2016 - University Year 2

I started studying a Bachelor of Education in 2015 after having a gap year working at McDonalds. In January 2016, I moved out of home for the first time with my partner. I was also due to start my placement for my uni course in February at a local primary school. At this point I had been fairly unwell since about Christmas but I put it down to the stresses of moving out of home and wanting to perform well at uni. After having watery diarrhoea for a month and a half and having stomach pains coupled with awful reflux every single night, I finally went to the doctor to get a stool sample and blood tests taken, these came back showing that I had contracted campylobacter. 2 courses of antibiotics later and I still wasn’t feeling better. But I was stubborn and decided to keep my chin up and soldier on through my placement. The first two days were hard, but I tried my best, unfortunately I was running out of the classroom at regular intervals to go to the bathroom. By day 3, I was in too much pain to eat or drink, but still went into school. By that afternoon, mum had called my doctor who told her to get me straight to the emergency room. We waited 5 hours in the waiting room and the doctor had to try 6 times to get a canula into my veins I was so dehydrated. I was taken to an isolated room and put on a constant drip. I was still in a lot of pain but was told that I wouldn’t be able to come off the drip until I could drink enough liquids by myself. This took 3 days, more steroids and a low impact diet of soft foods. I was in hospital for further 2 days for observations but finally managed to get home.

Even though I was home, I was still not very well. Not only was I physically unwell, but mentally, I was becoming depressed. I felt like I had failed in my placement and failed as a human. I didn’t feel happy and nothing seemed to feel right. I had my partner and the support from him and my mum were extreme, but my brain was in such a dark cloud that I found it very hard to find joy in anything. I was put on an increased dose of infliximab, (once every 6 weeks), and started to get my physical health stabilised.

I attempted to go back to uni in semester 2 but was in still such a depressive cloud that I couldn’t concentrate on any of my work. I dropped out of uni again, which made me feel like even more of a failure. With the help and support of the people close to me, I managed to reach out for help and went onto antidepressants and stated seeing a psychologist. After some time of treatment, I started to feel more like myself again.