A Blog from Another World

Well, after many hours of phoning around to discover that the metal clip in the flesh just below my breast bone is probably made from titanium, the radiographer’s at UCL decided it was too risky and didn’t carry out the scan.

It would have been fun – I have no idea why, but I seem to like no invasive imaging – its kinda cool to think that you are inside a scanner which costs millions of pounds and has some of the most powerful computers making it work.

Anyway, so they paid my travel to London, so I wasn’t out of pocket.

I did a little bit of sightseeing in London before I came back to Plymouth. In London it was dry and fairly Sunny. In Plymouth it is cold, wet and horrible! Why on earth did I move here?

Well, in the end,the MRI didn’t go ahead tonight.

In 2001 I had a Laparoscopic Cholecystomy which to the layman means I had my Gall Bladder removed using key-hole surgery. Because they needed to check that the ‘plumbing’ to my pancreas was clear before they let me home from hospital, they left a little tube in place – through the skin, secured by a metal clip. The day after the surgery they used a fluoroscope (think live x-ray) and injected some dye into the tube to make sure that the ducts were clear. This was fine, so they removed the tube, but the clip remained.

Now, as you probably know, MRI scanners use the most powerful magnets on earth and the scanner that I was due to be scanned in this evening was even more powerful than the scanner at the hospital I was last scanned at to look at my pancreas (3 Tesla compared to 1.5 Tesla). This scan was taken after the surgery and I had no problems with the clip. However, since this scanner was at a research facility and without medical backup, they didn’t want to take the risk.

Anyway, tomorrow they will call their radiographer and ask his/her opinion as to weather they should take the risk of scanning me. I have also said I will phone the surgeon who put the clip in to ask him what type of metal it is. If they know that, then they can be more sure of the risks – not all metals are attracted to magnets!

So maybe tomorrow I will get what I came for!

Good night and good luck!

Written on the train and then posted later…

So, you find me on a train from Plymouth to London (“The Mayflower”), but for a change this isn’t a random trip to escape the demons in my head! Maybe I will finally see them in Technicolor because I am going for an MRI scan.

I have volunteered to take part in some autism research at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London. I am not sure of the full details of what they are looking for, but I know that it involves an MRI scan – which will be at 8:30pm tonight.

Anyway, my point for this blog is to discuss the problems I am having right now. Yesterday my folks were in town and we went to see a mental health social worker who I saw previously back in January. This all relates back to my previous incidents in Newcastle, Brussels and of course New York.

Now, if you were at the point of suicide and had been rescued from a disused railway viaduct by the Police, then admitted to psychiatrists, mental health nurses and your GP that you felt suicidal, you wouldn’t think that it would take 4 months before you actually got someone assigned to you from the mental health service; You wouldn’t expect to still be waiting to see a psychiatrist (other than an emergency assessment at a Police station), would you?

But this is the reality I am facing in Plymouth, which is one of the poorest wards in England. Clearly no-one in a position of power cares about human life; otherwise I would have gotten some help by now, right?

So, subject to approval, the social worker will soon be seeing me on a regular basis. But this doesn’t really help me with the problems I had back in November. Things have only gotten worse since, I took my trip to see Gina in New York after I missed a coursework and a test in Maths at University, I was in a position where I just concentrate and didn’t get the work done on time. The coursework was essentially to do the sample version of the test, since I knew I just couldn’t get what I needed to know into my head for the coursework, I really didn’t think I had much chance with the test. Whilst I was in NY I missed another deadline for a very easy (albeit tedious) coursework in computing, the lecturer wrote to me telling me that she was ‘disappointed’ since I had gotten such high scores in previous assignments and tests.

So, I am told that the ball is in my court now. I have two more assignments with deadlines looming, more maths and also statistics, if I can get these in (before the end of the week) then I might be able to pass those modules. I am not so hopeful, the maths assignment involves writing a Visual Basic program to rotate a cube around its x, y and z axis (using matrices) and the stats assignment covers work that I missed while I was in NY and I haven’t been to many lectures since I came back.

I probably can’t pass electronics since the deadline for most of this terms work was last week, although I got 74% in my work from last term. I haven’t done any work for my project, other than write a proposal, although that doesn’t have to be in until May. There is one last computing assignment (write 3 pages of HTML on a computing related subject!), due April 27th.

I need 120 credits to pass this year, if I get between 60-120 credits I will have to do referral work over the summer and if I get less than 60 credits I will have to repeat the year. Unfortunately maths is worth 40 credits, statistics, electronics & computing 20 credits each and the project is worth 10 credits. I don’t think I can pass.

So, what’s this about the habit of a lifetime? Well ever since I left high school in 1996 I haven’t managed to pass any course that I have signed up to and I have taken quite a few. Admittedly, it wasn’t all my fault; I found out a few months into one course that I had Asperger’s Syndrome and was sent off to a residential college for instance.

So after 10 years of messing up courses and maybe 12 years of running off when things got too tough I am not sure I can ever change my habits. Don’t get me wrong, I really do want to do this degree, I just don’t know how I can fix all my issues.
Take 24hrs in my life for example: yesterday, after seeing the social worker, my university tutor and a disability advisor at university, I did think I could try and do the maths and stats assignments, but then after my folks went home I laid down for a nap and got up 4hrs later. I didn’t do any work apart from briefly looking up matrices in a maths textbook (then thinking ‘shit how will I use this to make a cube move’), I stayed up late, watched a DVD and chatted to Gina on the phone for an hour.

Before I took that nap I had agreed to meet up with some course mates to catch-up with stats, which would have happened this morning but I stayed in bed until 1pm and then had to rush around to get my stuff together for this London trip. I didn’t bring any work with me.

So you see, its futile if I can’t keep the promises I made to myself for 24hrs, what hope do I have of keeping them for the next 2 months to get this year finished, or even the next 4 years to get my degree?

If anything, going to New York messed things up even more. When I didn’t have to focus on maths, stats, electronics and computing, I found that I wasn’t too bad at looking after kids, making sure folks were up to go to school and cleaning other peoples houses! Heck, I even got to walk around 127 acres of farmland and shoot a 30-30 Winchester rifle (I missed the target though!).

But I am kidding myself if I thing I can live that life. The American government would never let me live and work in the US. I have no degree, no hotshot job and most importantly (given I have diabetes and pancreatic insufficiency) no medical insurance.

So, I guess I all I can do is try and wait. Try to do my best at University and wait and see if any Psychiatrist is interested treating my ADHD.

Meanwhile the Voyage of the Mayflower continues. See you in London!