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Sunday 15 May 2016

Taking Stock

Sitting at my desk in my towel, too lazy to get dressed, with the window open and a somewhat warm spring breeze flowing into my room I just happened to look at the calendar on my computer and I realised,

It was today, 

Today 4 years ago was the first day I was in hospital and the beginning of one of the toughest years of my life so far. 


For those of you that don't know, or have recently come to my blog, you can check out my oldest posts from when I started this to get some more information, but just quickly, when I was 17, after suffering for 6 months with acute abdominal pains pretty much ongoing to the point I would vomit, I was rushed to A&E in an ambulance and was quickly diagnosed with Pancreatitis caused by gallstones. This meant that approximately one third of my pancreas had died, it still has, it will never grow back and that I would require surgery to remove my gall bladder, that had caused this in the first place. Although, luckily the infection in my pancreas responded to the drugs after a few weeks, if not I was looking at being put on the transplant list and move to the High Dependency Unit. Basically I was really not very well and was in hospital in Winchester for near on two months. 


Thinking about it now, it all seems so long ago, and so much has happened in the past 4 years to make me forget about it, and I'm glad, and so lucky, that for the majority of the time I can forget about it. Although, if I'd had the option to not have been ill, I would have taken it in a heart beat, however, the fact is I was, and as shit as it was, and as difficult as it was for my family, my life wouldn't have been the same without it.


Okay, I know that sounds a little over dramatic, and really, from what I can remember it wasn't that bad, but I know it was hard for my parents. But I was thinking, what would my life had been like if it hadn't have happened. I wouldn't have missed my AS exams, but my grades may or may not have been different, so would I have got my Oxford interview, would I have been accepted to UCL with the better grades I would have hopefully got at A2 after missing AS? But if I hadn't have got ill, would I have ever made the decision to take a gap year and have one of the best years ever, would I have decided to have fun in my year off and go to Royal Holloway? Somehow I doubt it. 


I'm not saying that all these things happened in my life because I got ill, but I'm not sure they would have happened if I hadn't, or at least not in the same way.


Getting ill was shit, there is no two ways about it, but through it, and through beginning this blog because of it, I have been contacted by people who have suffered similar things to me, or have just wanted more information. Whoever it is, whatever they ask, I am just really glad I can help, especially, as to me, it wasn't that bad (in my blurry memory of it anyway - although I can't remember 5 days of it so who knows!) but I know how hard it is for families going through things like this. 


Not that this post was meant to be morbid or me saying yay - look at me I survived. No. But what it has done has made me appreciate even more the people who care about us in the hospital, the worried families for their loved ones, and it has given me a weird understanding of what it means to be totally vulnerable, because there is nothing you can do, and that is strangely settling. 


Anyway, enough of the deep stuff, I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU, to all my readers and friends that have stuck with me since it happened and I created this blog. I owe it all to you that it is even still here, and a big thanks to the nurses and doctors of Winchester Hospital Children's Ward who looked after me in the Spring of 2012. I wouldn't still be here if it wasn't for those amazing people. What a sobering thought.


Have a good week my loves!


Lots of Love, Kate xxx

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