Getting better

I am still slowly recovering after my second seizure and am splitting my time between London (Emily) and Home (Family) as well as doing more college work and stuff in my 5th year community.  There are still some lingering after-effects of my illness my memory is still really ropy (although as noted this might at least in part be down to some of the medication I am taking).  I am also hopeful that the depression I experienced afterwards is starting to lift as well.  So all in all things are long up. I've even been on a date :) which was really nice.

My new little nephew is adorable and another plus side is that I am getting to spend more time at home so I get to see him and Aaron more than I would otherwise.

I am still finding working a little harder than it was before I'm more easy to distract and things are slower but nevertheless I am working again, including a few things back up North in my community well most of those are in the future.  My MA has really been kicked into the long grass (post ordination), which is still set for July I was going to say next year but its very much this year.  Wow thats scary.

Anyway long story short I am continuing to get better and can expect to make future progress yet. Everyone has been amazing specially Emily and I am gradually getting back to being myself.

Again not all that much has altered since my last post.  I am still at home and still recovering, albeit that I am so so much improved on where I was.  So much so that I am planning my first real thing 'back' which is a trip to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to lead a Friday evening and a Saturday morning Service. I will admit to being actually really really nervous about the whole thing, which I guess is unsurprising as it is my first thing back.
Other than that I have written and handed in one of my last essays, so only one more to go.  As well as my MA thesis, which the college has kindly enough permitted me to put off until after ordination. I am continuing to work with my therapist on all the stuff that has surfaced after what has happened to me, and although its all getting much more manageable, now that I know that its there I feel as if I should do something about it.  In a not unrelated note I am back on Jdate, and actually talking to people this time. So there's a thing.
Rebecca has had her second baby and he is I have to say really really cute.  But then as a proud uncle I would think that wouldn't I.
I am also still waiting on the post because I have two things coming, one is a copy of the Limmud Chrevaruta booklet which I am keen to see and the other is a story book about mental health issues written for children by a friend of mine.
Then after that, and I guess depending on how it goes, i am planning on making a tentative return to college, only a flying visit at the start of February.
So all in things are looking up and I am trying to take away lessons in how to live not putting work commitments first all the time and living.
Anyway I'd better get back to getting ready for my first thing back at work as it were as I want it to go well.

End of 2014

2014 is rapidly drawing to a close and with it my 9th semester as a rabbinic student. Sadly, I can remember very little of 2014. Although all things considered, the fact that I can not remember much of 2014 is a blessing. As it has been largely a depressing and distressing year.  However, I am slowly getting better and although its a slow process I am happy it is happening at all, there was a time when I was very concerned I was not going to be making progress at all.
I am still at home in Newcastle but am working more, indeed people are starting to send me stuff to do and at times I am having to be quiet firm with them this is a skill that I need to work on.  In fact saying 'no' is something that I am working on with my therapist.
I am also enjoying spending more time back home with my family, although I am missing Emily terribly. That said we are in near constant contact, via Facebook or Skype.
I also find that I am still much more easy to distract than before my seizures, but I am hopeful that this too is improving. I have yet another medical assessment coming up which among other things will establish a base line memory line so I can work out how things are actually improving or otherwise rather than working on feelings.
I am continuing to work on one of my essays, and am trying to pin down a date for my senior sermon which is proving a little tricky.
Anyway I am hopping that 2015 will be less 'interesting' than 2014 was. Anyway wishing all my readers a very pleasant new year's eve and a fantastic 2015.

Not a lot of news

Not much has changed since my last post. I am still at home in Keele recovering after my second seizure and longish stay in stay in hospital. I am slowly, slowly getting back on my feet, but it really is going to take some time. I have caught up with Daf Yomi and I have started Skyping into some of Emily and my 5th classes so this is progress.  I also have another hospital appointment and scan coming up on the 9th of November so hopefully I will have a much better idea of what is happening/what has happened after that.
My short term memory is still a bit patchy, although nothing like as bad as it was. And in fact this might be a side effect of some of my other medication.
I am still resting, and digesting what has happened and I am also still feeling really deeply touch by all the love, care and support I have received from so many many people.  I am learning and in some cases re-learning copying mechanism for my memory, short attention span (I was very very easily distracted as a child in school). So all in all not too much has changed since my last post but what changes there have been have been in right direction, which is a good thing. I am still a bit down but I am hopeful that this also is starting lift.  

