Rejected.

Well, I got my first university rejection today. De Montfort Uni in Leicester. It was my first choice and everything. Well pissed off. Leicester would've been ideal because I would've been on placement in hospitals I know. I've still got to hear back from a few, and the latest I'll know is May, so it's not horrendous. I'm just a bit dis-heartened to see my first choice declined.

Sorry for the lack of blogging. Things have been a bit hectic here. I managed six weeks out of hospital and then three weeks in. Three weeks in hospital is enough to send anyone nuts. But Chris came to see me when I was in, which was fantastic. It really cheered me up seeing him. It was tough because he was meant to come over last weekend but couldn't afford to stay in a B&B again so we had to say no to that one. It was a bit shit because I got out then on the Monday. While I was in though I tried sub cut and it worked really well, so I know I can use that in future if need be. Hayes has a few tricks up his sleeve apparently, so we shall see what happens. I'm determined to stay out of hospital long enough to make it to clinic this time. 17th of Jan and counting.

In other news, James is back with us again. While I was in hospital, Nanny and Pappy found out he was staying with us and told mum that if he didn't go, we had to. So mum kicked him out. But the weather hit -15 here and he didn't have any heating in the garage, so mum let him come back for a bit. He has to be gone by the first week in Jan though, Nanny and Pappy are coming back from Tenerife for a week and if they find out he's here they'll have a fit. I can't wait to see Nanny, I missed her when I was incosterated.

So Christmas shopping is all done, wrapped and all that jazz. I hate Christmas, the only good thing is seeing TJ open his presents on Christmas morning. I'm too old for Santa now and to everyone else it's just another day in the year, cept with better food. Christmas is all about the food. Fact. I'm having Chicken and Ham this year. Can't be arsed cooking a turkey, and I don't think it would fit in our oven anyway. The poor oven would probably have a fit if we tried to put a full sized bird into it. Last time we tried to do anything inventive mum set fire to the kitchen. And then James set fire to the toast this morning. Our oven doesn't like us much. That'll teach mum to use a gas oven that's older than me and probably isn't safe to be used in a home anymore.

Anyway,

Happy Christmas dear readers. (Does anyone actually read this?!) and have a happy new year!

Atrocious Behaviour!

I know. I'm a disgrace. I've been out of hospital now for about 3 weeks and I've not bothered my arse updating my blog. Right, well I'll do it in topics haha.

Hospital Admission.

Well, as I had previously posted, I wasn't feeling fantastic in the week running up to being admitted, owing to the fact I got infected with something known as "The Common Cold" or in my case "The bastarding thing that causes me to go into hospital everytime I get one." I knew quite early on in the day that I was going to end up in. I just felt pants and my sats where slowly going down. I've got a little sats monitor I use occasionally when I'm not feeling great to see whether I can get away with just nebbing or not. But this just wasn't happening today and I packed my back at about 12pm knowing fine well what was going to happen. About 9pm I texted mum and told her to call it. It's easier for me to text her when I'm not well than it is to bellow down the stairs. So the ambulance came and I got buggered off to Cavan. Where the lovely people there kept me on a corridor giving me half hourly nebs and 100% o2 all night. Joyous. Needless to say when I ended up on CPAP on ICU the next morning the nurses and my consultant wasn't too pleased. It was amusing to see *Lily bellowing at A&E the next day. But got out after a week, so it wasn't too bad. What wasn't cool though was that while I was in I was using my iPhone for the internet and ran my bill up to £200. Ouch.

Dad

When I got out, I went to see Daddy in Belfast for a few days. It was great seeing him, even if it was only for a few days. I haven't seen him since Christmas and I really missed him. He's moved to Tenerife because of the way his work is so I don't get to see him very often. I got to see some people I haven't seen in ages like my aunt and great aunt aswell, so it's all good. I'm hoping if my lungs behave to get over to see Dad in February, and if not he's coming home to see me. And so help him if he doesn't, I'll kill him!

School

I'm semi back to school. I went in last Friday, then it was half term. So I had a shite load of work to catch up on over half term. I suppose it was good I had half term to do it, or I would've been screwed. I went in on Monday, but had Tues and Weds off because I got the flu jab and haven't been feeling fantastic. Bloody thing. Every year I say I'm not going to get it next year, but always end up giving in. I suppose it's better than getting the proper flu and ending up in a proper mess. I can't see school being too pleased if I miss yet more time off. But I think I'm keeping up pretty Ok considering everything that's happening.

