Tag: Raising Awareness

hospital-picture-london

Waiting for Surgery & Ward Neighbours

Self-doubt really cripples my progress in writing the remainder of this saga. How long should it be? Am I skipping over important parts? Or am I including too much info on uninteresting, normal events. I am reading a book by Margaret Atwood at the moment and it took being 200 pages in for me to be interested in it simply because absolutely everything is described. But at the same time I love it because she could write a novel about a leaf and make it sound interesting. So here goes nothing…

Previously on this average story telling blog….I was just told the news that I would be having my right ovary removed. But before we dive into my anatomy, let’s talk about my ward neighbours first (all names have been changed or omitted just incase this gets popular – unlikely but just incase haha).

Hospital Life in slow motion

This London story is so much longer than I originally intended. The more I write the more I seem to remember. It’s like the memories were stuffed in a brain wardrobe out of sight and now everything is spilling into my consciousness. I’m pretty sure that’s called ‘avoidance’ or numbing the emotions when things are simply too difficult for you to process so you just don’t.

A lot of things that I write here might not be remarkable in any way to other people, but via these blogs I hope to let go of the trauma I felt from all of this. Yes worse things happen in life but to me, this turned my life upside down and gave it a good shake. It made me view life differently and re-evaluate what I wanted out of it. This is my final piece to recovery and upon which I will close this chapter.

London – Part 3 – Staying in hospital away from home

That first night on the ward was rough. During the day there were lots of staff on and it wasn’t too bad in terms of getting pain relief. The night was a whole different thing.

I awoke with the same searing pain that I had on that first night. Now..instead of pressing the nurse button, I would say I sat for a good hour and quietly wished it away. For one thing I was EXHAUSTED and I really needed sleep. You know like in the middle of the night when you need to pee – but this was worse. The pain continued to intensify and eventually I pressed the button. As I heard the bell echo around the nurse’s station I became aware at how silent the ward was. During the day, the nurses buzzed around the station, answering calls and attending to the growing mass of patients under their care. This time though, the bell wasn’t answered – the tinny sound hung in the air and then eventually stopped. I blinked. Ok – don’t panic – I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this. They are probably with another patient. Maybe they are having a meeting. Wait no why would they be having a meeting in the middle of the night. I get frustrated as I try to remember who was on the ward that night but at my last OBs check I was half asleep – but how were you asleep getting your blood pressure done?? I’ve got Narcolepsy people…I can sleep through anything.

Perfectionist Ways – Please leave

I have this thing where if something isn’t perfect I won’t do it. Perfectionists are often seen as highly motivated individuals, meticulous in their work, working to high standards and generally, it’s viewed as a good trait to have.

Mines is driving me crazy. It’s making me avoid everything at the minute, so much so that it’s actually delaying things.

Whilst yes its great to have the aspiration for everything to perfect, sometimes just getting the job 80% done is…I just paused this sentence to review the first sentence and it’s phrasing….i’m moving on with writing this but I’m still thinking ‘maybe that doesn’t sound quite right’ and now I’m thinking maybe I should just scrap this blog all together.

Not today sister.

London – Part Two – A Joe Wicks lookalike and an ode to Morphine

I’m still trying to find consistency in the chaos that is Covid-19. I’ve had phases of super productivity and then panic phases of ‘oh-shit it’s still here’ and then back to chilling and then something else happens so I turn on the news again. One thing is for sure – watching the news is definitely the factor in determining how I feel about life. The less of it I watch the better (with the exception of Cosmo and the odd business related snippet on Linked In).

So where were we in this old tale of tiredness? Ah yes…the sight of blood in a London hotel room. No there wasn’t a murder, nor a knife fight, just a pasty blonde shortie bent over a toilet getting sweatier by the minute and a piercing pain in her side.

I reached for the hotel phone and attempted to call 999. No dice. It was making this weird beeping sound when I tried to dial out and wouldn’t work. A few attempts later I decided to press the hotel reception number. It wouldn’t work either.

My momentous trip to LDN – Part 1

How to begin this blog… this is probably the most horrific and equallu hilarious one of the lot. Warning – you probably shouldn’t read this if you are eating. I thought about editing out some of this but honestly, that’s what happened and everyone has bodies and functions, that’s all I’m saying haha. I have split it into parts as there are many twists and turns in this tale.

Failing Exams

Repeating Professional Exams – A Blurred History of Failure

I’m trying to keep this blog writing thing up but honestly being consistently exhausted makes it so physically hard sometimes – bear with me! I do my best to be positive but some days I just get so frustrated. I am a person who wants to do a lot of things trapped in a body that wants to sleep 24/7.I thought long and hard about what way to present this next part. I wasn’t sure whether to tell the story as it was or to jazz it up a bit with a few jokes in there. In the end, I decided to tell it exactly as it was. In this current climate, there will be a number of people now feeling how I felt then. All I can say is that it will get better, you will survive this and come out stronger. Yes it sounds cheesy, but if there is a next time that you hit such lows, you have a ladder in the form of coping mechanisms to be able to get out again. It also sort of gives you a superpower – your biggest fear has already been presented itself to you so next time you will be fearless. World Pandemic come at me – you needn’t think you are going to break my spirit.  

April is upon us

I haven’t really been able to keep up with doing a blog per week as previously intended.  I was listening to the Wild Expansion Podcast today and she was talking about how she sometimes gets caught up in wanting her podcasts to be perfect or that feeling of not being enough and I think that hits the nail on the head. I’m that hung up about thinking that my blog isn’t as good as other blogs and worrying over the topic that it get’s in the way of actually getting the thing done! What also motivated me to start writing was the fact that I had intended to do four blogs in March and only did two. It’s 1 April today so maybe this can count as three.

Rinse and Repeat

I have decided recently that escapism via living in the past, watching the Disney streaming service and reading books about other worlds is my best coping strategy. Along with some Yoga and listening to Pat Divilly because he has a soothing voice. Although this blog post was hard for me to revisit, it reminded me that I have been through a lot and came out the other end. We will all come out the other end of this crazy Pandemic better people and thankful for the little things in life, for they are the big things after all.

New Year, Same Me

Happy New Year!! I can’t seem to write a blog post in one sitting these days so these were my thoughts on New Years eve:As the New Year approaches, it is a time of reflection on the year that is almost over and the memories attached to it. It was my 28th birthday yesterday and I found myself thinking about where I was at in my life and what I still wanted to achieve. This led to a lot of self-criticism about career, finances, ambitions…I noticed I was focusing on what I HADN’T done yet rather than what I had achieved to date. I found myself thinking that in childhood I thought I would be married by now, have bought a house by now and be further in my career by now. I was generally focusing on the should-haves rather than the progress I had made throughout the year.