The Last Day of My 20’s (by sarah)

The last day of my twenties was spent in hospital clinics, at the Drs sugeries and in pharmacies. I fill this probably sums up my twenties, ok so some of the medical stuff was long term issues from things like glandular fever which I caught in my teens but sometimes I do feel that the world has been rather mean to me. Sometimes I also feel I am the luckiest person alive (to be alive to be able to do things!).

I found a diary entry from when I was like 15 - apparently I should have my PhD and be doing research, have an album out, at least one novel series published and have art work selling like hot cakes - not too mention two children (if I had a bloke if not I was to start looking at being a single mum!) all before I reached 30. There was also a long list of mountains to climb and charities to help.

Hmmm - well - fail I think! Still it could be worse - according to five year old me I should have been a paleaontologist and been into space by now along with writing, singing, making the costums and scenery of operas by now! Oh as well as running a joint orphanage and old peoples home where I would fly out in my special plane with attached motobike to rescue people from danger and abuse.

Ok so I have probably achieved more of these goals than would normally be theisable - I have performed in light opera - Musical Theater and stuff with various chiors, I have short stories and poems published, I have lie two novels written if not published, I have made stage senery and costums, I have been published (once maybe twice) in a scientific journal (ok so it's not a PhD but I did it without the PhD! I have raised money etc... for various charities (unfortunatly I was not yet in my 20's when I went to Kenya to help build a school), I'm not sure Snowdon really counts as a Mountain either! I've DJed all be it at the Union and only when Malcomn was absolutely desperate.

I have achieved alot - I have one beuatiful child and one almost here - missed that goal by 2 weeks!

I have also lost four good friends in that time, three of whom were contemparies, my peers and this still saddens me and will I think forever. All three of them partook in some way or another with my 21st birthday celebrations even if it was "just" a phone call.

I have also nearly died myself in this time frame - something which has left it's mark on me as the nightmares during this pregnancy have shown. I have also suffered my back getting worse, lose of hand usage and sometimes walking, I have scrapped myself back to functioning again so many times :/ I have also had a slipped disc, hernia, shingles, bone infection and infected stomach ulcers plus the standard popped and torn ligements. Cysts and nasty inflammation resulting in no baby too 🙁 which is why I have a current bump and not a yr old.

But I have been lucky as most of my twenties have been spent with Alaric and if you take our clumsy 'courting' via email it is well all my 20's! I have now known him a 1/3rd of my life!

And the thing about us is that I suppose we are not really like husband and wife - not the way the concept is normally portrayed - we are instead best friends and I'm hoping my 30's will be much better - I hate the idea of being old and 30 is not a number I want to be but at the same time I also feel looking back on things that me and Al have sort of grown up together - not the physical growing up and adjusting to glands growing up but the settling into and working out of life that happens after that. I hope we have done this without getting old.

Create Your Space (by sarah)

This is my entry to the ESA (European Space Agency) art competition Create Your Space. If you like it you have until the beginning of February (2011) to vote for it. You vote by liking my comment on the ESA image on their Facebook page - here is the link you'll need to tell you how to vote ;). I hope you all like it. I believe you need to "like" the page before you can vote. I am Sarah Snell-Pym and this entry is linked under the image of Christer Fuglesang's Space Walk - it is quiet a way down their wall on Facebook.

Did Life fall into this cradle
This Earth, this home -
We now attempt to climb out of?
Or is it more than a cradle
Some crucible or potters wheel
Shaping and baking us in forms renewed?

Maybe in truth it is a bit of both
And as humanity takes its first toddler steps
We begin to see the variety that our world holds

LIFE -

Life here investigated
In case of alien brethren
Life searched for by the heart if not the mind
As the astronaut steps out into the void
For themselves, for us, for a future
A future - As yet unknown
A future for us all
As we grow too large for this world to contain
A cradle we have explored from end to end

But it is only with eyes freshly opened
To the wonders beyond
That we begin to see what we have missed
That which hides in plan sight
The beauty of our world
We seek its twins, our mirrors -
Its twisted folly of form

OUT THERE

And if we are on our own?
Then look at the wonders the search has wrought
And if we are not?
Then maybe we will truly see ourselves
For the first time

Until then the void is calling
And all these things?

These investigations
These satellites
And images -
Are our jumping off point
Our call to the unknown

Do you wonder what it will answer?

A Week of Medical Stuff (by sarah)

Monday saw us at two (technically three but as two of them are next too each other it doesn't really count) hospitals having scans and consultations and a meeting with the diabetic nurse.