James

Everything's kicking off with James again. He was in rehab for 6 weeks, but when he got out on weekend leave about 2 weeks ago he didn't bother going back. He's been drinking again since that and is going back down the falling to pieces route. On Tues Night he tried to hang himself and it went wrong, resulting in him breaking his shoulder. So mum's forced him to go back to rehab. He's never going to be able to hold down a job or anything in his current state, so how the hell would mum even contemplate going back to him is beyond me. In my honest opinion I don't think he's ever going to stop drinking, and mum would be better off just leaving him to it. But hey, I'm only a teenager. What does my opinion matter?

Chris is coming over this weekend, so I've got that to look forward to. Bless him, he's all excited.

Not dead

Just quickie to say I haven't dropped off the face off the earth. I'm in hospital at the minute with asthma and don't have my laptop so using my phone.

Will update properly when I escape x

This sucks.

Warning: Moan ahead.

I'm fed up. I'm fed up of asthma. I'm fed up of tummy problems. I'm fed up of the diabetes that isn't diabetes. It's pissing me off. It's 2.26am. I should be sleeping. I've got to be up for school in 5 hours, then get on a bus to Belfast in 12. I want to be normal and be able to sleep at normal times like normal people. Everything's so fucked up at the minute that I don't know what's actually normal in my life anymore. I've had 2 days off school this week because my chest's been so pissed with me that if I went in I would come out in an ambulance. I'm currently debating putting my pred up for a week and seeing if that helps. It's gotten to that stage. Fuck off Asthma.

In other news, Chris is coming over on Saturday :D It's gonna be a good weekend. I've missed him summat chronic. We're spending Saturday in Belfast and I'm going to take him to see Toy Story 3 and go for breakfast and stuff. I'm going up tomorrow to stay with Kathleen. That'll be interesting considering Kathleen is a chain smoker and has 5 cats. It's going to be a fun night. I'm gonna neb 3 hrly and just hope for the best to be honest. It'll be worth it though. Kathleen's my adopted grandmother and I haven't seen her for an age. It will be good to get properly caught up with her.

I'm now sitting playing Lego Harry Potter on my DS and wishing I could get to sleep. I think the best plan is to stay awake all night, then sleep on the bus to Belfast. We shall see how that plan works...

A Day in the Life of Me

Well since I moved to Ireland, things are a bit different for me now. so I thought I would do another picture Day in the Life of me!




Morning Drugs! Takes me about 20mins to get everything done first thing in the morning. It's annoying, I could be having another 20mins in bed.


Crunchy Nut Cornflakes for the win!


Clambering up the stairs to my classroom for registration. I'm about half way up here.


In art now. Supposed to be drawing this. It's not going very well.


Looking out my classroom window at lunch time. We've got a pretty good view over the town.


To Religion! Urgh, Religion bores me. I'm too outspoken for it.


Hometime! And the reminder that my room is a bombsite and needs tidied.



Took TJ down the fields for a bit for a walk. We've got a lot of sunflowers and stuff down the fields.


Homework list. It's silly. It's our parent teacher meeting tomorrow, so they seem to think it's OK to give us double homework for the weekend. Argggh.



My pile of homework set out on the table. Noooooooo!


Random PRN neb. Lungs decided to throw a strop. Grrr



Dinner = Noodles and Bacon. Bliss.


My bag wouldn't actually close today. I've burst the zip a few times already


Played with the dog for a bit. She's nuts lol.


Bedtime meds. My sugars are being grrrr today. That makes me grrrr!



And finally into bed. It's Midnight and I've just finished my homework. Well my maths and English. Argggh my head hurts!

Sleep time!

12 of 12

Well, I spent the 12th of this month in Hospital. Faaaantastic! I don't know if I managed to get 12 pics, but I did take about 4 random ones haha.



The Cannula I had in the crease of my arm gave up at like 6am. Not fun. The tegaderm didn't agree with me.


They ended up cannulating the middle of my arm. It hurt!



They turned all the lights off and shut the curtains at about 3pm. CCU is great, the have Sony Bravia's hanging from the ceiling.



