I went through January with very little feed because the tube that I had put in just before Christmas would not hold my giving sets and leaked everywhere. I tried a few different adapters and techniques advised to me by the Abbott nurses and nutrition nurse at the hospital but nothing really worked and I just had to feed into a towel and keep changing my clothes. It meant I couldn't take my feed out the house, so I really wasn't getting much. I lost a bit of weight and I was feeling weaker and weaker as time went on. I got a bit frustrated at chasing everyone after I'd already spent most of Christmas chasing people and so I neglected things for a while and just went without for an easy life.
I ring one person and they tell me it's not their responsibility, and then I ring another and it isn't theirs either. Some people point the finger and some huff and puff and sigh and tell you they're really busy which makes the situation go away for them but it doesn't give me any more nutrition or energy. It's quite demeaning and although I shouldn't take it personally - I've worked in the NHS, I've worked with frustrated patients and I know that it's a very busy and stressful place to be - but it makes me feel like a pain in the ass. After chasing everybody over the busy Christmas period I just wanted to feel not like a pain in the ass for a bit and so I went without.
I had a clinic appointment with my new consultant in Salford in January and he contacted my team in Wythenshawe and asked them to sort it out and so it was finally sorted out at the beginning of February. The last few days leading up to getting it fixed I was really feeling like I was ready to drop. On the last day I was so faint that by the evening I couldn't even stand up properly. I was so ready for getting it fixed. Interventional radiology are always absolutely excellent - they are my favourite people. They always have so much time to make sure that everything is right and everything always runs so smoothly. Like all the NHS it's always really busy with lots of people going in and out but they never make me feel like a pain and they're always so lovely. Anyway, now I have my old button style tube in. It's working perfectly, I've started to put a bit of weight on again and I have more energy.
I had my barium results in January at my appointment and I had my full bowel transit study and the results of that. Both tests showed poor movement throughout my bowel which we already knew but this just sort of put numbers on it. I tried a drug that I hadn't tried before, erythromycin, which is an antibiotic but is also used in some cases for motility. Wythenshawe are quite against using it because it's an antibiotic and the evidence for effect as a motility drug is quite weak, but Salford noticed that I hadn't tried it and asked if I wanted to try it. I got a bit sick of trying new drugs because they kept putting me on ridiculous obscure painkillers that made me really ill, but since I don't really have any extreme reactions to antibiotics usually, I gave them a go. I tried a low dose first, and then he told me to put it up to a high dose but that, the higher dose might give me cramps and if that happens, and they didn't make me any better then to stop them. Unfortunately, they did give me bad cramps and so, I stopped them. There's now another drug that isn't licensed yet and has some side effects on the blood pressure. He's not sure whether I'm going to be suitable to try it but if I did try it, they would try it in hospital to be safe. There's so far only been one trial of it and so he's sent me the paper to have a read through and hopefully we can decide together whether or not it's going to be an option I want to try.
I've also been applying for a few jobs for when I finish uni. I've obviously got my place on teacher training but I'm feeling that I want to keep my options open at the moment. If you remember back to when I was applying for my PGCE in October/November last year there was a lot of stress over whether or not the universities would take me and initially they told me that they wouldn't due to the fact that I had 'different' GCSE's to everyone else. I had to take my GCSE's at college two years late, I sat them in a year, I don't have as many as everyone else (7! Still a number I'm proud of) and because I sat them in college, I don't have any 'curricular' subjects other than the core ones because the college didn't offer any - I just had to take what was on offer. I really enjoyed my college course and I never realised that what I took would be a big deal - I needed a minimum of 5 to get onto my A-Levels and I exceeded that and moved on to the next phase in my life. When I started my English Language degree the plan was fairly certain to go on and do teaching. I'd had a brief look at Speech and Language Therapy but realised that the course options weren't practical and it was always the plan to do teaching. I pretty much had the next few years of my life set up and so when uni came along and said that I wasn't going to be able to do it, not to sound dramatic but I felt like my whole future was falling apart. I was so miserable, I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. I moped and cried and acted like a complete bitch for the next couple of weeks, but in that time, I started to think about other options. Because I had to.
