Fighting the flab!

So I am back home for Easter now, and loving being back with the family and seeing some of my friends from home who I haven’t seen for months – because I missed seeing most of them over Christmas due to being in hospital. Its lovely! I do unfortunately have a lot of work on at the moment though  😦 I have something mad like 4 essays, a presentation to make, a write up to do and revision for one exam – so these aren’t going to be the most relaxing of weeks!

 

My aim over Easter is to shed a few pounds ( I know- not the best time of year to try!) and just get a tad slimmer or more toned. Nothing crazy; I know I couldn’t really be described as fat, but I am definitely feeling “podgy” which just isn’t that fun!  I think it was because for SO long before I hadn’t been able to truly eat what I wanted when I did; and then when I got ill I lost quite a bit of weight quite quickly so that everyone kept commenting on it – which meant that straight after the op (well, after the recovery) I went a bit mad! I have been able to snack, eat red meat, eat whatever really, and aside from that people kept saying “you look underweight and ill” – which is a free pas to go crazy on the chocolate bourbons and make yourself look healthier again right? well that was my approach! So, not doing anything drastic – just cutting out snacking and trying to eat a slightly smaller portion of meal. I am not stopping any foods, or if I am out dong something special then screw it I am allowed a slice of cake (!); but generally trying to be healthier and drop a few pounds by the end of Easter (maybe too optimistic?!)

 

Hope you are all coming up to some sort of break for the holidays!

 

H x

So another term draws to a close…

…but not before having a last minute essay stress!
I am busily typing away to you (going to be a quickie im afraid – cheeeeeky 😉 ) because I am in the middle of trying to do a 2000 word essay for Friday, and lets just say its not going to plan! bleughh!

My tap shows last week went FAB, they were so much fun and such a confidence boost and a bit of a moral victory over my Crohns. For months I thought that my operation would stop me going to it, PAH, as if. Screw you Crohnies, I got up there and tapped my heart out and enjoyed every minute! (bit of a lie, first show I thought I was going to be sick I was so scared…the glamour of showbiz haha!)
I missed the last show on the Sunday to drive back home and go to my granddads 80th, which was really good fun 🙂 Not quite the afterparty I had in mind, but something probably more memorable! I love family things like that, although gutted it overlapped with Pure Dance; what were the chances?!

ANYWAYS back now! Just trying to get this essay done (as I have said 5 times already … apologies it really has been a long day!) and just wrote a blog post on my archaeology blog about the work I was doing- the title is ” do computer models allow us to experience the past as it really was? Discuss with examples’ and although its really irrelevant to what I normally post on here, just wanted to copy a paragraph across because I was pretty proud of it! :

“… That’s pretty weird right? Someone who is spending three years of their life to study the past and try to understand peoples lives and how they thought and acted, and yet I don’t want better simulations? The reason is simple – a computer isn’t a person. And I don’t think it ever should be. A computer cant think, or feel, or have emotions; it cant remember memories attached to certain places in a town or house, it cant feel wind or heat or appreciate the rush of happiness you get when you walk out of a cool house into a hot courtyard towards a fountain…its a machine. No matter how brilliant these models can become (and they are already pretty damn amazing!) the next step leans towards AI, and computers beginning to understand these things and I am not sure I think that’s good. THey are clever enough; are we really so vain as to think we can condense the essence of being human, that human spirit, into a machine? Into a code? I don’t think that machines will ever truly allow us to experience the past as it really was because; well, it was experienced by people, interacting with other people, caring for yet more people. And a computer just cant show us all that. …”

I KNOW. Deep, huh? 😉 But, I was pleased it showed my feeling well, I think – although needless to say I haven’t been able to put that into my essay, I don’t think its the correct style of writing! But I am trying hard to adapt it to fit into what I want it to be, and to make my point just as strongly but in a more academic way.

Chronies is fine, the scar is merrily just healing away (woo) although starting to get some serious grumbling noises again, but I am just staunchly in denial. Humpff. I am having a blood test and seeing the specialist after the Easter holidays (in a month) to check on all my levels. SO I guess I would see things then. But its not swollen or sore anymore, which I am taking as a good thing!
Hope you are all having a good week, and nobody is too stressed!

Big Smiles,

H x

Tappity Tap tap

I love the fact that I don’t have a new moan, a new pain, to write about every day now. I hope it demonstrates to everyone out there that there are good and bad times. Fingers crossed that this lasts for a while, but I have to be realistic in the fact that it may not. All I can do is hope! I will continue to blog (sorry to anyone who thought that listening to my ramblings was nearly over 😉 ) because Crohns is still a part of me and of my daily life, whether it is actively causing me pain or not.