Then me and the nurses had chinese at 11pm! Fun times!

So yea, Ended up back in hospital. It's getting really fucking annoying now. I'm waiting on my appointment with my new consultant coming through, but it'll probably be after Christmas now because the waiting list is silly. This admission though about 3 other things went wrong, not just my chest. Which was really annoying. When I'm ill, my pottasium levels go low. As a result I was having Cardiac Arrythmias which means I was skipping heartbeats left, right and center and spent 3 days on Coronary Care and another 6 days with Cardiac Monitoring on. So not cool. Then on top of that I ended up with an obstructed bowel. The pain was just silly. I probably wouldn't have been in so long if it hadn't have been for that. So I've been sent home with Lactalose. Not good. Nasty stuff. Evil nasty horrible stuff. Constipated people don't give a shit.

In other news. James is in an alcoholic treatment center. To be honest I don't care. He's said he'd stop drinking so many times before, that until he's off it for at least 6 months and is making a proper effort to get his life back on track, I'm not going to get my hopes up. The scars just run too deep. He got himself arrested again before I went into hospital for drinking and driving, and should be in court tomorrow. But obviously he won't be. He got away very lightly. They aren't charging him for driving without a license, which at the minute he doesn't have because he got it taken off him about 3 years ago for exactly the same thing. Some people never learn. He's a dickhead, and the sooner mum realises that and tells him where to go the better.

I'm going back to school tomorrow. It should be interesting. I've got a shitload of work to catch up on, and my parent teacher meeting is in a few weeks. I'm screwed. I've only actually been in school for a week since the year began. I'm determined though I'm going to catch up. I like school, and they're making a huge effort to make things easier for me, so the least I can do is return the effort.

Anyway, until next time my friends!

Lesson for this week? Woks are Dangerous

As the title says, My mammy learned the hard way last night that woks are dangerous. James was over last night (will explain all about what's going on with James and mum at another time, too long winded) and he had put the wok on the stove and forgot about it. Thus setting the wok on fire, making the kitchen roll catch fire. Mum grabbed both, dropped the kitchen roll in the hall making a hole in the hall floor and giving herself 2nd degree burns to her right hand in the process. Impressive? I thought so aswell. So there's now a massive burn mark in the hall lino that's been covered with a rug and smoke marks up the kitchen ceiling. Needless to say my lungs weren't impressed and I spent most of last night coughing. Rawr.




But I'm over in nanny's for the day so mum and James can spend some time together. Not only that but the house still smells of smoke and mum is going to have to spray a shit load of bleach spray to get rid of it and the marks that were left by the smoke on the cooker. But I got to take the quad bike out today for the first time sicne I crashed it over a year ago. I tried to get it up a steep hill and it didn't go well. I couped it and it started leaking petrol. Needless to say I nearly shite myself and had to run the 2k back to the house to get my uncle and other uncle to go rescue it. Nanny and Pappy are away this week so I took my oppurtunity and took it for a quick spin around some of the fields. It felt great to get that sense of freedom and power back. As you can see from the photo, the quad isn't just a little kids toy, it can hit about 40kph.



These are some pics of where I live. Most people can't believe I live in the arse end of nowhere and on a farm. He's your proof :P







You can't live on a farm without the obligatory tractor or pile of cow shite.


I think I've gotten used to being home now. I'm going to my old years Graduation Prom on Tuesday night. I can't fucking wait. Oooooh more gossip. Me and Chris are no more. His controlling behaviour just got too much and we're now officially over. It's weird. But I feel a lot better for it because it was just getting too much and now I don't have to worry about every little thing I do upsetting him. But now I can go to the debs with my best friend Laura, dance all night, not come home until 5am and have a fantastic night. It will be brilliant! :D

But this has been a silly long blog post, and I can't be arsed typing anymore. I'll do another post during the week maybe :)

Home.

Well, I think the title says it all. I moved back home. It had been coming for a while, and I think I realised just what all had happened in the past year and realised what I'd lost. I've failed my GCSE's, my health's gone to shit, my house was in all honestly crap and I missed home. So I decided to leave. And once again being me, it was a quick decision. Was gone within a week. I really need to start thinking about things properly.

