The effect of it all

What's been the effect of all this new eye stuff on my vision, my life and the way I live?

Bloody hell I was clumsy before but now seriously I am worse than ever,  everywhere I go it seems I cause a trail of destruction!

Any co-ordination I once had has now gone completely, and lets face it hand eye co-ordination has NEVER been my strong point.

Balance to has got worse I wobble a lot more than ever before, I'm falling a lot more than I have in a long time to and I'm rather tired with it all.

Possibly the worst bit is the eye strain, persistent headaches and being tired and grumpy all the time.

So in short I spill everything, walk into stuff, break things and am generally a walking disaster!

Oh well at least its amusing for you all to watch all my mishaps!

No pretending

I have spoken to my consultant again, turns out the treatment he was telling me about is not a long term option.

The injections only destroy the blood vessels for about 4 weeks, then the blood vessels grow back.

So it's not a long term treatment.

So the long term is;

I am almost defiantly with medical science in its present state going to go blind in my right eye, very little can be done about it.

It's time to stop pretending everything is going to be OK, I'm going blind in one eye, nothing anyone can say or do will make that any better its going to happen, sooner or later.

Of course the great thing about going blind due to haemorrhaging is that there is no telling when, I could have a huge haemorrhage tomorrow, or a tiny little one or I might not have another one for 20 years, by which point there may be some form of cure.

So I have in the last month gone from having an eye condition that is not curable, but not deteriorating any time soon, to having a problem with my right eye that's going to result in having no vision in that eye.

Life will go on, I will get used to the idea.

I am going to fight!

Ok so I am waiting for a consultant to call me and tell me whether the professor thinks it is clinically worth while to treat my eye.

Of course its clinically worth while! I can still See colour and do finger counting, I still have something so lets try and keep it that way. 

Without treatment my right eye will defiantly get worse and eventually I will have nothing left- nada -no vision. Who knows how fast that will happen but its almost guaranteed I will lose all the vision in my right eye.

I am 20 I already have a few problems with my left eye, surly my right eye should be worth saving?

If they decide its not worth saving the vision in my right eye I am going to fight the decision, I possibly have a lot of fighting coming up as even if they decide its clinically worth while they have to apply to the PCT for funding to treat me because of my unique condition.

So I am waiting to hear and getting ready for a fight, it saddens me how much I have to fight sometimes but it simply has to be done.

Crazy again

This post is therapy I will say that from the off set it is for my own benefit to get things out there so they are not just in my head.

After 8 ish months of being on antidepressants but psychologically well, I'm depressed and ill again.

If I am honest it snuck up on me covering my world with a big black blanket, removing the colour from my thoughts, I saw it coming so tried to take action, but nothing is immediate and now the situation is deteriorating. Whatever action I take has a waiting list, I have to carry on in the dark and Wait for my turn to get help.

I'm back in a place I thought I had left behind, with behaviours I thought I have left behind.

I am now already struggling with the day to day of university life, my insomnia has got so bad, that when I eventually fall asleep (usually sometime between 4 and 5 am) I literally cannot wake up in time for my 9am lectures. My body says that it is tired and I turn every alarm clock off in my sleep, sometimes walking across my room to accomplish the task.

Assignments seem impossible.

The evaluation assignment we have just been set is terrifying, at a time like this when I am not well I can't see the things that I am good at, I see every mistake I have ever made, I think I am crap at everything although that is possibly not the case.

In a way its good that I have at least recognised that I am unwell again, that's part of the battle isn't it admitting that you have a problem.

How did I get here? Is another part of the battle, I think I have been warn down by stress and recent events reminding me of past negative experiences.

So that it then I'm back to crazy depressed anxious Jemma, waiting for help.

Review of 2009 > Hopes for 2009

It's 2009  so I wanted to wish all readers a happy new year and wish you all a happy, healthy year filled with great stuff!

I also thought I should write some kind of reflection on 2008 and my hopes for 2009, so here it goes.

2008 started with a new relationship, which at the time was fantastic, however 6 months later it became very apparent that it was wrong for both of us to continue how we where, we where in hindsight simply too different; that was the end of that. At the time devastating but now it was the right thing to happen.

The first half of the year was pretty mundane, I was ticking over at college, with a unconditional offer I didn't NEED to be there, naturally motivation to continue diminished, leaving me running at tick over, putting in lots of effort was pointless.