Just thought I would give you an update on my life at the moment. So tomorrow I am back to the doctors for an ECG and blood test – although neither are Crohns related! I was a bit concerned when I was in hospital over Christmas (okay, that bit is Crohnies playing up!) they were saying how my heart rate was quite fast a lot of the time, and seemed to monitor it a lot so I decided to just get it checked up now I am back at uni and everything 🙂
So, theres that. But otherwise I am in big rehersal mode! I am in a dance show this weekend with the university, my first one in years and years and my first ever tap one. I am SO excited! Although a little bit nervous too, since we performed infront of the others in the show (about 200 others) and I got the shakes very badly, but I think its a good experience! I remember trying to plan my operation; originally it wasn’t due to have happened yet it was due to happen over Easter and I was trying to plot it around Pure Dance (the show) and working out if I could go. Then it got moved forward to the end of January after exams, and I was concerned I would miss the show..then it happened as an emergency. But, on a positive, I only missed one rehersal in the time that I stayed at home for longer after the end of the Christmas holidays, and I caught up so quickly on the routine after being determined not to let Crohnies get in the way of that too! I just appreciate this so much more than everyone else I think, the fact that I CAN be in the show and enjoy it. My biggest worry is if I will fall over or do it wrong, as opposed to if I will even be able to walk to university because I have such bad cramps.

…its weird…writing that. I hadn’t really thought about it, my operation shouldn’t have happened yet. It if went to the original plan. I sit here typing this and looking at my scar, and it seems so much a part of me; and my life quality has increased so much since it happened…I cant imagine still waking every morning to the fear of waiting and seeing if the cramps and the pain was coming. I have never been so thankful that something happened in an emergency situation. It saved my lifestyle and my happiness; a bit dramatic maybe but it truly changed the way I was able to live my life. I have been able to do so many things, including joining the trampolining society, and all of these are things that wouldn’t have been available to me even 5 months ago. Madness. I am so, so thankful.

H x

The big 50!

Just got an email that told me… I reached 50 followers today!

Thank you so much to everyone who reads, follows, comments and likes the thing I am writing – you guys have no idea how nice it is to get those emails, and although I began this blog to help me on a personal level it really does make my day when I realise other people can connect to what I write, and it gives me the chance to connect to others too.

Sorry, this is probably the most boring post I have written so far (and therefore not very encouraging for new followers!) but I just wanted to say thanks, and thanks again. 🙂 Please keep sharing it around, lets see how big of a community we can build 🙂

 

Anyway I am writing this with a massive smile on my face – I never thought anyone would bother reading what I write, so its such a lovely achievement for me! To make sure you all have just as lovely evening as me – here are some hilarious animal-related pictures to make you smile. Yes, I know they are irrelevant, and Yes I promised myself not to put this sort of rubbish on my blog, because it actually had a genuine purpose. But sometimes, people just need to smile!

 

Enjoy!

H x

 

DSA?

https://www.gov.uk/disabled-students-allowances-dsas/how-to-claim

 

Just been browsing around online and found that potentially I will be able to qualify for some DSA money  -its weird, I never considered myself eligible for a disability allowance. It kind of saddens me and brings home to me that just because I am feeling fine now, that fight is never over. Its a big burden to carry.

But, at least it is recognised. It has some (not many, not a lot, but some) support systems in place which is definitely reassuring. I wish I didn’t have to worry, I wish I knew that it was gone, I had my horrible lot but it is over – but its not and sometimes I forget that. I was told emphatically by my surgeon and doctor that diet will now have little effect on me, it is just a waiting game; touch wood all is going okay; but it is easy in these lull times when I feel fine to become blasé about my tablets. I am trying so hard not to though, so very hard – because I know they are pretty much the only thing that I can do help to reinforce this rest period between now and my next crohns attack; which if I have anything to do with it wont be for  a great number of years to come.

 

Mixed feelings in terms of this post content. Just remembered quite what I am fighting against, although all the past pain seems a bit surreal at the moment. My mum once said to me that she forgot the pain of childbirth until she was in labour again with my brother ,and that its probably part of human instinct to supress the pain and blur it in our memory – and I think I have something similar. I remember exactly that I was in agony and so upset, I remember being stuck throwing up by my loo, I remember crying and calling my parenst from uni, I remember being unable to walk around, I remember doubling over with agonising cramps – but I don’t really remember the pain. I just remember that I must have been in a lot of it. I hope that it stays that way, and that it is not for a long time I feel the cruel clutches of Crohns back at me again, for it will be a sad day indeed for me!

 

I know, pretty deep thoughts coming from me, eh?

 

Hope your all having a cheerier evening wherever you are, chin up!

 

H x

Birthdays, Cake and Itching

So I went home for this weekend for one of my little brothers birthdays – he was 3 on sunday, and literally adorable! We had such a lovely weekend in the sun, and my other brother was home too which was really nice 🙂 had  a family filled weekend, and it was just what I needed! Ate way too much birthday cake, laughed pretty much the whole time and had a massive catch up with them all, just perfect!

