The most mportant thing that ever happened

I dont want to die-

I very nearly did, and then i relaised i didnt want to.

How have i finally managed to come to this conclussion? because when you are about half a pint of blood away from bleeding to death, you suddenly realise that things look quite a bit different.

Funnily enough, I wasnt actually trying to kill myself. i was stressed and upset and feeling useless and overwhelmed. I cut, but a little lower than normal, so it would be hidden by my shorts if i had to strip off for practical class on the monday. The REALLY stupid thing is that i have spent the last month learning nothing but anatomy. So you'd think i'd know where my femoral artery was, but apparantly not. Or that branches coming off of it are fairly vital. I guess I need to spend some more time with my books.

So.Sunday. same old upset, stressed out me. I'd done so well with not cutting as well. Just something to make it stop, just for a minute. Which it did quite nicely, thanks very much, until i realised id slipped and cut a fucking lot deeper than was the general idea (though scarily-NOT THAT deep).

Il cut it short. Life isnt very fun when you realise that there is not hope in hell of you getting yourself to a and e, and oh, look, most of your blood volume is actually on the floor now. it would have been really easy to just give in then. That choice handed to me on a plate. i could have just bled out, and that would have been the end of it.And for about 5 minutes, thast exactly what i did. Until all the nasty, hard to deal with life preserving thoughts came banging in to my head boom boom BOOOM. that was quite frightening. the niggling doubt as to what you are doing getting louder and louder. Until i bailed out (or bailed back in on life, more correctly), came to my senses and called my friend. i know, i know, shit thing to do, but in my slight defense i only had about half a pint of blood left at this point and wasnt feeling my most functional. who came and called an ambulance.

A&E is kinda frightening when your the one in re-suss. actually its fucking terryfying with everyone trying to shove needles in and asking you things you cant remember all at once and shouting cos they cant find any veins and then all the scary bits about blood transfusions and bleeping surgeons, and that part is all very hazy, but my friend stayed with me the whole time. I was in theatre for nearly 3 hours while they repaired my artery and have a really big op wound, all stapled up. which hurts like hell, but was nothing compared to the pain of when they took the drain out on tuesday. before they knocked me out, i went for a scan so they could trace the bleeding, after injecting me with loads dye. I remember coming out of it, and the room and the scanner where just covered in blood, it was total carnage and I did that.fucking hell. 20 more minutes the surgeon said, and i would have been dead. I nearly died in A&E when they couldnt get blood back into me fast enough, and i remember everything feeling like it was closing in and it was the most frightening thing in the world, because i couldnt be in control of it. Thats the irony, isnt it. people use SI because they think it means they are back in control. But your not exactly in control if you are totally dependent upon a team of docs and nurses to keep you alive. and at this point i would like to save thankyou to anyone who has ever given blood. I think in total i was given 6 units, and i certainly would have been a gonner without it.

I used to see the same staff a lot at A&E in cornwall.and i remember the concern that i was actually very likely to kill myself by accident. I didnt belive it, but in a way, i guess i always kind of felt pleased about that.

Its taken me quite a while to write this post. I got home from hospital on thursday-its amazing how quickly you can be patched back together-with instructions to get as much iron down my neck as possible and to not move too much. which i dont want to do anyway, becasue the pain is pretty indescribable. I have appointments with doctors, physios and psyc teams coming out of my ears. Want to know something REALLY lovely-some of the uni tutors came to visit me in hospital. They are being pretty great, so far from Liverpool. The skin staples (all 18 of them, this is going to be one scar that stays with me) come out in a weeks time, and apparantly i will always have a funny ache in my leg, from where the damage is.

But im alive-and thats ok. Im not happy boncing off the ceiling, but im not about to do it again. Im settling in to this new way of thinking, and you know what-i think i like it.

now, how about that.