A second and much more serious seizure

So times have been a little tough, but for better and or worse I don't actually remember to much about what actually happened. Although I have been able to 'reconstruct' what happened from Facebook, and notes I kept at the time. My last post spoke about a seizure I had back in July and from which I felt and it seemed as if I had bounced back from fairly speedily. However, at the end of August I had a much more serious seizure which resulted in a 16 day stay in hospital (three different ones actually) and I have now been home in Stoke recovering for 16 days as well. I am slowly slowly getting back on my feet but I think its going to be long and slow process, one of months rather than weeks.  There are lots of 'interesting' aftereffects of my second seizure, one is that I am inclined to burst into tears abruptly and for no real reason, although this might be the result of the myriad of different drugs that I am taking at the moment.  My sense of the passing of time is also a bit muddled, so i will zone out and minutes or even hours will pass and I won't notice and it will only seem like a few seconds. Sadly this isn't true when I wake in small hours and can't get back to sleep when time passes so so slowly. On the time front because my second seizure 'deleted' the time between the first one and the second one, and because my 16 days in hospital feel like 5 (I can only actually remember stuff from right at the end) and the 16 days back home also only feel like about a week, my internal clock is telling me its the end of July! And although I know, its actually the end of September, this just doesn't 'feel', right.  Physically I am feeling really really weak, this is what being run down and then over a month of lying down will do to you, I guess.

 I am also being to feel a bit down, something I am keen doesn't get any stronger.
My short term memory is also pretty shot, it is getting better but because I cannot remember how bad it was it doesn't really feel as if it were getting better to me.

On the other hand I am feeling really really loved I received so so many messages of support and comfort in the aftermath of what has happened but I have really been hit for six and it is going to take me a long time to work my way back. College has been amazingly supportive. And Emily was simply amazing. She not only caught what was happening to me from half way around the world, basically she saved my life. (And in true current form I have just burst into tears while typing). She has also been in near constant contact with me and is helping me regain my memories, talking me though our new flat as the picture in my mind that tends to come is of the old flat.

I am trying to find things to be positive about, and one is that yesterday I got to be a congregant at a synagogue for Rosh Hashanah, which is not something which I was expecting to happen anytime soon.

But I am feeling 'stuck' although I know I am not really stuck and that this albeit a setback will in turn pass, and I just need to be a bit more patient. Its just that I am not very good at being patient.

The memory effects are odd, I am getting better at 'getting the right answer to the question' and I know its right it just doesn't 'feel' like it has substance, on the other hand I have 'memories', from a year which is yet to happen and was (in my hallucinations) very strange indeed.

I am trying to stay positive, but at the same time not push myself too hard which would be totally counter-productive I certainly couldn't afford a third major seizure. One method I am using is to look for things I can learn from the experience, of which there are actually quiet a few. Both ones I will be able to use when I am ordained but also more academic things, I am thinking of writing a paper about my experiences when I more fully restored.

And a second as mentioned is the overwhelming amounts of care and love I have been given from my family, hospital staff my friends and colleagues from the present and indeed the past, matthew who was great and got me hospital and Emily who has been wonderful. I am also so grateful for the NHS and the doctors/nurses and other staff who work there.

So in summary it has been a scary time, and emotionally very stressful for me (and of course for those around me especially mum). I am trying to draw lessons from the experience(s) and to cut myself some slack. And most importantly not to get down or depressed because in the end all will be well if I have faith and just let things take their own sweet time. It has also given me an insight, albeit a minor one into what people in the community who are living with long term conditions are going though. Again I always knew, but there is knowing and there is knowing.

This was a rather more dramatic end to my 4th / start of my 5th year than I was expecting (I had felt things were running along quiet smoothly thank you.)

I hope that there won't be such a long gap between post over here on this blog and I also hope that I have less news to report. As I am medically ordered rest for the next few months this seems likely.

