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About
Me
This is a bit of a difficult one really, as so much has happened to me in my 36 years of life. Some of it good, some of it bad, and some of it very frustrating. At the age of 4 I was diagnosed with epilepsy. I had petit mal epilepsy which is best described by me as going deaf, blind and having amnesia all at the same time, oh yes and if I was holding anything I would drop it. My parents met in the RAF years ago. We were on an exchange tour at the time in Australia - not that I hold my epilepsy against our Ozzie cousins. I became a bit of a Guinea Pig for a large part of my life trying to get medications that worked, or to at least stabilize the epilepsy. This didn't happen until fairly recently, however I wil go onto that later on. It wasn't until the onset of puberty that I developed another type of epilespy - the grand mal or tonic clonic seizure. I can remember it quite vividly. We were living at the then RAF station at Cardington in Bedfordshire, not far from Bedford itself. It was about 7.30 in the morning, I was just rising from my slumber as it was a school day when I had a tingle in the ends of my little fingers and it felt like my arms were going up and round over my shoulders and were going to break off. Next thing I remember was regaining conciousness in the local general hospital A&E department. Certainly the tonic clonic seizures I had, would wipe me out for the day if I had one in the morning. I would sleep for hours afterwards, totally exhausted. This carried on for all my teens and the majority of my twenties. This did absolutly nothing for my social life, as my self esteem and confidence was none existance. I was encouraged to do things, I went to cubs in the early 1980's, which I found very enjoyable - I still have my uniform too with the exception of the shorts, which is pictured below.
I also did a bit of horse riding as well, but didnt really get into that, I think it was I didnt have the commitment to get up early at the weekends and go over the other side of the RAF station to get to the stables. The other downside was I didnt wear jodhpurs so I managed to get blisters on the insides of my knees as I tended to wear denim jeans - OUCH!!!!! Schooling was a problem too, moving around every 2 years or so and the epilepsy certainly didnt help. Eventually my parents couldnt cope with me having temper tantrums so I was, for everyones benefit given a weekly stay at Douglas House Adolescent Unit in Cambridge, part of Addenbrookes Hospital. It was a specialist psychiatry unit - I ran away a couple of times, before I stunned the doctors and my parents one day during a "meetting" they had every so often, with everyone in a circle, that I wanted to go to boarding school. This had been tried before, but had failed, mainly due to the fact I think now, that the school I had tried to get into, was intellectually to great for me at that time. Eventually in 1986 I got my way and attended Magdalen
College School, Brackley Northamptonshire, although I was put back a
year, as this is how much time I had lost educationally. Had some happy
times here to and it did settle me too. I left MCS as it is
affectionatly known in 1989, the same year in which my father retired from the
RAF. We moved down to Cornwall and
lived their initially with my parents then moved into a flat of my own in the
centre of St. Ives in the far south west of the county. I had really
wonderful times here and my epilepsy was stablised by medical drugs which I
have had no problems with since. I got my second job as a CCTV operator
which was fantastic and then very stupidly decided that I needed more of a
challenge so moved away from Cornwall to the dull lights of Nottingham!
The only good thing to come out of my years in Nottingham, were working for
Chubb Security and learn to drive and passing my test first time. I had
a four and a half year relationship, my first but it alas recently didnt work
out. So I moved up to Cumbria
near to my sister and brother-in-law and I am looking forward to the future
up hear in the north west - even if it is colder and damper lol. |
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Its
still in pretty good nik after 28 years. It doesnt fit me of course,
but it is nice to remember that the first week I was there I became a
"seconder" which is the second leader in the pack, and the the 4th
week I was there I became the "sixer" (leader) of the black
pack. You knew which pack you were in by the colour of the
"woggle" which held the scarf around your neck. Happy days.
