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

You didn't say no...

With another headline and another woman coming forward everyday with an allegation against the Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein, it felt too important to ignore. I read an inspiring article by Brit Marling in The Atlantic, she has such a way with words and so I decided to write a quick poem on the topic of sexual harrassment and assault. I am aware this can happen to men too and don't want to ignore that. The 1 in 5 statistic was taken from the Rape Crisis website.

You didn't say no

A pair of hands upon your shoulders,

Fingers squeeze around your thigh,

Nausea building within your stomach

Your body frozen – a silent cry

The violence that we see in movies

The sensational stories in the news

This isn’t what you’ve yet encountered

And so you find a way to excuse

He says he’s just drunk and joking around,

“All I did was squeeze your bum”

Now look at you silly, overreacting

“Drink some more, we're just having fun”.

Things have stepped up a notch

In this erotic exchange

You leave feeling dirty

And the one to be blamed

If you hadn’t drank so much

Or had shown that much skin

“You really need to be more careful”

Patience slowly wears thin

Guilt and fear begins to mount

You didn’t say no, you must’ve given consent

But you felt pressured and coerced

But still not a no, so the silence leant

Towards the swamp of shame,

You now find yourself stuck

He didn’t physically hurt you

Just put it down to bad luck

But emotional wounds

Take much longer to heal

Angry, confused or upset

You need to check how you feel

1 in 5 women

Too many to count

Consent is a yes

Absent from pressure or doubt.

Self-dependent women

What are the differences between being independent and self-dependent?

Moody picture of me looking independent as fuck.

As quoted from the good old Oxford dictionary, being independent means to be “capable of thinking or acting for oneself”.  Being self-dependent is defined as “reliance on one’s own strengths rather than others”. So, not a massive difference, but there is of course, a difference nonetheless.

I moved out when I was 19, so I think it’s safe to say that by now I am quite independent. Self-dependency, however, has been more difficult to grasp. The need to sponge of others to fulfil my emotional needs is something I am not a stranger to, whether that be through a boyfriend, family member or a friend. I’m lucky in the fact that I have some great friends who have handled my neediness in the past.

I’m in a situation now where my family and closest friends aren’t five minutes down the road for me to see whenever I want or at the end of the phone constantly – and that’s hard. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve come on leaps and bounds from years ago where I felt I needed reassurance within everything I did which I think was a result of my anxiety. It’s like I needed someone else’s approval to do something whether it be wearing a particular outfit that for me is quite daring (just wear the goddamn thing) or trying to get other people to help make decisions about my life, because I was too scared to take the risk on my own.

I am the only person who can create my happiness, for which others can then enrich. If I constantly rely on others, I will never be happy. I see and hear about so many people who wanted to do something (myself included), but were waiting for a partner or a friend to get on board. A big one, is travelling. If you do get to go travelling with your best friends, that’s great and you’re very lucky, but not everyone’s stars align at the same time. Not everyone’s circumstances are going to be the same whether that be due to finances, their job, family etc.

We only one get one life and I’m already around third of the way through mine. When I’m old, I want to look back and know that I chose my own story – I didn’t just tag along onto someone else’s. 

Lucy x

The Outfit I Will Never Wear Again

Hi guys, this is a memoir I wrote for a writing competition a few months ago. Unfortunately I wasn't placed but enjoyed writing it all the same and I thought I would share with you - enjoy! Lucy x

The all-too-familiar smell of that warm, yet spicy cologne and the feel of the cotton against my skin as I plunge my arms once more through the sleeves of the dark green checked shirt that’s three sizes too big for me. It hangs on me like the tarpaulin of the crumpled tent we spent three rather damp nights in at a music festival a few years before. It seems such a long time ago now. When we thought, we were blissfully happy and had not a care in the world.

Although I don’t want to, I can’t help but bury my face into the fabric, breathe deeply, close my eyes and remember. Remember the time we went on the spontaneous road trip to Scotland and how we had one too many tequilas and ended waking up the unimpressed guests in the residing rooms with our rendition of “500 Miles” by The Proclaimers. Or the time when, we were on holiday in Portugal and we thought we would be spontaneous and try exciting and exotic foods like octopus. It made us feel adventurous and daring at the time, but hours later we regretted this decision. Ending up curled up in the fetal position, clutching our stomachs and praying for the profound cramps and projectile vomiting to stop. That octopus had the last laugh.

