Well, the plan for Dublin was to spend a couple of days at the end of August on my own exploring, having said goodbye to Mum and Dad in Bristol, before I headed to Lyon at the start of September. I got to my hostel Thursday night and slept the night there, but in the morning, totally out of the blue, I had a seizure and was taken to hospital in an ambulance. I spent the next week there (seeing a different side of Ireland!) as they ran lots of tests. It was alright actually! The hospital food was pretty good (potatoes with every lunch and dinner of course, and so much white tea!), and the nurses and doctors took good care of me. There were some great, generous people in the ward with me: I ended up with a bottle of 7Up, lollies, chocolates, fruit, books to read and even a mobile top-up voucher from various people! I loved that the Irish really do say things like ‘grand’, ‘cheers’ and ‘thanks a million’ all the time, and are quite like Aussies! I was able to get in touch with Mum and Dad, who were in Israel, and Katie and Em and Paul back home, and let Meg and Jonathan and my Lyon uni know I’d be getting there late. Even though I didn’t have anyone I knew in Dublin, the friendly nurses and other patients, as well as regular calls from home, meant I didn’t get too lonely or bored. My first hospital stay was actually quite fun!
Mum flew back from Israel since they wouldn’t discharge me without someone to look after me. At the end of the week, the neurologists diagnosed me with epilepsy – which sounds way worse than it actually is! I’ll be on medication for the next while, and need to be a bit careful in looking after myself, but the main advice they gave me was to keep living my life. So that’s what I’m doing. After a couple of days of decision-making as to whether I should return to Oz or continue to Lyon as planned, with a night back at the youth hostel and another at a nice-ish hotel, Mum and I left Dublin on Sunday. We flew to Lyon to stay with Meg and Jonathan and begin my process of settling in Lyon.
Got to love copy and paste :P
ReplyDeleteGood work with the blogging, Sar, it's great reading your succinct tid-bits of what you've being doing, and I'm taking mental notes of your highlights in case I ever get overseas!
ha! i totally didn't understand what you meant, but i've got it now! definitely gotta love it! although i think there are some bits that are slightly different - there's a fun task for you for the hols, spot the difference!
ReplyDeletethanks, good to hear you're enjoying it! good plan to take mental notes. there's so much to see though, and everyone will have different things they enjoyed.