Hello and welcome....

Welcome to my blog!

I'm Nina, aged 31, I'm a mentalist  Others may say I'm a creative wonder with a totally awesome sense of humour and a fabulous taste in music.  I agree with both, but favour the latter!

What I am not is a graphic designer, website extraordinaire or anything like that so please forgive any stray letters, I'm not worried about it so you shouldn't either!

 Maybe we'll all go on a journey through this blog, maybe not, but I reckon you'll all learn something about something.  Maybe I will 'find' myself, I've always wondered how one loses oneself in the first place and I wouldn't say I was lost but perhaps I'll find something.  I am hoping people will learn about living with illness, planning events and festivals, being dramatic and how to get stuff for free (much to the annoyance of everyone)!

In a very short paragraph, I'd like to tell you all a little about me!  That is nigh on impossible (the one paragraph thing not the talking about myself) but I will give it a go!

The Oldies!

I was born in 1983 (with most of the best people) to two wonderful, though slightly crackers, people.  I must give my parents a shout out, they've been awesome, and I owe many of my successes in life to them.  I was nameless for a bit until whilst ironing one day my mum heard them talking about the Royal Family.  In short, the Queen Mother's Mother was named Nina Cecilia Bowes-Lyon, she is sometimes listed as Cecilia Nina but as this is my blog we shall call her Nina Cecilia.  A name is pretty much all I share with her though, she was deeply religious, a keen gardener and embroiderer - I am none of these things!  She was however a gregarious and accomplished hostess which I'd say I was too!  I'd like to have been a member of the royal family, by that I mean, I would of loved being a princess, I mean, I am well aware I am one anyway but I just haven't got the blue blood.  Mine is definitely red, I've seen it!

So, back to me.  I was going to try and write this blog in an orderly fashion, but that's not me in real life (though it is in work) and just like if you were talking to me in real life, a conversation may spur up a song that needs to be sung or some random bit of comedy genius. I've said this because 'back to me' reminded me of something but I'll leave that for later.

I had a pretty normal (I did move around 12 times up until I was 12 but that was pretty normal) life growing up, I got to see some beautiful parts of the country and some very large and posh manor houses.  Dad was a Head Gardner but we returned to Newcastle so I could be settled in a school before doing GCSE's and what not.  School was great, I made some amazing friends who are still part of my life today and I've recently returned to run drama clubs, we'll get more on to this later but being back in a building where life changed so much is rather strange.  

So, life was smooth and easy, I would say I didn't have a care in the world, knew where I was going and what I was doing with my life.  At the age of 14 I began having intermittent headaches, they progressively got worse and began to affect my eyes until I had permanent double vision.  By this point I was 15, obviously I had been to both hospital and GP at this point several times but it isn't really about them, there's a huge lack of awareness for brain injuries and this is a battle that needs fighting and is being fought, just not by me.  It's a horrible situation, I almost lost my life by the time someone was listening (to my dad swearing and generally being angry in a&e) but you have to put things like that to one side.

At the very end of August, a couple of months after my 15th birthday I was eventually admitted and scanned at the hospital.  I had a large and damaging bleed in the centre of my brain, that's the Pineal region of the brain should anyone want to investigate.  I was very very ill, I had a huge amount of pressure and water on the brain (Hydrocephalus)which was down to the damage that had been occurring in my head.  At this point, the damage caused was irreversible and left me shunt (brain drain) dependent.  

What the hell is a Shunt?

Well folks, to me it's life, everything but at the same time a right pain in the ass and a constant reminder of being ill.  In basic terms, a shunt is a tube which drains excess Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSF/Brain Juice) from the brain to my stomach.  In 'normal' people (ha,must laugh) there's a natural canal in your brain where CSF flows.  I suppose you can think of CSF like oiling the Tinman (yes, this is the first thing that came in my head), just a bit more extreme.  Like if the Tinman wore a space suit filled with oil so he never ceased up.  The CSF keeps your brain nice and fresh (I totally made that up but it sounds good).

So, to conclude our shunt discussion, shunt = life?  Ha, well, not quite all of the time.  Sadly the downside of shunts is that they can block.  It's not uncommon for what I like to call 'brain fluff' to get itself stuck in my shunt resulting in horrific headaches once again, poor vision and vomiting.  So, as I am writing this, I've had around 8 or 9 brain surgeries, I honestly lost count at 4 and narrowly avoided more surgery recently.

Aside from regular headaches and a few other things, having Hydro has affected my eyes quite badly.  As I've mentioned I had double vision which finally became permanent, I spent time wearing awful thick contact lenses which would block site in one eye but sharp got sick of that and demanded my eye doctor do something.  I say demanded and I really mean it, I don't beat around the bush, I walked in to his office, told him if they didn't sort it I would get a fork and stick it in one of my eyes.  Sorry for that vision, not a nice one but anything would be better than double vision for life.  I should mention that before my somewhat mafia style demands, eye surgeons tried twice to fix my double vision but sadly it never worked.

Not long after my somewhat horrific demand, my wonderful eye surgeon came to me with a new idea, they'd not done it before but it could work and I was up for giving anything a go.  In simple terms they put a black lens inside my eye behind my actual lens.  It's like a cataract operation but instead of taking something out, they put something in.  Anyway, great news, I was blind in one eye.  Hurrah!  Funny thing to celebrate but I can't remember another time I have been that happy.

Pre 15 I was calm, studious and I aimed to please.  Brain surgery changed me, I returned from a coma and major surgery with a massive attitude!  Not always a bad one, but I am not the kind of person to beat around the bush, I am one of the most honest people you will ever meet.  I've a huge sense of determination and although I am unable to work full time, I've had to deal with my illness affecting all areas of my life, I try to look forward and plow through!  So, please excuse me if I don't appear sympathetic about your sniffle or your grazed knee, I'm just more of a 'give sympathy when there's life limiting problems' kinda' girl!

Some may say I'm a tornado in the calmest place on earth, others will say I get the job done, a proper do-er. Either way, I say what I say, I swear too much and get very frustrated with those of us who float around in life!  I don't have time for that and you shouldn't either!

Thank you for reading my first blog entry I look forward to letting you all in to my career and all that in my next post, but for now, so long friends X

"Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance" Proverb