As I cross my arms over my stomach and grasp the sides of the shirt tightly, I imagine feeling your head resting on my shoulder, the warmth of your breath on my ear. Then I feel the bristles of your beard scratch my cheek. I remember how it felt like tiny needles stabbing my skin and how irritating that was. How, whenever you told me you loved me, your eyes wavered as though it caused you pain to look at me, like looking directly at the sun.  When I eventually found out and I told you how much you hurt me, you looked through me like I wasn’t even there. You said all the right things of course, that I was the only one for you. There was nobody else. But then when I questioned this you told me that I had it all wrong and that in fact somehow this was my fault. For six long months, I went on believing this, that I wasn’t good enough and that if only I had tried harder this might not have happened.

Suddenly, the once comforting smell of the shirt begins to slowly repulse me. The cotton no longer feels as soft as it did, but like a scratchy old towel that had been left to airdry for too long. My hands release from my waist. Although the shirt is so big it nearly reaches my knees, I now feel suffocated wearing it. For the last time, I remove the shirt and I smile. I know I am enough.

Peaks and troughs

It’s been a while since I last posted. My studies, work and life in general happened and something had to give. It’s a shame it had to be one of the things I was most passionate about.

I’ve been feeling rather deflated the past few weeks. A lack of sleep, mixed with excessive alcohol consumption (after a week of partying in Marbella), an abundance of caffeine filled drinks and the stress of an exam deadline has proved to be too much for me it seems. I can tell by the flatness in my voice when I speak to people, my heightened irritability, my lack of appetite and energy that I’m not myself. I feel exhausted.

I need to remember that it can’t be sunshine and roses all the time and that depression isn’t just something you defeat for it never to return again. Today is the first day, that I’ve sat down and acknowledged that I don’t feel myself and that I have been feeling low –  but there is nothing wrong with that. And so, I’ve spent the day in bed feeling a bit miserable, but for me that is part of the process. You can’t always just *pick* yourself back up straight away.

Now that I have got a break from my studies, I decided I’m going to focus more on my physical and mental well-being. Part of this plan includes not drinking alcohol for at least 30 days. This may seem easy for some people, but when drinking becomes such a common social activity it can be difficult to get away from. I don’t want this to be misinterpreted, or to come across as if I am an alcoholic – I’m far from it, but I’m getting tired of the heavy weekends out with friends and then ending up wasting the next day and eating rubbish, because I’m too hungover. It will be interesting to see what reaction this gets as I know it will be too easy to be labelled “boring” for trying this out.

The second part of my plan is to be outdoors more, go for walks, try to attend yoga classes, even if it is just once a week. I’m trying not to give myself unrealistic goals and so I feel like I need to make my goals quite basic to begin with. Eventually, I want to see how much money I actually save by not spending money on jagerbombs that give me horrific palpitations the next day. The money that I do save, I plan on booking a few personal training sessions to kickstart my healthier lifestyle. I’m sure many will read this, particularly people close to me well that will probably think this is just a phase, but I really do want to better myself.

I apologise if this post isn’t as engaging and if there is a lack of a “playful” tone, but whilst I felt like this I thought it would be a good chance to write and to acknowledge that everyone has peaks and troughs. The important thing is to talk to people and let them know how you are feeling. Don’t ever think you are burdening someone by telling them how you’re having a shit time as if it’s someone who truly cares about you they will want you to tell them. It doesn’t even need to be a big, scary conversation. I just went through to my Mum when she was watching Coronation Street (obviously this depends on how passionate your parents are about watching the soaps – luckily she has Sky+) and told her that I was feeling run down, stressed out, that I didn’t feel myself and to be honest she said she could tell before I even told her.

It’s good to know that I can have such a normal conversation with her about it, and I feel grateful as I know it’s still such a taboo subject for some. People just don’t feel comfortable getting into conversation with someone when they say they are unhappy. I know I sound like a broken record, but the power of talking, no – even more importantly the power of listening is incredible.

Thanks for reading, hopefully my next post will return to it’s original GIF-filled, sarcastic self.

Lucy x