Today I was supposed to start what would at one time have been my dream placement - A and E at a big hospital which is the trauma centre for my city. Instead, Beanie and the rest of my year have started new placements today and I am at home.
At some point last week I realised that I have cried every day since we started back from summer break. There was so much to organise, and so many deadlines and forms, and so little support. The prospect of FPAS applications sneaking in on top of it all was quite dreadful and impossibility confusing. And then one evening I was talking to a friend and it suddenly seemed like the most senisble idea in the world. I take a year out to deal with a lot of the paperwork, to get used to life as a wheelie, to try and find myself some health again.
It was actually suprisingly easy to sort out. Although my disability advisor completely blew me off. I don't think she really gets me. Do most uni disability services have only non-disabled advisors? It's really difficult to work with...
It's starting to feel quite real, now everyone else is at placement, and I'm sitting here making plans for my time. My friend's have been generally quite positive and supportive, but I have a feeling that the med school will ignore me for a year and then continue to ignore my requests for reasonalbe adaptations. I'm keen that they don't see this year as me-getting-better so they don't have to sort anything out. Unfortunately when I tried to raise this I got the impression that this is exactly how they see it. Still, lovely pastoral care doctor is returning to work soon, so I hope to have an appointment pretty soon to discuss this. I'm starting to ponder whether threatening legal action would be an appropriate course of action if they continue to refuse.
They need to stop ignoring the concerns and needs of their disabled, sick and carer students. I just don't know how to make them listen.
At Both Ends of the Stethoscope.
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