ICU & The Relative's Room #1

Before reading: I spoke to my Dad about whether I could write about this experience and he was fine with it and got the chance to read it before posting here. 

The reason I wanted to write about this was to share an honest experience of what it was like having a family member in ICU with others and for my Dad's own insight too. Now this will probably be quite long so I'll split this over a few seperate posts. 

For those that don't know, in November 2018 my Dad fell seriously ill. It all started off with what I thought was going to be a normal day out. It was a Saturday and we were finally going to watch the Bohemian Rhapsody movie with my Mum and Queens #1 fan, my Dad. I hadn't seen my parents for around 2 weeks, but I knew my Dad had been off work with a chest infection. Of course, when I heard this I moaned at him for the 10,000th time to stop smoking once and for all. 

My Mum and Dad parked up in the cinema carpark and I could immediately see my Dad was not well. He looked jaundice, had lost weight and looked in a lot of pain. His breathing was laboured and he could only walk a few steps without running out of breath. After me asking him multiple times if we should call off seeing the film, my Dad said that he was ok and wanted to still see it... Literally nothing would come between him and his love for Queen it seemed. After what seemed a lifetime, the film was over and my Dad looked like he was still in a considerable amount of pain. It was after the film when we were sat having food that he decided to tell us all that he thought his lung may have collapsed that morning!

We made the decision to take him home and called an ambulance from there. We followed him to A&E where he was treated as a priority and taken to a cubicle where he was given an oxygen mask. For anyone who knows my Dad he likes to joke around and so every now and then he would do things that would make me jump up with panic and start laughing through his breathlessness. After a few hours the Doctor advised that he would be moved to a general ward for over night monitoring. We said goodbye and I felt reassured that he was in the right place and that he'd probably be given stronger antibiotics and be discharged the next day. 

Around 5am the following morning, I got a call from my Mum to tell me my dad had been moved to Critical Care (aka ICU) and to get to the hospital as soon as possible. My heart sank and I instantly broke down. I had literally spoken to my Dad less than 12 hours before and what was I going to do when I got there? Was I going to say goodbye? Luckily, my boyfriend Paul was on hand to drive me to the hospital (we may have broken a few speed limits). All I knew about ICU was what I had seen on the TV. I was terrified of what I was going to be walking into and whether I'd get there in time. 

Girls in Work - Live

Photos provided by @soph.rosie

In an effort to understand how I can put my stamp on my new job and to meet like-minded women, I attended the Girls in Work - Live event yesterday. Girls in Work was launched by Sophie Rosie in March 2018 and is an online resource for career women with an aim to empower, inspire and motivate (as taken from their site). Sophie organised the event along with her friend Emma and they most definitely pulled it off. I was so happy I got a ticket and felt it was worthwhile attending - if only to give me that kick up the arse I needed to go out there, work hard and be the best version of me I can.

I'd not been to an event like this before and was a little anxious initially, however I had two of my good friends with me to chat and drink tea out of cups and saucers (with the obligatory pinky finger) and we got to know some of the other attendees. The location for the event was beautiful, with cakes and gift bags laid out on the table. The room had been decorated with candles and fairy lights that provided the perfect ambience for the upcoming insightful panel discussions that were going to slap me hard in the face with inspiration and intrigue! Who doesn't love alliteration, am I right?

The panel consisted of four women, all in different roles and stages of their careers. The first panelist was Julia Day, the Founder of Easy as VAT and The Independent Girls Collective.

Instagram: @independentgirlscollective

It was interesting to hear about her "lightbulb" moment when she decided to leave her full-time job to start her own business online. Julia also talked about not comparing yourself to others, like looking at how successful you feel your friends are compared to you and to stay in your lane. I loved this quote as I'm definitely guilty of seeing how well other people are doing and feeling a bit of a failure. It's really not a productive way to think and it's much better to use that time spent worrying what others think, to focus on working as hard as you can and how Julia put it, make yourself irreplaceable.

The second panelist was Jo Baldwin who is a Managing Director for Bauer Media. Jo had worked in the same industry for many years so it was interesting to hear about the different experiences she had as she worked her way through the ranks. With her humour and funny anecdotes, Jo made a lot of interesting points, one being that she doesn't believe in feminine and masculine traits when it comes to women in the workplace. Jo described herself as straight-talking and direct, but that's just who she is and has nothing to do with her gender. She also mentioned a quote someone once told her which I loved so much it got it's own graphic:

The third panelist was the eloquent Kayla Anderson who is a Senior Assistant Editor for ITV, specifically Coronation Street. Kayla talked about the risks she took to get in the role that she is in now, such as originally taking on a 3-month fixed-term contract. When asked what she felt was the biggest challenge facing women who are climbing the career ladder, she expressed one of her main concerns being how going on maternity leave may potentially affect her career growth when she did decide to have children. This was an interesting point for me, not that I plan to have kids any time soon! Just being out of work for up to 12 months is a scary thought for me and I would worry that this would impact my progression. Women are having children when they are older now in order to focus on their careers and I definitely know people who feel like they have had to choose between having children or having their career. Some women manage to do both which is amazing. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts about this hotly debated topic and their experiences on the impact having children has had on their career (if any). 

