Sorry!

Yes, I'm alive. I've neglected blogging for a while for several reasons. I'm totally swamped with work, we had a death in the family and I also landed myself in hospital. Again. Thankfully this time it was only for 4 days, but it did involve some fairly big surgery as it was for a nasty fracture with some complications. Yes, I'm an idiot for fracturing a bone. We have finally hit Easter holidays now though, so I'm catching up on rest, my social life and some work that I missed due to recuperation time for the broken bone. Safe to say due to impending doom (exams) I won't be blogging much now until August, but I do promise to stay around on the blog a bit more, and currently am welcoming suggestions for things you want me to blog about, so leave a suggestion in the comments box or email me and let me know!

Invisible

In the last week or so, I've had to face up to the reality of being told that I, a medical student, an intelligent, stubborn, arsey young woman, am disabled. I'm not disabled in a stereotypical way. I'm not in a wheelchair, or deaf or blind. I don't have a walking stick or a guide dog. I have a complex medical condition. It affects my mobility in a way that most people can't see. It affects my vision in an undetectable (to most people) way. I can't walk far, or do things that are seen as normal. I can't easily cook myself a meal from scratch any more. I can't often read my textbooks with much ease. I can't write my own name or get out of bed some days. But I look almost completely normal. I have an invisible disabilty. I'm treated the same as everyone else because they can't see what's wrong. Some days, I love this. On days like today when I'm in excruciating pain and quite frankly want to hide under my duvet and cry, all I want is a shoulder to cry on and an offer of small help, but because it's invisible, so am I.

Dear Father Christmas

Dear Father Christmas,

I've tried to be good this year. I've made some new friends, attempted to make peace with some I fell out with, and made an effort to keep in touch with old friends along the way. I've looked after my grandad when he's been ill, I carried out the promises I made to him and visited my grandma and passed my exams. I've tried to be nice to my sisters, even they've made me want to tear my hair out, and I've helped my mother when she's asked for it. I've worked hard and got the marks I've deserved, and I'm finally accepting my health problems.

So, in return, please may I have:

• Some extra spoons - they'll be needed in the New Year
• Some help with this awful Student Finance screw up
• A couple of friends at University - being alone is so hard sometimes
• Some extra space in my brain for all the stuff I need to know
• New ways of learning things that works for me and sticks - I'm struggling
• And some acceptance from friends, colleagues, the medical school and my family of my illness and of me as a person.

Thank you for reading this, whether you can fulfil it or not.

Truffle

xx

Getting Left Behind and Vanishing...

It's been a little over a month since I last blogged, and it's not been the best of months which is why I've not been blogging, although I'm still around on twitter. My grandad's been really ill and has been in and out of hospital and generally a big worry for me. My sisters got A level and GCSE results. No idea how my sister's A levels went and I don't dare ask but my baby sister did fantastically in her GCSEs so I'm really proud of her. I've come back to university for a couple of weeks because I've had some clinical placement hours to make up from when I was ill and things were strained at home because my mum's been so stressed.

It's generally been quite lonely because my friends I had at home have all moved on and the few friends I have at university have been home for the summer. I kind of feel like everyone is moving on and leaving me behind. I'm still the same shy, insecure person I was when I was at school. I'm still permanently doubting myself and my abilities, and it feels like life is passing me by and that I'm missing out on things that should be normal for someone my age, like going out with friends and just actually enjoying university life.

I also feel like i'm being left behind in terms of the blogging world too. I used to have a really fab blog but now, it seems like it's pointless. I have little motivation to write because I get little back from this blog now. The number of comments have dwindled and I just don't think it's worth the effort any more. It seems more successful and popular blogs have more popular people behind them and they're streaks ahead of me. Let's face it, who wants to read this when you can read blogs by people like Mark Glencorse and Stuart Gray? I guess I'm just going to have to decide whether I want to even blog any more, because quite frankly, it just doesn't seem worth it, and too many people keep trying to shoot me down and stop me blogging.

