Epilepsy

 

 

Hello my lovelies,

 

As most of you know I have Epilepsy. What you don’t know is how if affects me and my day to day life. Now my epilepsy is tonic clonic, or grand mal as it used to be known. I don’t have any specific trigger, it could be hormonal, lack of sleep, missed medication (which I don’t do now I have a pill box), not eating or drinking properly or too much alcohol (again which I don’t do).

 

On Halloween this year, I had a seizure. Now throughout the day I had been having episodes and my parents noticed when I got home from work as I would stop mid sentence and stare. So that night instead of a bath I opted for a shower, just incase. I had got out, dried and dressed (thankfully). I was then sat on my bed, then I am on my floor looking up at my parents, thinking why are they here! When I tried to move, I like getting up right after I’ve come round, my dad gently holds me in place. The reason being...I’d smashed my mirror. Now I’m not talking small, I’m talking bathroom sized mirror, and I was laying in the broken glass. How I managed not to get any in me I will never know.

 

As my mum picked up the glass, after they had managed to get me into bed, she told me that they nearly called for an ambulance as I was seizing for nearly 5 minutes. The longest seizure I normally have is a minute. This seizure had no triggers what so ever, it just happened. Also I had no warning, normally I get a sense of the room shaking or a fuzzy feeling in my head and my head goes cold. Not this time, this time it was like my brain went ‘oh hello I’m going to misfire information and cause you pain’. Because that is what happens, your brain sends information and that information decides to take the quick route, and in doing so you end up on the floor looking like you are trying to break dance and failing miserably at it.

 

 

Yes, I’ve learned to laugh at myself over the years, but it did take a while for me to do so. Being a teenager with epilepsy was tough. Due to medication I gained weight and my hair went frizzy. I looked like Hermione from the first two Harry Potter films, sort of. However, since I matured and accepted my condition I became ok with it. Yes, the seizures are horrible, and afterwards I feel tired, I ache, I taste blood where I’ve bitten either my tongue or the inside of my mouth, and I just basically feel like crap. Oh and lets not forget the bruises that appear a few days or in my case hours later. 

 

I remember one time I had a seizure and I ended up with a huge bruise on the back of my thigh. It was almost the size of a hand, dark purple and it hurt when I touched it. I get that quite often, sometimes I spot bruises and I’m like ‘how did you get there?’. Living with epilpesy is hard, but I’ve learned to deal with it. I have the love and support of my family, even if I do scare them when I have seizures and all they hear is a loud bang and no answer when they call me (I apologise for that by the way). I don’t see myself as a suffering with epilepsy as some people do. I see myself as living with epilepsy day in day out. It is a part of me, it’s who I am. Also, it does not define me. Yes, I have to make certain changes to my life, like giving up on the idea of one day I will drive, because I know I won’t. But, none of that matters anymore. Those things aren’t the be all and end all. Of course being able to drive and not rely on other people or public transport would be amazing, but this is my life and to be honest I would rather rely on others and public transport, then run the risk of killing myself or others in a car crash, because I had a seizure behind the wheel.

 

When I talk about my epilepsy to others, for instance the day after my seizure I told my work collegues about it, just so that they were aware and could make sure I was ok during the day. They spoke to me as if I had told them someone had just died. I hate it when people tip toe around me when I bring up my condition. Today, even though thousands of people live with epilepsy in the UK and around the world, it is still Taboo. Same with mental health. Also, I’ve noticed that many still don’t know a great deal about epilepsy, they still only think flashing lights brings on siezures. They don’t know about all the other triggers or types of epilepsy. In my role as a TA, I have had to talk to some students about it and inform them of some of the facts.

 

But, epilepsy is not just the aches and pains or the seizures. It is also the unseen affects, not just of the person with epilepsy, but also of the people in their lives. Their parents, their children and partners (if they have any), I know my parents still find it hard seeing me have a seizure. I mean, what parent wants to see their child going through something they are both powerless to stop!? I would hate to see that, and I know my parents hate it as well. I know they would do anything they could to take my epilepsy away. Epilepsy is also the medication, the trips to see your neurologist, the depression of having another seizure, the anxiety of when will my next seizure be and where, it is also the constant battle of trying to live as normal as possible. 