Getting home again was strange. It's weird going from having so much independance and being able to do whatever you want to living with parents again. But things have changed. Mum's a lot more understanding now of why I left, and has told me that she treated me like shit. And of course I broke down in tears at that. It's been a hard 10 years for both of us, but I think she's finally turning the corner and to be able to see my mum as happy as she is, is making me happy.

You would think getting home would sort my lungs out though? Right? Well ha. Pigs will fly. Was home 6 days and ended up in. But I didn't just do simple splatt that needs a few nebs and home. I did going to an MIU in Monaghan, then getting a doctor blue light transfer to Cavan Hospital, sitting in resus for 6 hours, transfer to ICU, Arterial Lines, CPAP and catheters. Then passing out when they brought the bloke who was the same age as James(who was in as well with withdrawals), in with the same thing and was in the same bay to ICU in cardiac arrest. Not fun. But hey. Home now. I'm on that many drugs now that I fecking rattle. But hey, thats part and parcel of having lung problems and there's people in worse states than me.

I'm gonna go have lunch now, so I'll come back to this another day :)

Sorry, What was that?

Well, I found out this week that my hearing is going. Which at my age is pretty shit for want of a better word. I was in hospital last week (same old problem) and it was decided I need to go for a hearing test. So that's being booked. Loosing you're hearing at 18 is not something that should happen. But until my test comes through I'll not know how severe it is. I'm scared that I'm going to be deaf by the time I'm 30. I don't want to have to give up all my dreams because of yet another health problem. Bollocks to it all. Not only that, but I've been referred to see a councellor and am having my citalopram changed because my depression is out of control again. It never fecking ends.

Not a lot else is going on at the minute. Me and Chris are going to Ilfracombe on Monday for a few days, which should be good fun. We both need a holiday. The past 6 months for me have been a nightmare, and I can't imagine they've been very easy on Chris either. My poor boyfriend has seen me in ITU, sat crying in the corner of my room and has sat with me through every hospital admission, every resus visit and every clinic appointment.

I don't normally post summat like this, but to hell with it. My friend Rachael could really do with some prayers at the minute. She had a double lung transplant a few months ago, and has suffered complication after complication.

I'll probably not post until I get back on Friday, so until then, Toodles!

12 of 12 and an update.

I get up late, and still find time to make my bed! Wooo go me!



Was on a Red Cross duty. It's Refugee Week and the British Red Cross were holding like a party thing in the park in town and we were asked to go keep an eye on things. This is the samba players plus our refugee co-ordinators.



3/4 times a day I have to check my blood sugar. Because I didn't realise when I was in DKA before, I have to be careful and check it regularily. My poor fingers are screwed.




This was on my list of things to do today, but never got done. My poor bedside table!



You know you're going mad when you start seeing Red Cross vans everywhere. This one was parked across my road delivering a whole load of stuff.



I'm doing like a photo challenge thing for a Sci-Fi Group I belong to. I was doing my chemistry revision and hadn't got a picture for 31, so thought why not gallium?!



Urgh, hate revision. Notice how the TV is on, I think I was watching it more than chemistry to be honest



Gt Chris some stuff to say thank you for what he's done for me lately. He's going to start his paramedic training soon so I thought the book would be a good idea, and he needed a new torch, so it's all good!



And then the voice started to go :( and so began my lurgy.



The drugs of a dozy asthmatic when she has the lurgy at night.



The temperature and peak flow. Considering I have the lurgy that's not a bad peak flow. Still pretty pants for me, but all good considering last time I had the lurgy I ended up in hospital with a severe chest infection.



And finally, My teddy! I can't go to sleep without him!

So what's been going on? Not an awful lot. In the middle of my exams, so when I'm not asleep because I feel like shit, I'm studying. Life of a student and all that. It could be worse, I could be doing A-Levels. Oh wait, that's next year. Asthma-Wise, Lungs reasonably behaving. I've got the cold so I don't think they're gonna be 100%, but a peak flow of about 350 isn't bad. The blood sugars are being quite stable aswell so it looks as if things are finally on the up on that side. But we'll see what happens!