The issue is that as a result of the glucose tolerance test I had just slightly raised sugar that would normally have been ignored but due to Jean's pregnancy and family history it was considered enough to be checked out and monitored.

Then the consultant (C-section guy) said he'd been worried that the baby wasn't growing enough but now it was in the top 10% i.e. it has has grown alot in the last month 🙁 But not to worry as I am having a c-section anyway. But he was releived we were going to see the diabetic clinic and showed us what they would want to see on the scan.

I got a blood test kit and stuff from Gloucester (appointments all over ran so we had to get someone to pick Jeany up from school for us). Anyway we ran through my diet and stuff and I should be fine but I have whopped on weight since the end of the summer - probably due to my decreasing mobility. She suggested I try swimming - this is like one of the few exercises I can do anyway but I explained we'd only just got a car again but that I had emailed all the local pools as soon as we got the car to ask about mixed changing and pool access but not one had gotten back to me >:(

She told us of the ones that have mixed changing and pointed out phoning might have been an idea (doh! neither me or Al had actually thought of that - we expect to get responses from emails). Anyway the issue is I'm not supposed to aim to loose weight whilst pregnant but from the info I was given most of my problems with Jean's labour were caused by the out of control gestational diebetes. The diabetics nurse said that obviously with the problems I'd had with the blood clots and things the diabetes had not been a priority last time but that I should have been monitoring my blood sugar from week 16 of pregnancy.

This was about the time we found out I was pregnant and not suffering from food poisoning :/ And from the results I've been getting with my six skin prick blood tests a day - I really wish I'd known this - I had to ask about the sugar test in the first place. I should also have been having an yearly test to check that I hadn't developed diabetes as I am a high risk group.

Tuesday was spent on the phone to more medical people. I'm having trouble getting my compression hoisery meaning long car journeys are out. These are for two things - one I got red warm patches that hurt on my legs and two I have a huge varocous vein on my right leg - which hurts too. Obviously there is fear about blood clots again as I had the lung ones last time.

There is issues with my blood anyway with it not making up it's mind weather I'm positive or negative - something Jean apparently has sensatized me too.

Wednesday the diabetics consultant decided I needed to go onto metforming a drug to help my body control sugar levels - especially as I'm not actually eating anything wrong (as it were).

Thursday I spent on the phone talking to the dietician, visiting the Dr Surgery and then getting caught in a blizzard and being turned around by the police trying to get to the hospital to pick up medication - this time it was Cheltenham General so a different hospital again!

So I am on two metformin (500 mg) after my evening meal - put it this way two hours after eating you are supposed to have a sugar reading of below 7, on noodles (the portion that suggested on the packets which the dietition said are small portions anyway) and broccili stirfry (not a suacy stir fry just broccili and onions) I got a reading of 9.9 🙁

I'm feeling really guilty because last month when I managed to get into my writing meets I was having Toffee Nut Lattes 🙁 Al pointed out that my sugar would have been much much worse with Jeany. The hospital food alone was a nutrition nightmare :/

Friday saw Alaric struggle out of the valley to pick up a literal sack of medical stuff for me including a sharps bin :/ (with biohazard logo and everything!). He was going to pick wood up as well but I had a rather scary eruptive nosebleed - I sneezed and showered poor Jeany in erm... red jelly. I didn't realise I had done this, nor that there was blood running down my face. Jean just said, 'Oh ok Mummy, stay there - I'll get you a tissue,' which she did and then ran to get Daddy. I didn't register any alarm as I was finding thinking and even staying up right an issue.

Not really sure what happened next but I was somehow on the setee with Jean watching kids films surrounded by bloody tissues. I spent the rest of the day bursting into tears at things like Gamima Puddle Ducks eggs getting eaten and Tiny Tin 'dying'.

I am finding thinking hard at the moment I have to confess. I have also started having my hospital, labour and miscarriage nightmares again. We were hoping that going for a swim would help with well everything but unfortunatly we are snowed in :/ Also without my parents here etc... I have not been getting to places were I can walk about (ie shopping malls - they are warm and flat and have lots of seats - I love hill walking but that is a no go at them moment with or without ice). This means I am really paranoid about blood clots building up in my legs and stuff - the metformin is also making me feel sick and stuff :/

I have to confess to being a grumpy moo - Jean even gave me grumpy stickers - but says she hopes I wont be grumpy forever :/ And this is still much much better than Jean's pregnancy and it is a pregnancy that's lasting and I still want my baby - but I am growing increasingly worried that something is going to happen - the midwife said that with what's happened before I will be like this until I have a live baby in my arms.