 

If there is one thing that people take away from reading this, I hope that it is to never judge a book by its cover. Just because you think you know what is going on or what it is like living with something then do not judge or pass comments until you know the full story. I have had people go oh epilepsy isn’t that bad. Really? Well try losing two weeks of your memory and never getting it back, or waking up in the middle of an exam with people staring at you, or waking up in your hotel room in another country not recognising any of it. It is scary if you come round from a seizure and no one or nothing is there that you recognise. It is scary losing your memory. I get mini heart attacks when I can’t remember the smallest thing like the date after a seizure. The one last month I was reeling off a list to my mum of what I ate and did that day. Not to prove to her that I could remember, but to prove to myself that I could. 

 

I know it has been a long post and I apologise for that, but I needed to get this off my chest and let others know what it is like living with epilepsy.

 

 

Thank you for reading. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Apologises

 

Hello my lovelies,

 

Once again I am so very sorry for not updating. It is November, well mid way through, and I haven’t updated since end of July. So what has happened in those months I have been AWOL? Well I have completed 5 online courses all related to my job as a TA. I have had a seizure on Halloween, which resulted in a mirror being smashed and myself laying in the broken shards of it without even realising. Thankfully I only ended up with a bruise and three scratches, no deep cuts, but my parents said that they did nearly call an ambulance due to it lasting nearly five minutes.

 

 

I started my fourth year in my current job, it is still enjoyable. However, since my regular students left I have felt lost without them and it has been weird not knowing what student I will end up with during the day. I have an allotment with my mum, we have had it over a year and we sort of messed up when clearing it for the first time. It is a big plot, and we decided to clear it all in one go...big mistake. We were weeding every time we went over there. Thankfully though, we have weeded the main part of it and covered it to stop weeds coming back, cut back the berry bushes and harvest all the rhubarb. We now have the paths and strawberry patch to weed and we will be ready to plant in the new year.     

      Soon be breaking up for Christmas and I need to do my Christmas shopping. I also need to do all the blog posts I had planned to do months ago like my 30 birthday post, which should have been posted in April, but it slipped my mind. I will be doing Blogmas again and I promise to keep on top of it this year. I will do all my posts the night before so I can just click publish the following day. I will also make it a resolution to keep on top of my blog next year. My sister gave me a personalised blog notebook for my birthday and I love it so much I haven’t used it yet. So I will be doing it all next year. I have updated the design of the blog and finally got blog cards (business cards) so that when I go to blog meets I can take those with me. I also plan to do vlogs next year, so be warned.   

But other than all that and having a chest infection and laryngitis, not much has happened to me since the summer holidays. So not really much to report, but I thought I would do a post seen as I hadn’t posted in what felt like an eternity. So until next time my lovelies.   Bye

Summertime

 

Hello my lovelies,

 

Yes its that time of year again, schools are either out for summer or if you're like me then your school probably has a week left. Now this week I know the students will not want to do any work and so all the teachers will have movies and games planned. But is that really helping them? From what I can remember of my school years is we never had movies and games constantly in the last week. Yes some lessons we would, but they would be linked with what we are studying. Don't get me wrong, I love going into a lesson to support a student to find that they are watching either Disney or Pixar films, I mean who wouldn't love that. Yet, when they are learning about Jekyll and Hyde and they watch Toy Story on the last few lessons it kinda needs a lot of explain to the Headteacher if he walked in.

 

Anyways, enough about that. I am very pleased to announce that this summer I will mostly be doing my allotment. A lot is still needed to be done before we actually grow anything. Saying that though we did have loads of cherries which the birds decided to eat. Raspberries, Strawberries, Rhubarb. All three went into a crumble and it was delish. Also made raspberry and strawberry jam with my mum. That was fun, we made 10lbs worth of jam again it was delish, a bit sweet, but lovely on muffins and toast.

 

Last weekend I went to Afternoon tea with my mum, sister and brother in law at Dobbies Garden Centre. I tried clotted cream for the first time and O.M.G it was lovely. My sister couldn't understand how I hadn't tried it before. After the tea we went round Dobbies our Tea was at half 2 we left the store when it was closing at around half 5. It was a lovely hot sunny day, so I didn't mind being out of the house. Plus I really enjoyed myself. Got to spend some time with my sister and brother in law, which even though they have moved to MK I don't really go round theirs as much as I should do, that will change in the Summer hols. 

 

I also have planned some cleaning, shopping (therapy I swear), also I am doing a diploma in SEN teaching, well five diplomas. One in SEN, one in TA, the others are in Autism, Dyslexia and ADHD. I thought I am a Teaching Assistant and I would like to know more about conditions of students that I work with. So I spoke to my line manager and showed her the course and she was like I think it is a good idea, call it Professional Development. Which in a way it is, so why the hell not. 