1 sheep, 2 sheep, 3 sheep....

It seems I've become an insomniac. I haven't slept properly since last Tuesday. I'm currently surviving on 1-3 hours a night. 3 is good. Very good. It's making me feel horrific, I'm having horrible dreams, it's not doing me any favours healthwise (I have apparently some strange viral infection that is playing games with my heart rate and making me feel generally rather bizarre.). I want to go running, in the hope that it'll burn me out, but I can't risk it with my lungs being as rubbish as they are. All I want is sleep and I just can't get it. Any ideas for things to help? Sleeping tablets aren't working (prescribed ones. I have two types and neither seem to be doing anything.) neither are hot baths, lavender oil, milky drinks. Suggestions needed!! I need some sleep! I have an exam on Monday and my stress levels are even higher cos I'm not sleeping.

Love you Grandad Jack

My grandad died very suddenly at lunchtime on Tuesday. Safe to say I am a total mess.

Love you Grandad Jack.

Send Your Thoughts Please

Having a tough time at the moment. Failed an assignment and am not at all enjoying placement. Just would be nice if people could just send me a comment to let me know they're there. Aside from finally having Simon back, I'm feeling really quite alone.

I Have Returned!!!

Normal service has once again resumed. I'm still not well but am managing to make it in to a good few lectures, and am just about keeping on top of my work - I even have 2 patient case studies written up already!! Unheard of for me! We've now started respiratory medicine, which I'm not particularly enjoying. Sputum is really quite disgusting, but the acute management side of this unit I'm really enjoying. I like knowing how to manage things like pneumothorax and stuff that I would come across pre-hospital. Chest infections with lots of thick green gunk, not so much.

Anyway, thank you to all my guest bloggers - you gave me a lot of really interesting stuff to read and a good break from the blog. If your post hasn't appeared, it's because I'm saving it for a future date.

Also, the boy (Simon) is now back on Twitter as @NorfolkDocToBe which is great, cos I can now talk to him more, even if it's mostly to take the mick out of him!

I'm going to aim to write at least one post a week from now on, but knowing me I'll probably start blogging instead of working so posts will probably be much more frequent than that!

If you have a request for something you want me to write about, or a question that you want to ask me (nice ones please! - if I get any more offensive or rude comments or emails, I will start moderating comments and blocking people. Sad to say it, but it has been happening.) feel free to email me with your requests and questions, or if you just want to chat to me, feel free to email.

Guest Post - How To Deal With Meeting A Person With Depression

This guest post was written by madsadgirl originally. It's another fantastic piece of writing, about those like me living with depression. You can read her blog here:

http://madsadgirl.blogspot.com/

How To Deal With Meeting A Person With Depression

It is a sad fact of life but the majority of people in this country feel very uncomfortable about the subject of mental illness. What makes it worse is that a significant proportion of the population are likely to suffer from the most common form of mental illness, depression, at some point in their lives, yet that particular illness still carries a serious stigma with it.

The problem for the sufferer of depression is that it can be a very debilitating illness, but to the majority of non-sufferers that you meet you show no signs of having anything wrong with you. There are no tell-tale spots or rash, you have no stitches, bandages or plaster cast, and you don't require sticks, crutches, or a walking frame to get around. You can be, however, very seriously ill indeed and yet there are no outward signs that would be obvious to those that you meet. So short of carrying a bell or clapper like the lepers of long ago, or wearing a notice around your neck proclaiming "I have depression; treat me carefully" most people would not realise that there is anything wrong with your health.

I don't know how depression manifests itself in other people, I can only describe what I feel, but my depression is not only something that affects the way that I feel about things, it also has some very definite symptoms that I feel physically. When it is at its worst, depression makes me feel as though my head and body are not connected to each other. My body feels numb, like the numbness that you feel in your lip after having an injection at the dentist's, and my head has a woolly feeling with a tendency to feel very light-headed as though I have drunk alcohol on an empty stomach. All of this is combined with an overwhelming desire to cry, though I have no idea what I am crying about, it is just something that I have to do.

