My dad has had diabetes for about 10 years now. However, late Monday night something happened that has never happend before. And it was scary as hell.

Just after midnight Monday, he was already in bed, myself and my mum were just getting ready to go when we went to say night to him.

However, he wasn’t feeling right so we decided to stay up with him. 10 minutes later, came the sound of what we at first thought was snoring. But then after looking over at him, his eyes were open.

He wasn’t responding to us properly, he couldn’t talk, he was just lying there, breathing like he was snoring and completely out of it.

Paramedics arrived about 5 minutes after calling the emergency doctor. The wonderful paramedics who almost as soon as seeing him and being made aware that he was diabetic said they thought he was going into a diabetic comer. They checked his BM level to find it was 1.4 (anything below 4 is not good at all).

They quickly injected him with glucose and some other magic potions and withim 10 minutes he was out of it, talking normally and communicating again. Thank god.

Now, looking back we are amazed that (both my parents are diabetic) we have never been told about how to spot the signs of slipping in to a DC. We know now though.

The paramedics were concerned at his low blood pressure and hi BM was not stabilising as well as it should have been so they decided hospital was the best option. The next 6/7 hours that myself and my mum spent sat in the cold, uncomfortable A&E waiting room in the middle of the night were not fun. But then, we were much better of than my dad. We were finally let in to see him just as the sun was coming up, by which time we were shattered but pleased to see him looking a lot better than the last time we saw him.

Of course, moving to where we have means that Stoke Mandeville is very local to us. Stoke being the hospital (the spinal injuries unit, to be precise) where my dad spent around 16 months after being made paralysed.

When deciding that he needed to stay in for a few days to monitor this and also try and help with a few other health problems he has been experiencing he was pleased when they told him he would be going back into the SIU. The staff are great in the unit, just for the fact that they get to know the patients needs very quickly.

It doesn’t half annoy my dad, and rightly so I feel, when a clueless doctor in a normal ward asks him to turn over, or sit up or lift or move a leg. All things he cannot do too easily without help/aids… especially the lift a leg bit…. you know, with him being a double amputee paraplegic… and yes, he has been asked to do those things by thoughtless hospital staff. Even 7/8 years on, it can be quite hurtful.

So, he is in hospital now with various operations and CT scans scheduled to see if they can get to the bottom of some recent health problems, which could all be linked. Hopefully it will be a simple fix, they will give him a good old ‘MOT’ and he will be back home with us at the beginning of next week fighting fit and ready to enjoy the first Christmas in our new house. Fingers crossed.

This weeks Topical Tuesday is all about reflecting on the past and looking to the future. It is in 3 parts looking at where you were 10 years ago, where you are now and where you hope to be in ten years time…

10 Years Ago

1999, I was in the 2nd year of my degree at Derby university and was enjoying the social side of uni just a tad too much. After a quiet first year, with no one in my flat particularly wanting to go out, in the 2nd year we really embraced univeristy life and all the drinking that came with it,

It was also that year that I met my very good friend Eliza in real life (it was during my first year that I discovered that site and the mostly wonderful people it bought into my life, which was probably the other reason besides all the partying that stopped me getting the degree grade I know I could have gotten).

Over the next 10 years, quite a lot happened especially regarding my dads health and my decision to return to university.

Today

This year has been quite a change. I graduated from my 2nd degree in July and the family have also upped sticks and moved from the town i grew up in, in Northamptonshire to a small town in Buckinghamshire.

I am still single but all in all quite happy and I am finally learning to drive! Keeping everything crossed in the hopes I pass my forthcoming test and can get myself a car.

10 Years Time

To be quite honest, apart from being happy I have not really thought about where I would like to be in 10 years time. I will take things as they come and embrace what the world throws at me. If a significant other and kids are part of the worlds plan then so be it. If not, I;; just have fun being me and hopefully enjoying a successful career.

This weeks Topical Tuesday is about the fast approaching (54 days and counting… ) Christmas.

For me, Christmas is a time about family and friends. Sure the odd present is nice to receive an even nicer to give but I much more enjoy the family aspect of the event… and, in recent years the promise of a Doctor Who special slotted in between the re-runs and oh so happy soap story lines is the icing on the mince pie.

Working in retail since I was 17 until only a couple of years ago I have it firmly ingrained in me at just what a commercialised event Christmas has become. The shelves would start to be stocked with Christmas items in late September, early October and as soon as Halloween was over it would start to take over the shop. I am still astonished when thinking of how much money used to be taken at the tills in Asda on the few days before Christmas. There would be a notice board in the staff area, always displaying a high 6 figured sum of the previous days takings and how much up (it was always up) on the same day last year.

And the shop was chaos. It was recommended not to even look at the length of the queue that was forming at your till. Just focus on the customer you are serving and apologise for the wait. The good thing though, although the store was mobbed and people were panic buying goose fat they were generally, 90% of the time in a good mood. Apart from the few people that came in 30 minutes before closing on Christmas eve fuming because we had ran out of Brussels sprouts and how it would ruin their Christmas because we didn’t have any left. And the customers that thought it was a great inconvenience that we were closing early and would be closed for 2 days. Almost as if the supermarket staff were not entitled to their own time of at Christmas.

However, despite the joys horrors of working in retail at Christmas I do still see the magic in the season. The weather (although a white Christmas would just top it all of for me), the food, the happiness and the small white fairy lights on trees amoung many other things still bring a smile to my face and I hope they continue to do so for years to come.

I am looking forward to this Christmas, our first in this house. I am already thinking about where to put the tree and am sourcing some outdoor lights to be put on a small potted tree that will go by our front door and… being now that we live in a bungalow and the fascias are in easy reach on a small step ladder I am considering other TASTEFUL lights to hang along the house.