Of course lets not forget that for the first half of the year I was in the deep, darkness of major depression trying to find an anti-depressant that worked for me and wondering if I would ever be the same person again. I went on some horrible meds in this time that made me ill or seemed to improve my condition for a few weeks and then caused me to drop back down with a big bump, I remained on the end of a very long waiting list for further treatment on the NHS, and felt rubbish!  

Eventually my fantastic (now former) GP got me on the right medication for me, everyone is different and it takes time to find these things, but things started to look up.

Then in May I got a phone call that has completely changed my life,  a call form Guide Dogs to say they thought they had a match for me, the match of course being Gus who you will all know the story of.

At the end of June, begging of July Gus and I trained and my life changed hugely for the better, he really is guide dog of the year material!

Not only did this mark the start of me and my boy it marked the end of college and time to start preparing for the move to university, big but positive changes where afoot.

September saw the start of university which is fantastic, breaking news day which was utterly terrifying but probably good, and meeting all the new people. Gus and I continue to have a fantastic time at univeristy, I think Gus sometimes wishes there where more dogs at university to play with but over all he loves it.

( HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY NEW UNI BUDDIES!! see you Monday.)

Sadly 2008 also saw the end of my guest blogging for Ouch! I hope to be able to do more stuff with the team in the future but for now I am incredibly thankful for the opportunities they gave me as a teenager with no idea what to do with there life they helped me to find my path and follow it!

So what about 2009? 

I have many hopes for the year, my first of which is to try and be less of a complete wuss, I need to have more confidence in my writing ability, not something that can be done over night by anymeans but a year should be a start.

I hope to be off my anti-depressants by the end of 2009, I am now in recovery but the medication I am on is rather a high dose and highly addictive, so this is more of a challenge than it may seem to some, I am determined to get there and hope that 2009 will see me in a true state of recovery!

I hope Gus has a healthier new year, that is accident free and good for him.

I all ready have a lot of things planned for the new year, lots of which you will probably hear about here first so I would also like to take a moment to thank you all for reading this crap!

Scrapbooking *THIS POST CONTAINS LANGUAGE THAT SOME PEOPLE MY FIND OFFENSIVE*

In the last few weeks I have discovered that there is indeed a new type of craft activity that I dislike, it is the art of the scrapbook.

I will say right now from the start that I have always been rubbish at anything vaguely artistic or crafty.

I’m a Guide leader that hates craft activities, which may well be a rarity.

My lack of talent in the craft department is not something that I’m really bothered about. Lets face it everyone is crap at something; some people are crap at lots of things. I’m crap at any activity requiring pens, pencils, wool, glue, glitter, fuzzy felt, paint or any other craft material.

As a child at school it used to bother me that my painting was not as good as anyone else’s, or that my roman chariot looked like a penguin- now I’m fine with my crapness I accept and love it as an individual feature of me.

My lack of crafty artisticness does occasionally cause me frustration. I can’t sow for example which is a relatively common skill that the vast majority of the population possesses. It is also a skill I find people assume I can do, I’m not entirely sure whether that is some deep routed stereotype that every woman in the land can sow, o the fat that I am a guide leader. Either way people are often shocked when it arises that I cannot sow. Even my totally blind mother can hand sow and does the majority of my sowing, so its not even that I can say its because of my disability I’m just crap at it!

So anyway I went off on a bit of a tangent there I am currently involved in a project that requires me to make a scrapbook.

Scrapbooking I have recently discovered is both an activity I do not particularly enjoy, one that I find very difficult and that realistically I am crap at. (After all making a scrapbook requires craft skills)

I can also conclude that scrapbooking is also a dangerous activity; I have indeed sustained a scrapbook injury.

Whilst cooking on Monday evening I burnt my thumb, it was quite a nasty one there was the sizzle and the smell of burning flesh, still there was no blood and after some time under the cold tap all was well until….

Later on in the evening whilst adding to my scrapbook I got UHU on my burn.

For those that don’t know UHU is a solvent-based glue that can stick anything. 

I used UHU because its good at sticking things together as its very sticky but when it dries I can peel off the large amounts of it that I get all over the place.

Unfortunately getting it on the area of burnt flesh and subsequently peeling it off was not good.

In short I peeled off the glue and a lot of skin came off with it. (That does not normally happen)

Lesson learned don’t attempt to do anything crafty if you already know you are crap at it.