So these are the physical symptoms that I feel, which in themselves may not seem like much, but are nonetheless capable of lowering my mental state to a level even lower than it is already. I find it impossible to concentrate; reading becomes something that is unbelievably difficult. I have always loved reading, and half an hour with a good book before I lay down to sleep was the perfect end to the day. Now I find that I have to read the same page repeatedly to stand any chance of understanding what I have read. I have always been shy, but depression makes it incredibly difficult to interact with people that I do not know. Social functions become trials that can cause anxiety to build up days in advance, and small talk something to be avoided because you are likely to become tongue-tied while attempting to have the simplest conversation.

When somebody asks you "How are you?" you answer automatically "Fine" although you aren't really. You answer like this because you know that they really don't want to know that it took a monumental effort to get out of bed, that getting yourself to this stage in the day has been a war against irrational feelings, and that if they ask you anything else you are likely to burst into tears. You hate it when they say "Smile, things could be worse" when you know that there is nothing that could make you feel worse than you do at that particular moment and and smiling is the last thing on your mind because you are finding it almost impossible to just exist. If you were to answer the "How are you?" question truthfully, the questioner would become embarrassed and not know how to further the conversation because they would find it difficult to deal with someone with a mental illness.

Mental illness is something that happens to people. They don't ask for it, and they most certainly would prefer not to have it. Unfortunately, while the medical profession has made incredible advances in the treatment of many of the diseases and injuries that affect us physically, diseases of the brain are not so easy to treat. While we are very similar physically, we are all unique mentally; that is what makes it so difficult to 'cure' mental illnesses.

The next time that you meet someone who suffers from depression, please remember that they are a human being just like you, they don't want to feel the way that they do, and that you can't catch what they have got through contact with them. But most of all, remember that they don't like being stigmatized because they have a mental illness. Remember that; because at some time in the future the person with depression could be you. 

An Invitation

As I'm really busy at the moment with possibly life changing decisions to make, revision to do, still feeling ill, and putting up with my family, I'd like to invite somebody else to write a post for me. Would like it to be about an experience as a patient, a medical student during your training or a paramedicine student during your training, or someone in a medical career coming across something particularly interesting.

Submissions to dysdiadochokinesia@hotmail.com by midnight (UK time) tonight preferably for the first post, and midnight Thursday for the second post of the week.

Look forward to reading them!

Thank You

I wanted to say thank you for all your thoughts, comments and prayers, and kind messages that you have sent me. They are all playing a part in my decision making, and I'd be grateful if you'd keep them coming and spread the word for me. I really appreciate your kind words, and they're all helping me on my way to reaching a decision. I think I'm nearly there, but I just need those last few bits of help and reassurance to keep me on the right track for me.


Thank you, all you kind people, and thank you social media.

Faye
xxx

It's A Strange World

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I've recently spent 9 days in hospital. It was an interesting experience to say the least. It was very up and down and incredibly emotional. I cried a lot, I got angry a lot, and I learned who my friends are really and truly. Being ill enough to be in hospital teaches you a lot.


It's a very strange experience being a patient in your own hospital. On the first two wards I was on, I knew the majority of the staff, and even managed to have a catch up with a few of them, but suffice to say, it was very odd not being in control of anything. Even through the pain, I wanted to answer ringing call bells.  I wanted to help the other patients who  looked more ill than me. I wanted to help everyone, and be the one to answer the call bells instead of being the one pressing my buzzer. I got a real taste of how horrible and scary and disorientating and confusing and just how strange it is being a patient. This is something I'm going to remember in future. I don't think I could ever fully appreciate what it was like in the hospital as a patient before now.