And I am already loooking forward to the Roast duck (no turkey in this house!!) and all the trimmings. Including the cooking which I have done for the last 10 years or so. I absolutely love cooking Christmas dinner. And this year being the first were we have had the wonderful invention of a dish washer to help out, it should be even better.

So, in the end Christmas is what you make it. I always try not to get bogged down in the commercial side of things and hope to instil the family aspect of the time of year into any future children that I may have.

I hope, dear readers, that you have a good one and Santa brings you lots of happiness and full bellies.

I honestly am trying to get back into blogging but what with my intensive driving lessons that I am currently doing and, well, just life in general it is proving a lot harder than you may think.

Anyhoo, I come out of my hectic life for 5 minutes to show support for the breast cancer awareness and fund raising that is going on.

If you didn’t know, this month a host of bloggers have gone Pink for October in order to raise awareness. The Boobie-thon is also well under way and has raised an enormous $8300 so far.

Also, right on topic (see what I did there?? ) is this weeks Topical Tuesday all about peoples breast cancer tales.

I am blessed that no one in my family has had cancer and only one of my friends has family that has had it, and thankfully fought it and won. I am very very lucky. I am however, very aware of it and make sure I check for those signed every so often.

So, if you can, please support your chosen breast cancer charity during this Pink October and remember, Think Pink!

I just spotted a banner, politely asking me to please upgrade so I happily obliged.

I wasn’t expecting such a change though.

It will need some getting use to but I like.

I can’t believe that last time I posted on here was November. Christmas seems like so long ago let alone November.

I would love to be writing more on here but I just don’t have the time. It is now March. In less than two months my dissertation needs to be in, in less than 3 months I will be done with uni for a second time. My dissertation is steaming along, not as fast as I might like it to be but it is getting there. It is a marked improvement on my Derby dissertation though, just for a fact that I didn’t start writing that one until the week before it had to be in. I know… bloody students!

(more…)

My chosen modules for this year have continued to be as interesting as they seemed at the start of the year and I am getting on well with them. Some of the lecturers however are not as good.

The assignment for one of the modules I am doing was given out at the start of term together with a list of suggested research areas. Basically we had to pick an area, research it and write a 3000 word report. Now this was quite a good piece of work as:

A> It is nice not to have to worry about coding or designing anything for a change, we can just write.

B> Some of the suggested topics on offer were very interesting.

I picked my area almost instantly (Cyberstalking – which was on the list he gave out and I was not the only one to pick it) and being the hard working student I was hoping to be pretty much made a start on the research straight away. (more…)

Considering the halls I currently reside in are ones that are allocated to first year students they are surprisingly quiet.

It is a fairly old building though so I imagine it has thicker walls than some of the more modern halls I am used to but even then it is still silent. I am used to halls having music playing well into the night, drunken students running up and down the corridors banging on your flat door and students generally being students… not that I have ever done these things of course *ahem*.

Besides the hole on my wall, stains on my carpet and general crudiness of the kitchen (it would be much better if there was somewhere to sit and relax, but there is only a little table and 3 uncomfortable chairs, so not the most welcoming of kitchens) it isn’t turning out too bad a place to be living. Add to that the fab location to the shops and pubs and the less than 10 minute walk to uni or the library it is perfect.

The older building has its quirks too and it looks nicer than your run of the mill, modern halls. And, rather oddly (well, I find it odd) on our floor there is an emergency access lift to the railway that runs underneath the halls. Must remember that if I am ever late for a train.

Yeah, yeah I know I have been shockingly bad at keeping this up to date. But you should know me by now and probably think some stupid excuse is coming up… well you are wrong! I am not even going to bother with an excuse this time, just put it down to me being crap.

So, the summer literally flew by and on Saturday I moved back to Liverpool. As any of you who is a friend on Facebook will have seen over the weekend I didn’t initially think too much of my room. Hole in one wall, crack in another, stains on carpet and generally dirtiness of the room when I got here was not good. Anyhow, once we had a clean and got my stuff in I settled in pretty quickly and it is good to be back at uni.

Even better is that the available modules seem much more interesting than previous years and the coursework we have been told about already sounds like it will be quite manageable (remind me I said this in a month or two when I am tearing my hair out please).

The strange part of the week has been finding out that our nice little course with 4 people in our year has suddenly grown to 15 people due to a load of the 2nd years not getting placements and going straight into the final year. I quite liked the fact there was only 4 of us so the fact that our course is now more than triple the size in numbers is going to take some getting used to.

Due to some expert guidance given to me last night I am making progress with my dissertation and hope to make a big start on that very soon and I am looking forward to the start of lectures next week. So, all in all a good first week back at uni.

Please let it carry on as well, i know the work is going to start to pile on soon… but I’m ready for it!

Bring it on!

I am all packed and waiting for my sister, who is currently stuck on the M6 to come and pick me up to take me home for the remainder of the summer holiday. On Thursday I finished my placement. I have enjoyed the time at the college but have to say I was quite happy to get to the end and I am looking forward to getting back to uni and starting my final year as a student.

I will miss all the guys at work, they have made the job very easy to get into and they were all fun to work with. After work on Thursday we went out for a couple drinks to celebrate us leaving. Needless to say the couple drinks lead to me getting in at 1am after consuming far more than a couple of drinks. It was a fantastic night out though, my best in a long time and it has made me start missing the guys already. A good thing about the college being quite close to uni is that I can come back and visit next year which I definitely will do.

So, my year in Widnes has been worth it. The placement has been great, I have learned a lot and I have definitely grown as a person more. My confidence, not only in my ability to do the job but also in myself has grown immensely. For that alone, this year was worth it, the additions I have to put on my CV is a bonus.