Today i have spent most of the day on facebook talking to people from my year at school and organising our 10 year reunion. Obviously i have stated a few times about my being an author now and feel i have peed people off sufficiently lol. But it got me to thinking what i can say i have accomplished in the last 10 years and surprisingly enough even to myself, its a lot. Its amazing the things you forget about yourself after you have done them. But my life over the last 10 years really sounds like it should be centrefold in a glossy magazine!
I left school in a very strange place in 2004, and at the time i had nonidea what i wanted to do with my life nor did have many qualifications. Looking back i guess i was at a cross roads, do i go left down the flowery path or right down the stormy path? Which ever path i chose be it left or right i have experienced both storms and flowers the same as everyone else has. But here is my last 10 years in a nutshell.
I left school with nothing, spent a few weeks deciding what next and eventualy made my way to the local college and a paid for myself with 2 different jobs. Cashier at the local pizzeria and an assistant at The Nail Emporium. 2 years later i left college with hairdressing qualifications, nail treatment qualifications, key skills qualifications, smaller course qualifications such as art and aromatherapy and ear piercing etc, and i also had a bun in the oven! Yes i left college early due to being so unwell while pregnant and forced at 18 into motherhood by an infertile partner! (I know, i darent look at men anymore!) it was a difficult concept to grasp but i have to agree with every other mother on the planet when i say laying eyes on my boy for the first time just took my breath away conpletely. 2 years later (and 1 day) i had his little brother (while on the pill might i add) but unfortunatly for reasons out of our control the relationship with their father ended. When i started seeing someone else i quickly became pregnant again (while on 2 different forms of contraception AND the morning after pill!) and everything moved at the speed of light for a few weeks getting ready for yet another arrival!
But the excitement didnt last long, the pregnancy was the worst and i suffered swollen ankles, numerous false alarms, low blood sugar, at 28 weeks i was taken into hospital with premature labour and when they gave me the drugs to stop it me and baby had a bad reaction. We were very scared. It was christmas eve when they finaly let me go but that was only because they were quarentining the ward against swine flu because of a few patients with it.
On christmas day i was back in by ambulance and having a monitor to find out if i had had a heart attack! I was diagnosed with pneumonia and swine flu the next day and put on bed rest. We nearly didnt make it. Jessica was born 6 days early via C-section. And can you believe thats when hell broke lose??
It took 6 months just to get a definate diagnosis for her rare condition and 8 months to find any kind of support at all. Nobody could give us answers or actualy tell us what was happening at all. I became depressed, obsessed with finding answers and guilty because i thought it was my fault. The doctors said “Jessica has Achondroplasia.” And we knew nothing about what that was. Eventualy i found support groups who not only explained things but helped put my mind at ease about so much. I began to work hard to raise awareness. I wrote ideas for pamphlets and booklets and thought of ideas to make raising awareness more fun and exciting so people REMEMBERED it. Thats when Awake Again was born. Since then i have had 2 books published and plan many many more, and i became a single mother of 3 amazing children who inspire me every single day to keep following my dreams.
So you see, when i sit back and think “jeez im so boring going to bed at 8pm on a saturday night!” In actual fact im just trying to get over the emotional roller coaster the last 10 years has brought on.
Susan Hatton Polp 