Vicky x

Day in the life of Me

I thought I'd give you a day in the life of me blog, because I've got nothing better to blog about and I thought it may be remotely interesting haha. I'll do it on a typical Wednesday and will put as much detail and humour into it as I can :P

0715 - Alarm goes off. Alarm gets thrown at wall. It's one of those fantastic alarms that gets thrown at the wall to shut it up. Whoever invented them needs Knighted.
0730 - Roll out of bed and wander to the bathroom. I generally end up falling over something on the way.
0735 - Drugs time! In the morning I take: Prednisolone, Aminophylline, Citalopram, Fexofenadine, Lansoprazole, Calceos, Nasonex and my eye drops go in. I then take my Symbicort, Atrovent and Ventolin. I check my blood sugars and depending on what they're like decides whether or not I need to go have some coke. I'll check my peak flow and hope that it's high enough for me to ignore my asthma for a few hours. It generally isn't.
0740 - Get dressed and find college books. Generally easier said than done in my bedroom.
0745 - Go downstairs and have a bowl of cereal (BM depending, may end up being toast or nothing) and then run back upstairs to brush teeth.
0755 - Grab headphones, college ID and rucksack and run for the bus. Never a good start when you open the door and see the bus at the bus stop. Ruuuuuun!
0830 - Get to college and collapse in a heap in the medical room for 10mins to recover from your manic adventure to college.
0840 - 1230 - Lessons. God bless Wednesdays, I finish at lunchtime. Makes life so much easier.
1300 - Get home and do BM again. Fingers getting a bit sore by now, but hey, sooner or later they'll just become numb and won't be bothered by all the stabbings. I'll generally do a bit of revision for a few hours then play on my Wii. I do get bored though so going to sleep happens too.
1730 - Make some food. Generally pasta is a good start if I'm only cooking for me.
1800 - Go back upstairs and study a bit more or play my xbox this time. More than likely the xbox will win.
1900 - Time to leave for Red Cross. This will generally involve me treating some "casualty" they've made up for us. Borrrring.
2200 - Get home and clamber into bed. Try and find drugs on bedside table, check BM and peak flow and collapse in a heap

Intensive Care Unit.

I don't think I could ever experience what has happened in the past few days again without completely going mad.

After my post on Thursday night my chest started getting quite bad and I didn't feel quite right, so I got one of my housemates to call an ambulance. I wasn't overly bad when the ambulance got there, but they know me and know I can go downhill quite quickly so took me in and took me to resus. When I got to resus I had lots of nebs, o2 and some hydrocortasone. They moved me to a ward pretty quickly which was quite good. I had declined an ABG in resus because I didn't think I was bad enough, but when I got up to ACB they had to call the ITU team because my HR, Resp Rate and Blood Sugar levels were really dodgey and they decided that I needed an ABG, so after a hell of a lot of persuasion I let them have one. But noooo, one wasn't enough. They wanted 3. So after a lot, and I mean a lot of persuasion, I let them have their 3. It was then decided my lactate levels were too high, my pottasium was too low and a lot of other things were dodgey. So they moved me to ITU. And I'm not joking, it was one of 'Thee' worse nights of my life so far. They had me catheterised, put an arterial line in and had fook knows how many lines going in and out. I think I had about 6 things going in and out of me. I know it's not a lot to some people, but to someone who has never been in ITU before it was absolutely terrifying. There was people around me ventilated and everything and here was little old me wondering what the hell was going on.

In the end they got everything sorted. I was on an insulin drip for 3 days because my sugars were all over the shop. They said I was in DKA because of the steroids I'm on and things, so I need to see the diabetic nurses on Monday so they can decide what to do from there. But for now I'm still stuck on the ward. I do know something though, I never, ever want to have to go through that again. I'm really going to make an effort to sort my diet out and what not, because that can't have helped matters. I made Emma a promise when she sat with me in ITU, that I would try and sort my life out, and I plan on doing that.

But for now, it's another hospital visit. I so can't wait to see my discharge letter haha.

12 of 12 (very late anyway)

Breakfast! A ham and cheese toastie!


Woo! A B on my Biology Mock! Happy Days!


Chris got me a Mr Bump mousemat for passing my mocks, So I drew a neb mask on him haha.



Dinner! God Bless Pot Noodles!



My Room's an absolute bombsite at the minute. It's not good



Building the new red cross flag. "Where does this bit go?!"



Major Incident? Nope, We're cleaning!



Playing about with my cameras settings



Chemistry Revision! Urgh!



Being very sad and taking pictures of ambulances!



Playing with Arpeture and Macro!



Bedtime!