University, illness, diagnosis

Dear Internet,

Recently I have been having a bit of a hard time. My problems are likely to be insignificant compared to those of many others, but I feel that this is my own little corner of the internet for me to vent, so here we go.

Term was going great - I love Geography, my units are super interesting and everything was going well! Then I managed to get sick. Sinus infections are pretty normal for me, so I didn't think anything of it. Before I knew it, I had been sick for three weeks and was gradually getting weaker and weaker, finding myself unable to do activities that I take for granted.

I had a blood test, and fortunately I did not have Glandular Fever (a relief), but I am severely anaemic, and they are not quite sure of the cause yet.

It's not that I have a problem with being ill; I am glad that everything is being sorted out. What scares me is the uncertainty - I don't know what is causing this iron deficiency, meaning that there is something that has gone wrong with my body that I DO NOT KNOW ABOUT. If I got to find out next week then I would not be so worried about it, but the diagnostic endoscopy will probably not be until the end of December at the earliest. This means another month and a half of uncertainty.

This knocks me further because one of the possible causes of the anaemia could be coeliac disorder, which is a rather large happening to cope with. I am used to being able to eat whatever I like whenever I like, and the idea of having to avoid all gluten products scares the living daylights out of me - how will I tell people? Is it going to make me feel even more socially awkward than I do a lot of the time? How am I meant to eat meals and go out for dinner with my family and friends?

Although I do feel that I will be able to cope with this, in time; I still have a problem with food and ensuring I eat enough and enough healthy things. If I can't whip up a sandwich at lunch time, I am terrified that it will end with me not eating enough and then becoming sicker.

What scares me even more is that I have avoided gluten for the last couple of days and it has been the first few days in years that I have had without some sort of stomach cramps, bloating or abdominal pain, perhaps indicating that it is coeliac disease rather than the more favourable option of stomach ulcers (twisted right?).

To be entirely honest, either way it is just going to be another thing that I will have to cope with, and I am sure I will.

Any/all advice is much appreciated - I have no idea what is to come and it cuts me up a little.

Thank you for reading, friends;
Izzy x

8/5/2015

Well hello there; how are you today?

I thought that seeing as this is my first blog post, I would share a little about myself.
My name is Isabel, I am 18 years old and I currently reside in the United Kingdom. I've been thinking about starting this blog for a while - a collection of personal thoughts, struggles and joys as well as a few product reviews, but it takes me a good few months to make decisions.

I'm going to be straight with you right now: this blog will not always be the happy musings of a carefree 18 year old. I suffer from anxiety and depression, so this blog is a way in which to share these thoughts and feelings with a wider audience, and I hope to aid others by sharing my experiences, as one of the most important things to remember is that you are not alone.

Seriousness over, I thought I would tell you about my day.

Having stayed up until 2:30am to watch the results from the General Election come in, my morning got off to a slow start, culminating in removing myself from bed 4 hours after getting up in order to drag myself up to university to collect some assignments. It turned out that I didn't fail quite as dramatically as I presumed I would. Following this was my appraisal, in which I was informed that my managers do actually like me (despite my constant paranoia that they, in fact, hate my guts) and I acquired a pay rise.

Then I got back to my room and went straight to bed.

If you have a mental illness of some sort, you may well know that bed feels the safest place to be when you have had a pretty horrendous day/week/month, but equally sometimes even great things (like payrises) take it out of you, and you feel as if you want to just escape from the world a little. I've been here for three hours now. I didn't realise that it had been three hours until I glanced at the clock just now.

I need to stop allowing time to just disappear.

Life is tough sometimes, y'know? Somehow, writing about my surreal, dream-like day has caused me to feel slightly better, as procrastiblogging is semi-productive, right?

Righty-ho, time to go and forage for food in the big bad world.
To all: I hope you have a wonderful day, week, month and year.

Thank you,
Isabel (here's me wearing my 'confused' face)