be of practical use.

To be frank, she also just didn’t want to be forgotten. That’s a perfectly reasonable thought, but I’m confident that anyone who knew Trenna will not be forgetting her.

From my own point of view I want to help fulfill and exceed Trenna’s wishes. No doubt this will be an important part of the grieving process for me, and maybe others. A process that I still don’t understand, and probably never fully will.

Later I will do a separate post where I talk about the role of privacy, Trenna’s privacy, and that of others. In the mean time I can assure you that Trenna made it very clear that she wanted her story told.

I’m expecting that as people take in more and more of the material that I am putting up here they will become more and more familiar with her. Eventually I hope they too will have the wonderful experience of knowing Trenna Mahney.

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