Eventually the uni rang back and said they'd interview me which was good, but I was quite traumatised by the whole thing. I got my place on the Edge Hill PGCE and that was great and things settled down again. But in that really miserable time I'd thrown a few ideas on the burner and since then they've become more and more appealing to me. Teaching is a really stable career which was always what I'd wanted until now. I came out of Salford and felt really ill, I had a bit of a mood lull and life just felt completely unstable. In a way I started to feel like I wasn't compatible with a stable life. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt ok with it. Being unstable doesn't have to be bad. So much changed at the end of last year and I really don't know if stability is what I want any more.
I've started to look at potential jobs, writing and campaigning and doing things that I love and this really appeals to me. I've kept my options open and looked for jobs all over the country and it's felt really refreshing. Two weeks ago, I had an interview in London for one of the jobs that I applied for and it was a really good experience. I didn't get the job but I got some really great, useful feedback and despite it being a rejection it's been sort of confirming of what I want to do. So I've been trying to use the feedback to get some more experience in my weaker areas and kept on applying for more and more jobs all over the country in my stronger areas. I'm spending a lot of my time searching and researching and applying for jobs and it's making me feel much more positive about the future.
My Mum always encouraged me to work hard in my education so that I could get 'a good job and a stable career' and that's always what I believed I was doing. I am still a firm believer that nothing gets handed to you on a plate. You might see some people getting everything they want in life, but I'm always certain that they just worked really hard to get that. Some people have to work harder than others for whatever personal reasons they might have, but everyone can get where they want to be if they work hard enough. I'm glad that I worked hard at uni, because it's going to get me where I want to be. It's given me the skills to develop my writing and explore areas that I'm really interested in. It's going to take me where I want to go in life and give me the options and the tools to do what I want. To me, doing what I want no longer means a stable job and a good wage. The hard work doesn't stop when I finish uni - I know that if I want to do something then I'll always have to work hard to get there. But being happy and doing what I choose to do - that is going to be the best thing that my education has given me. It took a full blown breakdown over what I thought was my collapsing teaching career to realise this and as shit as I felt at the time, it was so worth it to realise what was right. I try to tell myself that everything happens for a reason - I don't really believe that though, it's just something you say to yourself when something shit happens. But my breakdown did end up having a purpose, so I'm glad.
Nearly brought up to date now, just this past week to get through. On Sunday morning of last week I started coming down with a bit of a fever and I thought I was just getting run down or a bit of a cold, by Monday I was running a high fever, I'd lost a lot of fluid, I was feeling really dehydrated and it got to the point where I couldn't sit up. I never get that ill with colds or virus so I sort of knew that this was different. On Monday night I went up to Wythenshawe with dehydration. They gave me IV paracetamol and 1000mls of fluid and let me come home later on Tuesday. The fluid and paracetamol gave me a bit more juice to fight it off and although I was still really unwell, I managed at home for the rest of it. I still wasn't really able to move about properly until Thursday. On Thursday I managed to go back to uni but walking back I could hardly breathe and really struggled to make it back to the house. I was running an even higher fever when I got back and my SATs had dropped too so I climbed into bed and slept pretty much until Friday morning when, thankfully I was feeling MUCH better. I was still really tired and I've been left with this really irritating cough but I'm feeling fine now (other than really tickley cough!) I now know the difference between a cold and the real flu.
The last thing I'm going to bring up to date is the concerts I've been to.
