Happy New Year! I hope your festive season was relaxing/full of chocolate/full of fun.
This month’s blog post starts with a journey back to 1995, and my ten year-old self, who loved horse riding and felt 
like a queen every time I scrambled into the saddle (see pic). So, this Christmas, I had another go. And it didn’t go as planned.
It’s now about three weeks since I fractured 4 vertebrae (the bony bits of your spine), and it’s been something of a roller coaster. The first week was just about managing the pain, sleeping most of the time and trying to move as much as possible. I should probably clarify that I can walk, I can use all my limbs and am not strapped up in a body cast. I know that in many ways I’ve been lucky, but I’m not quite at that appreciation stage yet. The second week was about being able to put my socks on. The third has been about managing what this all means for my course- mainly exams and placement.
This week I am planning to sit a written exam with the rest of the cohort. As I’ve been told to sit for a maximum of half an hour at a time (and then need stretch and/or lie down), the University Nurse Practitioner has helped organise extra rest breaks for this 90-minute assessment. I’ll also be provided with a supportive chair and can bring cushions with me into the exam. Am I still worried? Yes. The pain is still fairly unpredictable, and I’m nervous about losing my flow with my answers when I take a break. Staying awake long enough to revise as much as I’d like has also been challenging. But I am determined to give it a go.
And then there is the matter of placement, which I was due to start on the 21st, but that I have been declared unfit for by Occupational Heath (OH) at City. This initially felt like a massive blow (in hindsight, expecting to start a full-time placement only a month after the accident was an unrealistic expectation), and panic about fulfilling enough clinical hours to graduate this year, ensued. Once again, the AMAZING staff in the School of Heath Sciences have been an incredible support, with our professional studies module lead reassuring me about hours, ability to make up missed days if needed and postponement of our final assessments if it comes to that. My dissertation supervisor has been the same. They have been the ones who have made dealing with the unexpected, anxiety-inducing bits of this so much more manageable.
The plan at the moment is to start placement (potentially half-days) on the 28th, but this is still to be decided, and I know it’s got to be based on how I feel rather than worrying about hours. One of the great things about City is that we complete more hours than are needed to qualify, so should something like this happen, it’s not a tricky situation. My PEs at the hospital have been immensely reassuring and adamant that my health comes first in these situations, which has been brilliant.
I realise that I haven’t yet mentioned my amazing friends/family/significant other, who have run around after me, checked up on me, brought me flowers/cake/breakfast/pillows, run hot baths, helped me in and out of bed and to walk up and down the street. I’ve changed my mind about feeling lucky-I definitely do.
If you would like to learn more about studying Speech and Language Therapy at City, you can visit the course page here.
Leave a Reply