So to end on a, slightly, funny note. I have found that shaving and steroid induced tremors do not a happy combination make.

Getting back in the swing of things

I am slowly settling back into the swing of things after my seizure at the start of July.  And although I go home for the weekends I spend most of the week back in London in the flat. Last Sunday I had my NMRI scan up in Manchester so hopefully I will know soon what caused my seizure although if it is epilepsy then there is likely nothing to see in the scan.  But in myself I am feeling much better, although I have more moments of blind panic than I would like.  (I am working on this with my therapist) I have also re-started meeting my personal trainer and although i can feel that my conditioning has slipped over the two or three weeks when I haven't been meeting with her it has not slipped as badly as I would have thought.
Apart from this things have been continuing along okay really. I have been getting ready for my 5th placement, although not making as much progress as I would have liked, getting ready for the 5th year, again not made as much progress as i had hoped i would, this is going to become a theme in this particular blog post. My preparation for my MA is in the same place as is my High Holy Preparations. So all in all okay but not great.

And as for my plans of getting lots of work experience over the summer nothing came of that really. Well almost nothing I am preaching on Friday at West London Synagogue.  I am also finishing off the stuff for Limmud albeit that that is now getting to stage where it really is moving on to become other peoples work.

The summer reading continues and I have two more light, easy and fun books on order. I have to make the most of this time because looking at the 5th year I don't think that I am going to have much outside reading time.

I am also making a concerted attempt to meet with friends, last week I got to hang out with Mandy and we went to the Victoria and Albert museum.

I have one more hospital appointment scheduled in the next couple of weeks and then induction begins. Although quiet why I need to be inducted now that I am a 5th year I don't know. Especially as of today I only have 318 days to go :)

Emily is still in Canada, where although busy she seems to be having a great time. But I am really missing her and am really looking forward to her return.

Summer break but thinking about the 5th Year

This is something of a quiet time. After spending July recovering after my seizure. August is also shaping up to be a slow month. During the week I have been down in the flat in London, but I am spending the weekend back home in Stoke, this is more-or-less my plan for the rest of August.

I now have a date for my NMR which is the 17^th of August, so after that I should have a much better idea of what coursed my seizure. I have also made time to go up to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to meet with my 5^th community.

I am also trying to make some headway on High Holy Day stuff and on stuff for my MA, God knows that there is some time pressure on there. But generally I am having a restful time, sleeping more (the no coffee is really helping there). And reading fun and light stuff including Lev Grossman's 'The Magician's Land' which is the third part of 'Magicians' Series. I am really enjoying it and am trying to not read it all at once, I have another fun book on order which is good.

Additionally I am doing some work but lighter than normal reading, so some stuff for my 5^th Year Placement, basically a history of Newcastle and the surrounding region and books of the Apochrapha.

On Thursday I actually got to hang out with Matthew which was fun albeit that his house looked like a bomb had hit it. His house mate is moving out and he is reorganising so boxes everywhere, and lots of dust. One of my aims for next year is somehow get better at staying on contact with my friends despite how pushed for time it is going to be.

Emily is still in Canada, although we are in touch most days via Instant messaging, or via Skype. She seems to be having a good time but its hella hard work for her, albeit that it will be a great experience and something to put on her C.V. But I am really, really missing her :(

Yesterday I got my official Transcripts of my 4^th year and PG.Dip part of my course, all was well and good Pass with Merit in all but one of my courses which is nice. So all that is really left now is my MA (oh and our four extra-classes).

In truth my thoughts have largely turned to life after the college, which is in just 329 days. Yeah but scary. There is still quite a lot standing between me and that though. My Placement, the written work that goes along with it, my MA and the stuff that will go along with the four non-assessed but taught courses.

But I am thinking about it terms of 'markers of year' so induction, and then the High Holy Days, the college open days, then there is winter break, admissions week, Passover, dead-line for my MA thesis, deadline write piece for Practical Rabbinics, final Placement events and then Ordination. The end really feels not exactly in sight but I know its there just beyond the horizon.

I still have to finish off this years Limmud Booklet (shouldn't take too much longer now). However, I am seriously thinking of not going to Limmud this year as I think that I will be just to busy.