Heya,

I’m back again after having a week off since I got discharged on Wednesday 21st. I have taken the last week to recover and catch up with work for university. Its been nice to get back to uni life and enjoy the company of my housemates.

As promised I am venturing off the topic of Cystic Fibrosis for this week and instead I am going to look back through my first semester of third year.

As I’m now in my final year of my undergrad degree, when I came back in September I decided it was time I finally got involved in some societies, after avoiding them the first two years. I have always had an interest in writing and radio, so initially I looked to join both Surge radio and one of the uni magazines. Sadly, meetings for both kept clashing and I’d also just started this blog, so I ditched the magazine and focused on the radio. I signed up to do a breakfast show as I thought it would be a good way to learn the ropes and I would get to present with other people so would also make friends. So far I have done three shows this term (due to illness I have missed some) and I absolutely love it. I am very shy, so it was a really big deal for me to start this, but I’m hoping my confidence will grow with time. I really like prepping for the shows and the people are great. I hope to get way more involved in the society next semester.

Since joining university I made a promise to my dad that I would leave uni knowing how to swim. After trying for two years to get adult one-one lessons at the uni pool, this year I decided to call a centre further away – they had 30 min one-to-one lessons available for me and I’ve now had three. Again, I really love it and I’m actually so proud of myself for how far I’ve come already. Previously, when I went swimming I would hold the side or use a float and I never really had confidence to let go. On the first lesson I had this year, I got to swim without any aids and all alone, it was so fun!

Work has been a downer on this year with all coursework and exams counting for most of my degree and the dreaded dissertation hanging over me. Although there has been less partying and spontaneous adventures than in the first year of uni, we have still managed to have some fun. Me and my housemates have been addicted to desperate housewives and have been enjoying relaxing evenings on the sofa all together. We have had a fews nights out, pub trips, a few adventures to the New Forest and plenty of take out. Our close friend and flat mate from first year came back for a weekend to visit us from Germany and my friends from home came another weekend, both of which were great. More weekends than that of any other years have been taken to go visit mine and Bens families together which has been a lovely way to break up the term.

Before I went into hospital I went to see a talk from the explorer Levision Wood with Ben’s parents. It was so inspiring, he talked about his most recent walk through the Middle East. Ben’s mum was so kind and also emailed Levision while I was in hospital and he sent me a really nice get well soon video.

Our other house mate, James returned to our house this weekend and we are excited for all our christmas plans over the next two weeks; including christmas markets, ice skating, Shrek the Musical, a christmas dinner and out for cocktails and the casino.

Finally, Ben and I went to so see Raleigh Richie in Brighton, the concert was amazing and we managed to get to the front. It was the most intimate concert I’ve been too and in such a small venue, it was so cool.

This term has been testing, not just on me but I think everyone, due to increasing workload, less to do and general winter blues but as christmas comes, we will as miss uni over the holidays so as term draws to an end its time to have some fun!!

Sorry for how self centred this post is, my next post will be back to CF as I have some health updates since being discharged and also want to highlight body image and mental health in relation to the illness, as I know many people suffer from these things. I think I want this blog to be more about helping people through my own experiences rather than anything else from now on.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Isabelle