11th February, Manchester Arena - Tame Impala
I went with my babe Laura to see Tame Impala. It was standing room or seated and Laura was enough of a star to go seated with me otherwise I wouldn't have been able to go. We had really good seats, along the side and super close to the front. Another excellent Australian band called Jagwar Ma (fairly big in their own right!) were supporting and did an excellent set list to get everyone warmed up and then Tame Impala took the stage and the atmosphere was wicked. There was a really chilled out vibe but everyone was stood up dancing and singing, there was funky mood lighting and confetti and just such a good night out. The perfect gig. Tame Impala are so so perfect live, they completely owned. Kevin's voice is also really big live - not that I was underestimating them, but a lot of voices just don't sound as big live, especially in a venue as open as Manchester Arena and his voice was huge and on point all the way through. I just checked my Facebook and I described them as 'cute Australian people' the day after - that's very true. They seem like cool guys. It was my first gig of this year and such a great start! The only problem - which I'm going to mention since I've banged on enough about what a pain my tube is at live events - was that my tube got stood on twice. We were on the edge of an aisle and as my bag is pretty heavy I put it down in front of the seat. Whenever someone wanted to get past I picked it up quick as a flash but a few times people just appeared out of nowhere and nobody notices that I'm actually attached to my bag so twice it got stood on. Imagine trying to explain why I need to sit in the disabled section though when there is ample seating? Probably would have been safer but I didn't bother with the hassle
12th February, Manchester Arena - Against the Current, Good Charlotte and All Time Low
Manchester Arena for the second night on the trot! This time I was with Irwin. At least it was fresh in my mind where I was supposed to be driving. All Time Low were headlining this one, and although I was supposed to see them on two separate occasions before, this was the first time I actually made it there. It was also really exciting that Good Charlotte - one of my favourites as a teenager - and Against the Current were supporting them. Obviously Good Charlotte are pretty huge on their own, All Time Low even admitted that they grew up listening to Good Charlotte, so it was pretty cool that they were supporting. Against the Current are a fairly new band but I had been listening to quite a bit of their stuff already after they did a colab with Boyce Avenue and I like it. The whole show was really awesome and there was a great atmosphere all the way. I was a little disappointed that they didn't do any songs off my favourite album, but I'll forgive them since it was a long time coming to get to actually see them live in the flesh! Again it was standing room or seated and Irwin is always game to go anywhere so we were sat on the end of the aisle. Luckily I managed to avert any disaster situations this time but it still doesn't really stop me from being on edge.
5th March, Manchester 02 Apollo - James Morrison
This one was with Irwin and Becca, and Meggy B and her Mum also went but were sat separately to us. I was a bit worried about this because I'd tried to get some accessibility information beforehand and had no luck. We went to see Kodaline at Manchester 02 Apollo and they were excellent from the staff to the location of the raised platform to the entrance - which were right by eachother. After we bought tickets we found out that the accessibility arrangements were different and so I rang back and spent 4 hours on 9 different calls with robots and various unhelpful members of staff. I sent 3 tweets and a really long email which they acknowledged that they had received but never replied to. So I just had to take a gamble. There were pros and cons to the new arrangements - perhaps if they'd paid attention to my emails they could have made sure there was a bit more room for my crap but saying that we couldn't have had a better view than right next to the stage. There wasn't really very much room for the wheelchairs and us and Becca was more or less sat on our knee in the chair. As with last time though the staff were extremely helpful (shame they couldn't share this with their booking and information line colleagues!) and as I said previously, never have the disabled had one of the best views in the house! It was excellent, we were right at the front of the stage with the best view I have ever had to anything. I've been a fan of James Morrison since he very first emerged and wanted to see him live for such a long time. He is such an amazing performer and we are all still reeling and reliving the night like broken records. To top it all of, at the end, he came down to where we were sat to shake our hand and say thank you for coming. What an absolute gent. Such a lovely guy, with a gorgeous voice. Whatever music you are into, I really don't think you can go wrong with James Morrison. He gave me goosebumps.
So that's it - all caught up. I'm off to Northern Ireland and Dublin on Thursday with Irwin and Becca and we're going to a music festival on Sunday to see Sam Hunt which I'm quite excited about. It should be interesting with all my crap and all Becca's crap - I've been getting accessible travel tips from the lovely SimplyEmma's blog so we are about as prepared we can be and hopefully everything will go smoothly. I'm hoping to get my February Happiness Project up before then, so stay tuned :)
xxxx
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