My Last Three Months

Hi beauties.

Okay, big news. I've been gone a while. On the 27th December (yes I had a fab Christmas, did you? Tell me. I want to know) I was admitted into hospital and diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. It was scary. I was very sick and in for 5 days. I want to be honest with you guys because that's important to me and so when I say it was scary, I mean it was scary.

Let's start at the beginning.

So Christmas Day was magical. Our home was decorated with fairy lights, we had my favourite wine and my dad had cooked the most delicious Christmas dinner yet. My nan, auntie and uncle came over around lunch time and we celebrated as a small, perfect family. All was well and I went to bed happy.
Then I woke up on Boxing Day not feeling myself. To be honest, I thought I had just had too much wine at dinner the day before and let it go out of my mind as I settled down to enjoy my brand new kindle. It got later in the day and me and my dad went over to my Nan's for snacks and games as we usually do on Boxing Day. We left home at around 4pm. By 6pm I was home, screaming crying from being in so much pain and feeling completely out of sorts. I went to bed and slept for 16 hours straight.

When I woke up on the 27th I couldn't breathe. I mean, it was bad. I sat up in bed and was gasping from being out of breath.

I had an emergency doctors appointment at my local GP because I couldn't breathe and was so upset and in pain at 10am. When I got there, the doctor thought it was my thyroid and admitted my into hospital for a blood test as it was a Boxing Day weekend and the doctors were going to close soon. And so off myself and my mum went.

By the time I got to the hospital I was in hysterics. Screaming and crying like someone was stabbing me in the chest. I was in so much pain.

Finally the nurse came around who was lovely and called Jackett (she was Irish I think) and asked me, "oh, so you're diabetic?". Stunned silence. I hadn't been tested for diabetes before and it scared me. So some stabbing later and blood test results and I was diagnosed with type one diabetes.

Let me take this time to explain that type one diabetes is not the diabetes that is brought on from an unhealthy diet. My pancreas basically died. Type two is curable with a healthy diet. Type one is not. I am required to take a shot of insulin four times a day for the rest of my life. So no thinking that I'm fat or that I've done this to myself. I have been getting sicker and sicker for months prior and it was only a matter of time.

My heart was beating to extremes. My blood had turned into a syrup like consistency which was the cause of my heavy breathing. The only way I can describe it is that it felt like someone was pulling my rib cage apart with pliers from the inside. It was excruciating. Finally I was given liquid paracetamol and morphine to calm me down and stop the pain.

I was out of it and terrified, I hadn't been in hospital since I was 6 when I had my tonsils out which was for one night. My mum and dad stayed until midnight and then I was alone.

My nurses were amazing. Jackett held my hand when they came to take blood and fed me orange segments because I couldn't hold anything up, I was too weak. I have pictures of my bruises which I'll add in later. Basically my body was going into shock and shutting down and so all of my blood was in my core, so they couldn't find any veins to take blood from. That was horrifying. I still have nightmares now, waking up sweating and crying.

It was around 2am actually that I got moved into the diabetic ward in my local hospital. Before that I was given copious amounts of codeine to numb the pain of my ribs which had been going on for around 17 hours without a break. I had an empty stomach and projectile vomited over myself and my hospital bed. Gross. I kept apologising to my favourite nurse David while I was there... He was lovely and gave me endless amounts of water of which I was thankful.

Eventually things had calmed down. I was released from hospital on New Year's Eve and had a McDonald's in the car home.

It's march now and it's been difficult. I inject myself with insulin every morning and night at the moment but soon it will change to 4 times a day or whenever I eat. It's been extremely difficult. I was absent from university for two weeks to recover. I was traumatised from being in hospital. As I said, I have nightmares still. But it's not only that, it's been a lot to handle mentally.

There are some days when I don't want to stab myself in the stomach with a needle. Some days my mind gets in the way and I have a melt down, wondering why it happened to me. Some days it dawns on me that this is forever and I can't change it.

Other days though I accept it and it drives me to look after myself more.

The support I have had from family, friends, university, hospital has been endless and I am eternally grateful.

I thought I should tell you what's what, so that's that. That's me, a new me if you will.

Okay, now for more fun things;

I've decided that I want to do more on this blog. I'm intending for this to be a space in which I review all sorts of things. Makeup collections, films, books, food(?), YouTube channels, music, album ect. My passions are makeup, films and books so maybe look out for them more than the others but I'm willing to take suggestions.

I don't know if anyone has read this far but I hope so.

I'm back and I'm ready to work on this.

Laters,

Kate x

(Below are the pictures I was talking about)