 

Anyway I drove back to uni yesterday and had a pretty standard day in lectures; and went to trampolining in the evening from 8-10 which was such good fun!  I used to do it back at school, but haven’t done it in years so was so nice to be bouncing again! It was a bit scary and I need to re-learn some of the moves I used to be able to do, but HEY I can jump around, lift things all after eating whatever I wanted and why is that I hear you ask? Because I am still feeling so great health – crohns- wise. WOO.

 

On a slightly more sour health note woke up today and got a massive VERY itchy rash all over my arms and slightly onto my shoulders. Out of coincidence I was seeing the doctor today anyway and she said she thought it was just a reaction to something my skin didn’t like, but that if it persists or gets worse to get a blood test done as it could be a reaction to the Azthripaarine I am taking. As I type this I can feel the rash spreading, I cant focus on anything without itching – but I cant tell how much of that is just in my head. BLEUGH. any advice on relieving some of the scratch-factor would be greatly appreciated!

 

Hope you are all well

 

H x

Genuinely not a muffin top..

I would just like to point out before this post goes any further that this picture (which looks more and more gross the longer I look at it) isn’t just a fat roll on my stomach poking over my jeans…

the point of this post was to show the weird “V” shaped-ness that my stomach has decided to take on, the scar skin I guess is still a bit tighter? I Don’t really understand. But whenever I try to show people they dismiss it as a no big deal, but I don’t feel like anyone can see it properly aside from through my, birds eye view. Hence this photo, I had to sit down to get my jeans in the background so it would show up – but there is a definite indent where the scar is…im hoping its going to go? You cant really tell when im upright or walking around, but I keep noticing it when I am sat down, and its just weird… anyone else had anything similar?!

I Was flicking through the pictures on my phone the other day, and I have a suprising number of my scar and stomach – definitely not a usual photo album! I was looking and I was proud of them, and of myself for putting them on this blog. I wear anything from a size 8 to 10 to 12 depending on the shop or clothing, I know I am not fat but I am not skinny either. I am not well toned or skinny even though I try to go to the gym. And I am guilty of skipping the gym for a takeaway curry with my friends- I am a normal person. I have my insecutirites putting pictures (like this) of my stomach up, for me it definitely isn’t the kind of “body shots” you see a lot of girls posting these days, but I think its a real and honest view, if nothing else.

Anyway, scar is healing well – last bit of surgery sting / stitch that was sticking up came off yesterday, very exciting!

Hope you are all having a good week, and please keep on liking / following the blog! So close to having 50 followers, which would be totally unbelievable!

Keep smiling,

H x

I wish I could help you…

…my best friend is ill, really, quite ill.

It started a month or so ago and she got shaky hands, and just felt ill, heavy legs, dizzy and tired a lot. At first there were the usual hangover jokes, the being lazy, but then it became clear that she was ill. She went to the uni doctors last week and since then we have been to the hospital for blood tests, the doctors, more appointments, the works. She has been told it was several different things, only to start to come to terms with it and then be told it was something else entirely. She still doesn’t know – fingers crossed by the end of today she will know. As if that wasn’t bad enough –  She has a university trip coming up next week and isn’t sure if she can go.

 

Its weird – I know what shes going through. yes, a different pain, different circumstances, different person. But still, the hurt and the not knowing and my heart goes out to her, its horrible and I can only guess at what is to come. She supported me best as she could, and came to A and E with me and everything- and I will do everything and anything in my power to help her with whatever, and she knows it. But it is so hard to know what is coming and not be able to help or shield her. Or to be able to make her feel better..or anything. I have always been that ill person this last year, and its almost easier. You can be angry or upset or emotional and you just accept what is happening; but to be on the other side and see someone ill with literally nothing you can do is so hard. And you don’t have the..’excuse’… to be angry or upset because you have to be rational and supportive. I hope to god that it is something easy to sort, something that will be gone soon enough. Heres hoping.

 

On another illness note I am back to the doctors next Tuesday for blood test check ups and also I want some testing to be done on my heart, I keep getting a slight ache on the left side of my chest and when I was in hospital I had a very high pulse even at resting, something my dad calls “my hamster heart” (thanks, dad) and I want to get it all checked out; as well as ask a few more questions about my medication for my Crohnies.

So, a bit of an emotional rollercoaster at the moment, its hard to get the balance right between reassuring her and chatting about my own experiences with being patronising about having done it before. Everything is different for everyone and I want to find the right balance. I have a weekend at home to look forward to – for my brothers 3rd birthday, so it will be a nice break and a chance to see my fam-a-lam again, who I am really missing since being so close to them all over operation-gate at Christmas.

 

Sigh, life sure knows how to throw a curve ball.

H x