 

I'm looking forward to the summer, although I'm not going away for holiday (hopefully do that in the future), it will be a semi relaxing 6 weeks off. I find working on the allotment relaxing even though I'm working hard and end up aching the day after. I also plan to lose a lot of weight. Now I don't normally say this out loud or on the blog, but I'm obese, people I have said it to have disagreed with me, but I am nearly 15 stone and 5ft 5. I am 100% obese and I know I need to do something about it. I didn't realise how big I had got until I went to my year 11 students prom a few weeks back. I had to wear a size 18 dress and when I saw the picture of me and my student I just couldn't believe it. I had to fight back the tears, but she knows me all to well and told me it is ok I look beautiful no matter what. I could have hugged her, but I had to keep it professional. So this summer I will be pounding the treadmill that is sitting in the Kitchen and being used as a clothes holder and hopefully come September I will be back to being closer to 12/13 stone. Hopefully 12 stone. I will also be posting all my other posts that I have planned out on paper (really should post them as and when I think of them, but hey ho live and learn). 

 

Oh I will also be going to the MK bloggers summer meet up this year. I was invited to the Christmas one, but wasn't feeling up to it at the time. But this one, I will go to even if I have to slap on a smile. So in preparation for the meet I have finally ordered my Blog business cards. Hopefully they will be here in time.

Let me know your summertime plans in the comments of tweet me them @RoseVintagechic and use the hashtag Summertime2017.

 

Mental Health

Hello my lovelies,

I've been thinking about doing this post for a while, but as it is such a personal issue for me I wasn't sure. Yet during the mental health awareness week I posted an Instagram post talking about my mental health situation. So I thought why not do an in depth post about it.

Mental health is such an important issue, yet we don't talk about it due to the stigma attached to it. I personally felt ashamed when I started seeing the signs. I am a teaching assistant who works with children with special needs, I felt that if I acknowledged my health issue then I wouldn't be good enough to look after my students. So for months I put off going to the doctors. 

If it wasn't for my mum saying that I should go to the doctors, I probably still would be saying I'm ok! My health physically, started to get worse and I took a day off work to see my doctor about a chest infection. She asked about any reason why (in summer) I could get a chest infection, and for some reason it all came flooding out. I was feeling stress from work, a few month previous I had lost my dog Gracie, who when I had seizures would always be there when I came round, it hit me pretty hard if I am honest. So when I blurted all this out to the doctor, she gave me a questionnaire. Told me to make another appointment to see her and for a blood test and she also signed me off work for a week. When I went back for my check up I was told I was lacking vitamin D so had to go on supplements, which I will be taking for my life, along with Iron tablets. I was also told, that I had depression, stress and anxiety.

It's hard when you hear the words out loud, but it is also a relief as you finally know that it's not in your head. My doctor gave me a choice of therapy or medication. She said she would rather not put me on medication and so I should try therapy, I never done the therapy which looking back was stupid, because I'm struggling. I had to force myself to go to a friends hen do a few weeks ago, yet when I was there I loved it. Getting up and going to work is also a struggle, I hate being ill and having days off as I feel like i am letting people down, which makes my anxiety and depression worse. Yet, going into work I feel like I'm not going to be of use and so my anxiety flares up. However, I put on a brave face and a smile and no one can tell the different. 

A few months back I had an annual review with my manager and she asked if I had anything to tell her after we spoke about my performance. So I thought even though its been a year and I don't like talking about it, she needs to know. So I told her and I was so surprised with her response. She told me how surprised she was as I always turn up smiling and laughing, she had no idea that I was going through that, and also that she was proud that I was coming into work, and also proud that I never let any of the students find out as they would have been constantly worried. As it is if I have days off the students always ask if I'm OK. But she also told me that if I did anything then to go and she her. I had a bit of a slip a few weeks after when I was having a particularly bad day, and a student was being really rude to me and wouldn't listen. I actually go up and walked out the room and had a cry in the corridor away from everyone. Due to being too proud and stubborn I didn't tell my manager about this or any colleague. 

During mental health awareness a colleague of mine posted on Facebook her struggle and it surprised me as she is so bubbly and outgoing. So when I DM'd her she was also surprised that I was in the same boat as her as I, like her hide it as well. But we have both agreed that should we feel down we will go and speak to one another. Having these conditions (for lack of a better word), it has helped me to connect with students. As we have a few with anxiety and so I know what they go through, especially the year 11 students who are doing their exams now. I feel it has helped me in a way that although they don't know I'm the same, they feel as though I understand, which I do and so it helps them not to feel alone.