Photo taken from: @girlsinwork_// Kayla: @kaylaanderson1990

The final panelist was the lovely Sian Sullivan (who had travelled up all the way from London might I add!) who is a Social Media & Community Executive for Liberty Living. Sian spoke about her experience of being the first person in a role that had just been created within Liberty Living. She was honest about the pros and cons of being in this situation, but how she also made herself irreplaceable by getting herself involved in projects she was particularly interested in. She pushed herself outside of her comfort zone when she had to deliver a presentation to hundreds of people, but described this as a great way to develop yourself and to become more confident. 

Finally, Sophie and Emma touched on their experiences which I related too so much. Sophie was studying Accountancy and then changed her mind of what career path she wanted to take towards the end of her exams and now works in radio. You could tell she really loved her present job by how she talked about it. With my own drastic change in degree from studying Bioveterinary Science, then moving to Psychology, which I'm soon to graduate from (sorry to bring it up again), it reminded me of how there is so much pressure on young people to make decisions about their careers  early on in life. Following a question I asked to the panel regarding their experiences of feeling unsupported in the workplace by other women, Emma gave an example of an experience she had with a poor manager. It was interesting to hear how she dealt with this and was food for thought for me. She described how she took positives from her experience and from this it has enabled her to become an even better manager herself. The message was also reiterated around focusing on yourself and not others and that feeling a little bit of competitiveness can sometimes be a good thing if it helps you to challenge and better yourself. Described as one of her favourite quotes, Emma pointed out that a challenge is not a threat, but an opportunity. <-- take note!

Instagram: @soph.rosie

I'm amazed at what Sophie and Emma were able to pull out the bag in such a short space of time, but they have really pulled off their first event. It was a great opportunity to network not only with other women, but women with completely different backgrounds and careers. The event ended with a 10-minute meditation session from Barre Balance who also kindly gifted all attendees a pass for a free class - I wouldn't say I was born with the most graceful of bodies, but I'll give it a go.  I'm excited to hear about future events and highly recommend any women reading this to register for their next one - give their Instagram a follow here so you can stay up to date! I left the event with more confidence in my ability to do my job (recently started a new role and I'm the epitome of imposter syndrome) and was inspired to go into work next week and find out what projects I can get involved in, to focus on myself and make myself truly irreplaceable - small steps can lead to big things. 

If you got this far, thanks for reading and I hope you get to check out some of Girls In Work's future events!

Lucy x

New Year, New Routine

OK, so I may not be consistent at posting (she says over one year on since her last post), but you can always count on me to come back at some point and give my two-cents before slowly retreating back to the land of the uncreative. I would blame myself, but I moreso blame my exams last year and having a needy boyfriend (who I know will probably read this).

Now, 2019 is a special year for me, it’s the year I finally graduate! I have a couple more assignments and then I am free from the grasp of Open University. I can still remember the excitement in 2014 when I received my first set of textbooks and bought lots of new stationary. I wrote in the most perfect cursive script you had ever seen. My beautiful Papermate Comfortmate Black Pen (comfort is what I opt for in most aspects of my life) flowing with ink onto my Pukka Pad Jotta. Perfectly sized letters, perfectly spaced words… until you got to the second page and by that point my hand was hurting a little bit and my writing starts to look like a 5-year olds.

Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed my degree, but it is time I moved onto a new chapter. So, 1 dissertation and a final assignment to complete and then I’ll be a fully-fledged graduate. Maybe I’ll even put the letters after my name when I sign off e-mails, texts, Facebook statuses – I EARNED IT, OK!?

A lady who isn't me having a lot of fun with a post-it note.

Anyway, the real reason for this post was to talk about productivity and routine. I really needed to knuckle down this year and get shit done. The first thing I did was alter my sleeping routine, much to the delight of Paul. I always thought I would focus better in the morning whilst I still have all my energy, so I downloaded an app called Alarmy. This app allows you to set different types of alarms, ones where you have to shake your phone to turn it off, ones where you have to solve mathematical questions to turn it off (I couldn’t even solve them when I was wide awake) and the one that I use, where you have to take a picture of a certain place in the house.

I opted for the sink in the bathroom, which meant I had to get up and out of bed, for fear of Paul kicking me out, and take the snapshot to turn the alarm off. This has really helped me get up straight away without hitting the snooze button. Don't get me wrong there have been times where I have climbed back into bed, but I’ve seen a huge improvement. I started to get up at 5:30am everyday and once I had done this for a week it was so much easier and I found I got so much more done. There is something about being awake before everyone else which is peaceful and just allows me to focus a lot more.

Another app I use is called Forest, now the idea is pretty simple, but effective. You choose how long you want to focus for, from 10 minutes to 2 hours and press “plant”. Whenever you then try to go on your phone a notification comes up saying “Go back to your forest immediately to prevent the tree from dying”. Now I’m the type of girl who will catch a spider in a glass and release it back into the wild. If you think for one second, I’m going to let a pixelised tree die by my hand, then you are sorely mistaken. You don’t just have to use this for studying either, you can also use it for when you want to clean the house without distractions or you want to stop yourself from going on social media so much and scrolling aimlessly. It’s an effective app (and free!) to keep you focused.

Lastly, I’ve also started to exercise more and I find my workout to be more effective when I’m with other people, whether that be with my PT, a friend or even with a Z-list celebrity whilst following their workout DVD. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but I’m starting to enjoy being achy the next day after a workout, it makes me feel like I’ve worked harder. So that's it from me for now, I've got some exciting things planned for this year that I'm hoping to document. If anyone has any tips for staying productive, let me know as I need all the help I can get! 

Lucy x