A difficult few months

It's been a while since i've updated my blog, and it's been a pretty emotional and difficult few months since then.

Back in 2009 my mum had a traumatic fall and fractured her spine, that was fixed with a few screws and plates, and i thought that was the end of that. However, sadly i've learnt over the last few months that it's not quite the end of it. After a year or so of neurological symptoms which has gradually worsened with time, my mum finally had a MRI followed up very quickly by an urgent MRI.

The good news being the mass in her spinal cord doesn't seem to be a malignant mass, and the main differential at this point, is a post-traumatic syrinx. Referred to the neurosurgeons, we're now just waiting to see what's going to be done; but i was told at my mum's appointment, it's almost certain she will need some form of surgery pretty soon.

Seeing my mum's eyes red and close to tears as she sat at her appointment worried that she had cancer really was very difficult, thankfully it's not that. I know it could be a lot worse, and there is always a better way of seeing what could be seen as a bad situation, but it was difficult trying not to worry wondering what it could have been, and what it may mean in the future.

I've found it pretty hard to sleep at night, and that sort of led to not being able to concentrate and i sort of just slept or day dreamed my way through my paediatrics firm, my last ICA and the week of neurology, opthalmology and psychiatry lectures; and i'm worried with how im going to cope with my upcoming firm.

Starting with neurosurgery and neurology in a weeks time is a little difficult for me. I am generally emotionally quite weak. I know i'm probably worrying myself more and predisposing myself to being upset, but I know i will find it hard to see patients in a similar situation to my mum.

At the same time, i think it's making me want to work a lot harder now; and naive as it may sound, i just want to work really hard and be the best i could be, and one day be able to help others, knowing that every patient is important to someone else out there.

With a week to go before uni and my firm starts, i'm going to start with revising year 1 and 2 B&B lectures, and then move on swiftly to cover as many of the 4th year neurology lectures as i can before i start my short 1 week of Neurosurgery, and 2 weeks of Neurology.