2018: somehow the best and the worst year of my life

2018: somehow the best and the worst year of my life.


But Abbie, how can something be both the best and the worst?

Well, let's just say that 2018 wasn't exactly a quiet year in my life.

(and it doesn't look like it's going to be much quieter at the end, seeing that as I'm writing this I'm stuck in bed with the worst cold I've had in years, coughing my lungs up, wishing for my eyes to pop out to relieve the pressure behind them...little TMI? Oh...okay...note to self; don't talk about eyes popping out of skulls or lungs being coughed up too much...anyway!)

In January of 2018, I decided that it was finally time to explore my love of vintage fashion (that of the 1940's and 1950's) and well, it ended up taking over my entire wardrobe. Now in my local town and at university known as the girl that can always be seen in vintage clothing, making me easy to spot and often taking up a lot of room on public transport due to my love of giant petticoats (sorry to anyone I meet on the train or bus). (You can see more of my vintage wardrobe over on my Instagram here.)

February, and that's when things start to go a little down with my health and my chronic pain started to get worse. So I went back to the doctor's surgery (but to a different doctor, seeing as the last one I saw said that the pain in my chest could be solved just by wearing a better bra 🙄) and long story short I have tried all the pain treatment/medications that the doctors there could give me but no, nothing worked.

So finally, I get referred to pain clinic up at the hospital and fast-forward to September when my appointment actually took place and I have been placed on gabapentin and awaiting acupuncture *cough* which I'm still waiting for going into 2019*cough*.

March...well...March...was interesting. You don't really expect to get a phone call on a Saturday morning that telling you that your dad has had what they think is a stroke and is in the hospital. The coming months just then ended up merging into one large doctor's appointment and rather than going into the nitty-gritty of it all, let's just say that while my dad is not a well man and needs a lot of help to do simple tasks but we know what is going on and is getting the treatment he needs.

During all this, I was still completing my first year at university (January-May) and 2/3 of the modules went well, but there's always that one isn't there? I again don't want to go into it too much, not because it upsets me, but 1: it angers me to my very core and 2: the lecture in question could end up reading this one day and so if I want my university career continue and continue well, I should probably keep my mouth shut 🤐. Let's just say it involved unfair marking of coursework, a belittling teacher and a worrying lack of knowledge from said teacher. 

Anyway, it was done, finished with by early May and not long after that, I found out what my final result for the first year was.

And the results are (drumroll please).....

a 2:1. Basically the second highest grade available. Not too bad considering everything else that was going on behind the scenes. 

The summer break brought along with it a visit from my aunt, uncle and cousin over from the US, which seeing as we hadn't seen them for 3 years it was a very special trip. We even managed to fit a spontaneous trip to London, visiting the borough market and the Tate modern. 

After that, it was time to get back into university life and that took up pretty much all of my time from October till mid-December. 

From mid-December till Christmas eve, life was about relaxing, spending time with loved ones (family, boyfriend etc.) and catching up on all the sleep I lost out on during those 2 and a half months. My oh my, did I do a lot of sleeping. 

I think right now my record for the longest night of sleep I've had is 17 hours. 


But I'm grateful for everything bad that happened, otherwise how would I have really been able to appreciate the good?

I hope you all had a good 2018, and if not then here's to all of us having a much better 2019. 

Be happy, be healthy, from Abbie xx

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