Throughout the whole time, my best friend and my boyfriend (The Manchester Medic) were both very supportive. They even made my birthday fun, despite me being in hospital and in pain, and feeling generally terrible. I felt like a fraud to begin with, because everyone else just looked so much more ill than I thought I did. It was only on the second night did I realise how ill I actually was. I'd fought this illness for a month before admitting defeat and letting myself be admitted to hospital. Medical Students are well known for the phenomenon that is "Medstudentitis". We all think we have every disease we study. Something that comes from having too much knowledge I guess. Except, I'd refused to admit that I really was ill. I kept saying I was fine until the point where I just had to give in.


I learned a lot from being a patient, and this is something I'm going to share over the next few days and weeks.


And for those of you wondering about my health - I'm still in pain, I'm still exhausted and I'm still ill. Nobody knows what's wrong but it's definitely not an infection or anything urological. If you want to play guess the diagnosis, email me and I'll give you a run down of my history and symptoms. Would be interesting to know what differentials people come up with!! Let me know by leaving your differential diagnoses in the comments of this post.

Disappearing Act

Apologies for disappearances of posts and of myself from the blogosphere for the last two weeks. I've had a few problems with a few things. Mostly it's been friends, ex-friends, moving house, sick housemates, sick pussacat, placement and my own ill health causing problems. Just about everything really.


In the mean time, I've been sleeping, hunting for houses/flats for next year, in and out of A&E, Doctors surgeries and hospitals (Probable kidney stones. Joy.). I've been working stupidly hard on my project on cardiac physiology. I'm writing a report, and planning and creating a presentation (for the record, I really really really hate MS PowerPoint. I hate looking at them, I hate making them, I hate them full stop.) and it's taking up a lot of my time right now.


On top of all that I've been coping with horrible renal colic, resulting in me being given lots of painkillers and a referral to the urology clinic. I've also been dealing with my mental health. I have an appointment for CBT booked, I've had my antidepressant dose upped and some of my regular medications changed. Just now it seems my brain runs at 100 miles an hour and my body can't cope. I am hyper for a couple of days and then I crash out and get more depressed and sleep loads and cry and have a bit of a crisis over whether I want to be at Medical School still or not. Quite frankly, right now, I don't know what I want.


I'm really struggling academically this term and I don't know why. I absolutely love cardiology, and I find it fascinating and highly interesting but I'm finding it really hard to get my head around the science. I guess I'm just not up to this right now with everything that I've got going on. I need to know how best to make me learn this and I can't work out how. 


And to top it all off, on top of me feeling stupidly thick all the time at medical school, my housemate has just come in and made me feel about a centimetre tall. I want to help, really I do but I can't do anything. Right now, I feel completely useless no matter where I am or who I'm with.

Nerves

As I'm doing a cardiovascular placement in the hospital at the moment, part of this encompasses stroke medicine. In August my grandmother had a massive stroke, and as a result will be in a nursing home for the rest of her life. Because of this, I'm really nervous about this week's placement with the stroke team.


I worked on the stroke unit at the end of August once I'd come back to university. I thought I'd be fine and able to distance myself and to cope with it all. I was wrong, and I spent most of the day hiding my tears from the other members of staff. I was able to do my job, but I struggled to keep composed when I had a spare moment. I have a fair amount of free time this week. 2 hours a day is scheduled into our timetables. I'm worrying that I'll break down and be a mess. I'm hoping that I won't. In any case, this is the reason I'm still awake right now.


I guess I'll just have to take each day as it comes and keep on going.

Ill. Again.

For those of you who know me, I have the world's worst immune system. Not a quality you want in a possible future doctor, and in an auxiliary nurse I know. I've been ill on and off for the last week, until tonight when I felt absolutely horrific and was in huge amounts of pain. I'm not brilliant at looking after myself when I'm stressed and this time I'm no different, but this time, I've had a lot more to think about, and there are people I've needed and wanted to look out for, so in order to do that, I ignored my illness.


Turns out, I'm bloody unlucky anyway. I have a chest infection and a kidney infection. Double whammy. What joy!! Anywho..... bedtime. I feel like crap.