So to end this long post, apologies for, I will say this. If you notice that something is wrong or feels wrong with your feelings then please go and see a doctor. The longer you put it off the longer you suffer in silence, please don't do what I did. Also to those who are already living knowing that your mental health isn't in tip top condition. I applaud you for getting the help, the first step to getting help is always the hardest and also living every day with it is hard. There is no cure for it, we learn to live with it and to cope every day. Just take it one step at a time and always take time for yourself.

Life

Hello my lovelies,   So a lot has changed with me and a lot hasn't changed if that makes sense. Ive turned 30, said goodbye to my year 11 students, went to an old school friends surprise hen do, started an allotment with mum, and starting reading more. I've even set myself a reading challenge of 25/30 books in a year, (it was originally 50, but I started the challenge properly in April so didn't see it as achieveable. I've also dieting again, I've got my year 11 students prom to go to and a wedding reception and I dont really want to be the size of an elephant ha! I will be doing longer posts on each of the above mentioned, I've just had lots going on. I know that is not an excuse, but it's true. I will update more, I've got a new planner thanks to my sister, but more on that in my birthday blog which will be up soon. Also you may not have seen on my instagram my latest post about mental health again a post will be put up in the coming week. I will have loads of posts coming over the coming weeks, so you have been warned. Until then though my lovelies, have a good weekend and lets hope the rain stops.

Cruelty Free Beauty Products

 

Hello lovelies,

 

So apologies that I haven't posted since December, I've been very busy both work wise and personal life wise. A Happy Mothers Day to all the mums out there, have a fantastic day. Now all that is done onto the topic at hand, cruelty free beauty products. Now we all love make up, well I hope we all do I mean why else would you be reading a beauty blog, anyways for many years I have been using the same products and I was shocked when I found out that some of my favourite brands test on animals. Now in this day and age there are ways to test products and not have animals involve. So why is it that they still do? I don't know about you, but so far I don't know the answer. I do know that from now on I will be trying my hardest to find some cruelty free products to use. I do use some products like Urban Decay who thankfully don't test on animals, even though their parent company L'Oreal. Below is a list of companies that do test and a list that don't test on animals. 

 

 

I would like to add that Clarins (which I love) does unfortunately test or allows someone else to test on animals for them. Now when I saw this list and other lists I was so bummed, that so many companies that I buy stuff from test on animals. I am in the process of redoing my beauty products so that most, if not all are cruelty free. I am also shocked to know that there is an animal testing facility just opened up either in or near Hull, that tests on beagles. This not only shocked me that such sweet and innocent animals are subjected to daily torture, just so that we humans can put stuff on us that would hurt us. But also because I have a beagle myself and I can't even begin to imagine ever hurting her like that.

 

Now I know some people will think oh they are just animals they don't feel anything, but they do. So I ask all those that are ok with animal testing, which I hope is hardly anyone, to put yourself in the animals position (not just a beagles, but a mouse, a chimp, a rabbit). How would you feel if you had daily injections, cream put in your eyes, or stuff sprayed on you? These things make them go blind, cause reaction on their skin that causes the fur to fall out and leasions to occur. I would hate that, so why are we subjecting these animals to it. Now I know some are thinking oh god here we go another fanatic, and I don't care we are all entitled to our opinion and mine is we should speak out for the animals cus they can't do it themselves. So please I say to you, if you care for animals and hate animal testing then please change the products that you use.

 

I will keep this page updated with new information as and when I get it. I will also post links to my favourite products in an up and coming blog.

 

Happy New Year

 

Hello lovelies,

 

Firstly Happy New Year hope you all had a wonderful NYE. Secondly I apologise for not continuing with Blogmas I promise this year I will have all the posts ready to do before December even begins with the exception of a few.

Now seen as it's a new Year it means resolutions. My main resolution is to lose weight, I'm 30 this year, yes 30 and I don't want to be over weight and not enjoy the birthday celebrations that may happen. Plus I want to fit back into all my lovely clothes that. Don't fit at the moment. Another main one is to enjoy the year and do things that I've always wanted to do, enjoy life basically. As the saying goes it's the 1st page of a 365 day book make it a good one! And somehow that's what I plan to do. I'm going to learn to say no more often rather than trying to please everyone. And finally the blog, I'm determined to take it more seriously and to update it more and give it a new fresher feel.  

 

 

Enjoy the fresh start to the new year! Enjoy a fresh start to a better you!