This Months Challenges (by sarah)

I'm going for easy challenges this Month due to a) having killed my wrist with the Nanowrimo and my 72, 000 words b) having that whole Christmas thingy! and c) now being very pregnant!

So I am taking the easy options of doing a blog post every day and an hour of art/craft a day.

I am putting up links to past and present christmas crafts and cooking on Rachel Cotterill as part of her fun Craft Christmas Count Down! I'm aiming for a link a day 🙂

I'm quiet chuffed that my Fimo Christmas Tree Vase was picked as a highlight 🙂

Astrobiology Blues (by sarah)

So as many people know I wanted to be an astrobiologist and I got quiet close and then a combo of things got in the way - the main one was not actually Jeany but rather the health complications before, during and after the pregnancy. I tried to go back when Jeany started pre-school but again this ended in disastor both financially and again medically. It then became clear that there was no way even if I sorted out the instant issue of me having to pay 'top-up' fees and took another break to completely recover, I still couldn't do it due to Alaric's job and Jeany care.

At the time my mother was going through her second lot of cancer treatment and a few other issues had popped up. I had reached the glass ceiling - I had reached it probably as soon as I got pregnant with Jean but was still determined - now the decission was clear - family verses career.

And so I stopped kidding myself that I was on a 'break' from science and faced up to facts. It didn't help that I was failing at being a web-designer at the same time - a career I had thought should bring in money and be doable from home - except.. except people still expect you to turn up to meetings and things and then I was just shunted to the side by people offering shoddy but cheap web-development and I ran into people assuming I can't do things 'properlly' cos I'm female - I'm sorry but I did get this several times. So travel and child care for no contracts = FAIL. Add in clients refusing to pay for months and it was another no go.

And so before I am 30 years old I am basically on my 3rd career and not with nice financial boosters from the previous ones :/ But rather stupid amounts of debt.

But I thought I'd got over all of this - thought I was being happy with what I am building - having sold a painting, having stories accepted, getting poems short listed etc... I'd even stopped crying everytime I looked at my minerallogy texts books and started reading the texts I'd gotten to help me become a good Astrobiologist. I had and have for a long time had some vague notion of being able to write popular science books - to bring it to the public and when I run the Scouts I spent ages making up projects for their science and astronomy badges etc.. both scientific and craft (like loo roll hubble which I really need to put the how-to instructions up for!).

But I get told - you can't do that unless you are part of the science world. I have also got an issue in not having access to the journals I want nor could I even contemplate a subscription. I don't think I can belong to alot of the groups as you have to be put forward by peers which I now do not have and those I did have either forgotten me or are peeved that I let things get in the way.

And so my science - all that hard work is generally used for what? Advising the odd writer on how to build aliens and alien worlds convincingly, similar with gaming both role playing and computer games and my tentative steps into things like the paleo-art. Most of the time I convince myself that this is all fine - that this is me still being part of the science world. My science/tech poetry etc... the same.

But then there is an announcement about NASA and astrobiology and a deep depression feels me. I wanted to ignore it - after all what was I going to get if I even tried looking into this? Pain over being excluded from the actual scientific community, of not having access to papers nor people to chat about them over coffee or my standard pint of OJ in the bar. No debates, just my mum looking at me slightly blank and my little girl drawing me pictures of 'germs' to cheer me up.

So I tried to ignore it - thinking how stupid it was that I was crying over not being a scientist and putting it down to this lot of pregnancy hornmones.

And then some how from this I found myself scouring the net for any info and finding just how much the general public had got their knickers in a twist with info that was being reported wrong and that there was going to be a press conference live from NASA.

So I rearranged the family evening to watch it and snapped at my family that no they couldn't have my laptop and then spent this morning writing about it on my rarely updated Astronomy blog. This made me feel better - but I still haven't got the paper to read :/ And I'm not even sure why I took notes of the press conference and why I had to write about it.

Part of it was a friend telling me Carl Sagan would be sad if he knew I was hiding from science because I can be active in it. Alaric keeps telling me it's not too late for my science career but really it is. And I have to think like that or I will just be 'waiting' to do real things and miss out on my lovely family. I'm also generally being moppy at the moment - I am stuck - I have a sprained wrist and there is ice so going out even with crutches, even with car is not happening, writing and art are at a minimium and guitar and drums completely out.

I'm afraid I have the Astrobiology Blues and a case of the green eyes of research envy (put it this way I planned an experiment during GCSE biology to try and force microbes to use Si instead of C my reasoning was that they could both form chains and sheets and things - I was going on valencies - I wasn't allowed to run the experiment as it would take to long and be too expensive!).

There isn't really a point to this post by the way - it's just another - this is how I'm feeling.