So looking at what I’ve written, I’ve decided that I’ll split this up into 2 posts: a summary of what’s been going on since I’ve been absent from Tumblr (which really is only for my benefit), and what I actually originally came back to Tumblr to post before getting sidetracked by my need to fill the massive gap left since the last time I logged on.
Technically, I’ve had plenty of content to blog about in the past year or so, ranging from dramas related to my personal life, work, general depression and anxiety related to my position in life and feeling like I’m stuck in a rut and unable to achieve my goals etc. I actually had somewhat major surgery on my femur at the beginning of the year. Long story short, I’ve had multiple surgeries on my left leg because of a congenital defect and the one I had at the start of the year is (hopefully) the last one I’ll ever need. I mean, it’s the one with the most obvious results and I’ll probably not need a knee replacement or hyaluronic acid injections in my 30s now that the alignment of my leg bones is no longer at an angle which could cause premature osteoarthritis. Hooray!
But as necessary as this surgery was, it really messed with my life lol.
So I was contacted by the hospital around July/August last year, at the beginning of semester 2 of my second year in my HIM degree and said I’d be scheduled for surgery early August. Considering I was set to go on placement and also have a very long commute to uni, and the recovery would be brutal, my course has a lot of team assignments, AND I’d be on opioids for pain and probably asleep/out of my mind all the time, I decided the best thing to do to not incur unnecessary uni fees was to take leave of absence for the semester since the census date was also early August. Of course not long after submitting leave of absence, the hospital calls to push the surgery back a few months. Infuriating. A few months pass and again, surgery gets pushed back. And again not long later. Reasons included “turns out our special equipment wasn’t ready”, “second surgeon had another surgery booked in”, “somebody else needed emergency surgery and bumped you down the list”. The latter reason was the most acceptable but the first two... like, how do you book a surgery in without making sure the equipment is ready??? And not making sure both necessary surgeons are available? Fucking what. I’m not going to pretend like I even understand how the healthcare system works or how busy it gets but I feel like I was pretty justified in my anger; the recovery time for surgery would be equivalent to a uni semester so pushing everything back was affecting my life progression, big time.
Eventually come January I get the call confirming my surgery for February and honestly, up until the point of my actual surgery, worrying about nothing but my job and social life was nice. Yet my recovery period was kind of rough. Not that my family, partner and friends weren’t great pillars of support during this time... but no longer being able to work while recovering, and the idea of not graduating from my bachelor’s till 2020, when I’m freaking 28, and simply approaching 26 without having travelled or accomplished as much as I want due to all this crap with my health affecting my life, while constantly being on social media and seeing others in my age bracket flaunt their recent entries in the housing market, their numerous overseas trips, their engagements and weddings... yeah, social media is crap and people only post the good aspects of their life, but I couldn’t not feel like an abject failure in the face of everybody else progressing. Didn’t help that when catching up with old friends, while they were talking about their careers, when it came to me it was, “Oh, you’re still at uni?” It just feels crummy. And I know I’ve had legitimate reasons to have not graduated yet, and people change career paths and go back to uni at even later ages, and comparing myself to others is stupid and self destructive, but yeah. It’s gonna happen no matter how bad I know it is for me to do. I’ve been able to walk without crutches since May though, and I return to uni at the end of this month so that’s something to look forward to. I haven’t gotten the OK from my orthopaedic surgeon to return to my old labour intensive job so I’ve been job searching in the mean time. I kinda bombed an interview for a clerical role for a big public hospital and didn’t get the job, and recently had an interview for the same role at a smaller hospital and somehow did worse at that interview ugh lol. But uh, I guess I should end this blog post and start on part 2 before I forget what I really came here for.
